Trail is nice however it's all broken up..they need to connect all this trail together to make it a nice trail

Started in Carbondale on the Lackawanna Trail and continued seamlessly to the D&H. Trail was nice compacted cinders as described up to Ararat trailhead, trail was nice continuous uphill climb at about 1-2% barely noticeable. Last mile or two to Ararat increased to maybe 3% and was noticeable. The scenery along this stretch was varied and beautiful with small lakes an Stillwater Lake which is dammed.

From Ararat to Starrucca Viaduct is also as advertised, minimum is Hybrid with suspension, the one review that said he did it without suspension must have reverberated for weeks. This stretch is downhill and would be very difficult riding the other way the downhill grade helped overcome the friction of the uncompacted gravel.

The big disappointment came as we neared the Viaduct, the trail markings almost diminished and alternate paths made it confusing we ended up riding into town and onto town roads to the Viaduct. The Viaduct should be a highlight for this trail and unless you start there which is not recommended you could struggle to find it.

The section north of the viaduct to NY was almost impossible to find and poorly maintained dirt trail, NY line wasn't even marked, total waste of time.

Overall a good trail but there are some irritations. The missing section between Lincoln Drive in Wissahickon and Lock Street in Manayunk is very annoying. You have a choice of dealing with the usually heavy traffic on Main street, or bumps, driveways, pedestrians and dogs on the sidewalk. This makes accessing Philadelphia from the north using this trail unsuitable, (or at least very intimidating) for novice/casual riders. Immediately north of that section there is a section on planks that will rattle your teeth loose, then there is a gravel/dirt section that tends to be muddy. This renders the trail undesirable as a commuting route. North of Shawmont Ave. it's good for a long stretch out to Oaks. Parking is not reliably available at Spring Mill or Conshohocken, which also makes the trail much less useful for commuting into Philly, especially on weekdays. The trail tends to get very heavy use, (increasingly so as one approaches Philly) and a considerable fraction of riders go faster than is appropriate.

My brother, my wife and I transported our hybrid bikes from Chicago, IL to eastern Pennsylvania to bike on the D&L trail from from White Haven, PA to Morrisville, PA on July 26-30, 2021. We carried our clothes and minimal supplies on the 132 mile trip, spending one night in each of these PA towns along the way: Jim Thorpe, Bethlehem, Frenchtown (NJ), New Hope and Morrisville. We are experienced bikers, and have taken similar multi-day trips on the GAP trail (Pittsburgh to Cumberland, MD) and Paul Bunyan Trail in MN. This is an account of our experiences along the way — both good and bad.

Day One: White Haven (mile 130) to Jim Thorpe. A driver ferried us up to White Haven from our home base in Morrisville. We biked 25 miles that afternoon to Jim Thorpe (mile 105). The trail was well marked, had mile markers, crushed stone trail conditions were good, and the scenery along the Lehigh River was beautiful.

Day Two: Leaving Jim Thorpe toward Bethlehem, the trail was good to Northampton (mile 82), but a little less graded (w more stones on path) and less even. There were a few very narrow bridges going over small creeks with steep ramps. These bridges should be improved, or at a minimum need warning signs like “Walk Your Bikes”.

We were aware from the D&L trail maps that the trail was under construction from Northampton to Allentown. When we got to North Catasauqua (mile 80) the trail abruptly ended, with a jersey barrier. There were portions of the trail under construction, but no signage. We had expected a detour in this portion with a map to give us directions on how to proceed to the next section of finished D&L trail. No maps or directions were to be found. This was very frustrating! We finally turned on our phones and used Google Maps to route us on roads suitable for biking for the last 10 miles that day to get to our hotel in Bethlehem (mile 70).

Day Three: From Bethlehem, we crossed the river and picked up the trail along the Lehigh River. There were no more mile markers along the way. The ten miles into Easton (mile 60) were paved and in very good condition. Signage was good in this section.

From Easton south, where the Lehigh meets the Delaware River, we pick up the towpath trail along the canal. Here the trail was loose and rocky, not well graded and had several washouts and ponded water. It was very hard to ride this portion of the trail. Then the trail narrowed to two gravelly rutted lanes, with grass in the middle (see pic). There were no mile or trail markers. We left the trail (approx. near mile 55) to ride on River Road to Riegelsville (mile 50). Then we rejoined the trail, still mostly gravelly and rutted, to Delaware Canal State Park (mile 40) and crossed the Delaware River to get to our next lodging place in Frenchtown, NJ. It should be noted that Frenchtown is shown in the wrong place on the D&L trail overview map, but we had figured that out before leaving for the trip!

Day Four: While on the NJ side, we decided to take the D&R Canal trail south, and then cross the river at our next destination, New Hope, PA. Most of this ride was on a rails-to-trails path. The NJ trail was in good condition, well marked, and very scenic. The condition of the D&L trail from mile 40 to 25 was unknown to us, since we rode this day on the NJ side. We crossed back over the Delaware to New Hope (mile 25).

Day Five: We bike south from New Hope to Morrisville (mile 9) on the D&L trail on our last day.The crushed stone trail was in good shape, but still no mile markers. There were town directional signs along the way. Some of the bridge underpasses were very low, and the trail was slippery and narrow under the bridge. There were signs to “Walk Your Bike” at some of the underpasses, but these signs should probably be at all underpasses. The trail narrowed to a small gravel path the last mile of our trip (at mile 9), where we got off the trail again to reach our final destination.

I am writing this review to let others know about the current condition of the D&L trail. I have read several 5 star reviews of this trail. The section from White Haven to Jim Thorpe deserves this rating, but the rest of the trail does not measure up to this standard. I would not recommend this trail to others for an end-to-end multi-day trip, under it’s current conditions. Portions of the trail are good to very good for day-bikers.

—Ray Ames

Sent from my iPad

Ride this trail from Valley Forge / Betzwood Park into Philly and the return. While I enjoyed the scenery and the paved trail, I don’t recommend this trail on the weekend as a large percentage of riders don’t call out when passing and quite a few passed in unsafe fashion (eg zig zagging at high speeds around walkers, passing walkers while cutting in front of bikers from other direction, etc).

I used to live near philly and only did about 8 miles of the Philly portion. I am not a city person, but this area was beautiful. Trail was great. Extremely scenic. Lots of fun.

I rode from the viaduct to Thompson (13 miles) then Thompson to Carbondale (26 miles). From the viaduct to Ararat road was mountain bike trails (hopefully with suspension). Beautiful scenery. From Ararat rd parking area south to Carbondale was a developed rail-trail. So many beautiful things to see! The constant up hill grade from Carbondale definitely adds to the ~20 mile ride.

If you are looking for a well marked, continuous trail this is not the trail for you. Parts of the trail actually run parallel to the river. Unfortunately this is only a minor part of the trail. For the rest of the trail you will spend much time being frustrated by the lack of conspicuous signage. Not with it unless you are desperate.

Great ride. Trail was in great shape. Did 8 mile stretch from Tannery to State Park.