After decades of persistence by a group of volunteers passionate about trails and how they can benefit the Wayne and Pike County area, the 1.6-mile Gorge Trail connecting Lake Wallenpaupack’s trail with Hawley and beyond was dedicated July 24.
Leading the effort were Grant Genzlinger and Molly Rodgers of Lackawaxen River Trails, a grassroots organization that recently achieved full nonprofit status.
The vision of this organization is an expanding network of connections with nature along the Lackawaxen River corridor, with public hiking trails and paddle trails linking the greater Honesdale and Hawley region, extending into Pike County and wherever good walking shoes and paddles lead.
Rodgers told the crowd of supporters and local and state officials gathered at the trailhead that the realization of this critical trail component is thanks to Genzlinger’s unwavering persistence.
“It has been a long process, but we are ecstatic, but he just didn’t give up, which many people would have,” Rodgers said, in the pursuit of state grant funding and partnership approval with the landowner, Brookfield Renewable, the power company operating the Lake Wallenpaupack hydroelectric project.
The project, first announced in 2012, has established a connecting system of trails from Lake Wallenpaupack's Tafton Dike to the D&H Canal Park trails on Route 6 a mile west of Hawley. The Gorge Trail is within Palmyra Township, Pike County.
The trailhead is on Cromwell Street near the base of the waterfalls/gorge on the Pike County side of the county bridge from Hawley Borough's Falls Avenue.