Salt Springs State Park is located approximately 7 miles from Montrose and a mere 5 miles from the border with NY State. It is in a part of north eastern Pennsylvania known as The Endless Mountains. The park itself comprises of a little over 400 acres. It is combined with another 437 acres owned by The Friends of Salt Springs Park, a non profit organization. These volunteers help to maintain the park.
History And Hiking Salt Springs
Apart from 15 miles of hiking trails Salt Spings State Park offers towering hemlock trees and historic buildings. There’s camping cottages, campsites and picnic grounds too. Fall Brook running through the area has carved a rocky gorge complete with three waterfalls.
Our aim was simple. Get out of the house and take in the autumnal colours – or fall colors as MrsFaceless would say. An early morning was called for. We packed our camera bags in preparation then, after a reasonably good sleep, dragged ourselves into the car and set off…..
Making The Trip
The drive to Salt Spings State Park was very picturesque. We took in the scenery and even stopped on the way for breakfast at a diner in Kingsley. Very tasty and filling it was! We’d return to Kingsley later in the day to get a shot of the Martins Creek viaduct (not in the video) as well as stopping a few miles further down the road at Nicholson….for much the same reason!
Lay Of The Land
When we first arrived at the park we ventured into one of the buildings and talked to some of the volunteers there. Recent heavy rains had taken their toll with a number of trees down, a lot of debris in the brook and, unfortunately, the footbridge damaged beyond repair. With our intention to shoot the main waterfall, that meant a walk up the side of the brook. Over all the debris. Which was fun!
Luckily, it wasn’t a long walk and there was nothing too strenuous or difficult to negotiate. As we approached the waterfall we were pleased to see a decent flow of water. There was also some really good colours too.
Keep Calm And Photo On!
Our M.O. at this point is to try not to rush That doesn’t always happen, but it certainly helps when visiting a place for the first time. So relax and take it all in. As there was a good amount of puddles and water on the rocks ahead of us we decided to start shooting from distance and slowly work towards the waterfall. The intention was to avoid wet footprints in our images and the inevitable extra time
After some time photographing we finally got to the waterfall itself. Clearly there had been a lot of water throughout the summer as the rock face was thick moss, with many rivulets to the side of the main flow.
I ventured, carefully, up the rock face to the next waterfall upstream. But debris was much worse and completely obscured any shot. Also, time was getting on and the sun had worked its way round in the sky and was starting to cause hotspots in the shots. Time for us to work our way back to the car and maybe another walk around to see if there was anything else to photograph.
Avoiding The Crowds
As is often the case, the park was getting busier as we walked back. Seeing us traversing the edge of the brook was an invitation to other visitors to make their own way up to the waterfall. So we hiked back to the car, deposited our bags and took a quick stroll around to take in the scenery and check for anything we’d missed. Hey, there’s always next time!
Overall, we spent around 3 hours at Salt Springs State Park Park and thoroughly enjoyed our time there. Despite the amount of debris and downfall it was still very pretty and is somewhere we would definitely return to.
Martins Creek Viaduct
The final stop as we headed south, was at Kingsley to take in the Martins Creek viaduct.
At 150 feet tall and around 1,600 feet long this is a concrete arch structure. It opened in 1915, built for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company. The aim was improve the rail link between Scranton and Hallstead. Currently the road travels north/south through one of the arches. So you can get a close up and personal view as you drive through if you want. A better view is from an overlook located on Zicks Hill Road which provides a more scenic aspect.
As we stood at the overlook and took our photographs both MrsFaceless and I thought the same thought – if only there was a steam train right now…….!
We hope you have enjoyed our little journey together – the summary and the video; if so please head over and leave a comment on youtube – and a like and subscribe is always much appreciated!
Until next time…..