The flow of the trail is perfect as it follows the creek.

We loved this ride. We even had an encounter with a deer. It was lovely.

Lewisburg end start at the Miller Center/YMCA. First mile in Lewisburg is confusing and crossing Highway 15 is not at a crosswalk and the trail is not well marked. Mifflinburg end is just beyond the Rusty Rail restaurant. Lots of parking in that area. Lewisburg end first 2 miles are asphalt, many road crossings. Mifflinburg end is 1.5 miles asphalt. Middle is through cornfields and farm fields with several farm access road crossings. Could be a 5 star except for Lewisburg end and a couple of Highway crossings should be more visibly marked - cars don’t stop for bikes.

Started at Milford Beach expecting a basically downhill ride. From Milford Beach to Dingmans Campground many stretches were unrideable and needed to walk bike up and down steps and steep slopes. The only positive in this stretch was that Raymondskill Falls was a short uphill walk from the trail and worth the view. By the time we got to Dingman Falls I did not have the energy left to afford another side excursion. Trail for flat sections was basically compacted cinders, the steep sections were dirt hiking trails. From Dingmans Campground to Hialeah the trails meanders up and down as well as sideways several steep cinder sections with one sign missing that almost caused a calamity. Steep drop with sharp right turn at bottom onto a bridge. Bridge was not visible until bottom and carrying to much speed right turn is not possible. Three choice run in stream, hit tree or exposed tree roots.

The trail is not recommended for street bikes and absolutely need MTB or Hybrid with suspension north of Dingmans Campground. From Hialeah to Dingmans required several side tours on to roadways, twice on Highway. Many flat stretches but also some pretty hefty grades in this run.

My wife and I love riding this trail in all seasons. Beautiful scenery.

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.

While nobody’s going to rave about a two-mile trail, the Bushkill offers a pleasant, easy entry into Jacobsburg State Park, with additional trails for exploring inside the park. For maximum variety, start your ride or hike from the well identified Moorestown Road trailhead. The Bushkill is short and mellow and is best used as a connector trail to Jacobsburg.

Had a nice Sunday morning ride on this trail. I started on the west side. I did not see anyone else on the trail. There are a lot of nice shady areas on the trail. The surface was smooth for riding until I crossed over onto MacArthur Road. The trail surface had golf ball sized gravel rocks from MacArthur Road to the east end of the trail, so I opted to ride on the grassy area next to the the trail for this portion of my ride.

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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