Lehigh Gorge State Park

The Lehigh Gorge was shaped over ages by the river carving down through the Pocono plateau, but its human history is bound up with coal. In the early nineteenth century, entrepreneurs built a series of dams, locks, and channels along the Lehigh, the Lehigh Canal, to float anthracite coal down from the mountain mines to the cities and markets downstream, one of the engineering feats of the young nation. The canal and the railroad that followed made this gorge a busy industrial corridor, carrying coal out of the mountains for decades, and you can still see the stone ruins of locks and canal walls along the riverbank, quiet reminders of when this wild-seeming gorge was an artery of the coal economy. As the coal traffic faded and the canals and railroads fell silent, the state protected the gorge as a park, and the old railroad grade became a recreational trail.

What was once an industrial workhorse of a valley is now a place for rafting, biking, and quiet, its forested slopes grown back thick over the ruins of the industry that once ran through it.

Whitewater rafting is the gorge's signature adventure. Outfitters based in and around Jim Thorpe run trips down the Lehigh, with the biggest whitewater coming on days when water is released from the dam upstream, and gentler family floats at other times. The river runs through the most scenic heart of the gorge, walled in by cliffs and forest.

For those who prefer dry land, the rail-trail is a treasure. Flat, wide, and made of crushed stone on the old railroad bed, it runs the length of the gorge beside the river, an easy and beautiful route for cyclists and walkers of all abilities. It is part of the longer Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor trail, and it passes waterfalls, canal ruins, and constant river views.

At the southern mouth of the gorge sits Jim Thorpe, a striking Victorian town of stone and brick buildings climbing the steep hillsides, once a wealthy coal and railroad center known as Mauch Chunk. It renamed itself for the great Native American Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe, a member of the Sac and Fox Nation, when the town agreed to become his final resting place, and it draws visitors for its architecture, shops, and mountain setting.

The land was long the homeland of the Lenape, also called the Delaware, who lived along the region's rivers before being pressured off their homeland through the eighteenth century by treaties and land dealings including the notorious Walking Purchase. The Lenape are not federally recognized in Pennsylvania today, and their descendant nations continue elsewhere. The gorge and the mountains around it are a piece of that older homeland.

Spring brings the highest water and the biggest whitewater on the Lehigh, drawing rafters to the swollen river, along with rushing waterfalls down the gorge walls. Summer is warm and popular for both rafting and biking, the busiest season, when the shaded gorge offers relief and outfitters run their fullest schedules.

Autumn is the gorge at its most beautiful, when the forested walls turn brilliant with color reflected in the river, and cool weather makes for perfect biking on the rail-trail. Winter is quiet and cold, the trail passable for hardy walkers and the gorge stark and icy, with rafting shut down until the spring runoff returns.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.