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

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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.

July 18th 2021 Fun ride with lots of sights and history to take in. Rode with my Nephew, it is his local trail. Parts of our ride were awesome smooth wide trail and other parts were very rough narrow and bumpy. I will ride more of this trail next time that I am in the area.

If you are looking for a trail with ambiance, this is not it. Unfortunately it’s placed above and next to a very busy road creating a lot of traffic noise. This trail is also not a loop, so you will have to turn around and walk back, through the noise of traffic. Probably a great trail for the local neighborhood but not one I will go back to from outside the area.

Awesome trail