November 17 – HANOVER TWP. — Sugar Notch Trail is rugged and rocky with gentle to steep elevations at points along Sugar Notch Run in a stretch of Pinchot State Forest, five miles from the Hanover Township Sports Complex on Earth Conservancy Drive to the Warrior Run border and Sugar Notch.
Along the way there are countless boulders the size of small vehicles, waterfalls and caves that pump out cold air even in the hot summer.
The trail — at least the north side near the sports complex — was cleared Sunday by about 50 volunteers carrying and rolling an estimated 5,000 tires.
The event – called the Sugar Notch Run Watershed Clean Up – was coordinated by the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority and the Eastern Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation. Keep Northeastern Pennsylvania Beautiful, Earth Conservancy and the Luzerne County Conservation District were partners in the cleanup.
Due to the lack of rain, volunteers used the dry creek bed of Sugar Notch Run to remove tires along the trail to Earth Conservancy Drive, where they were loaded into box trucks at The Tire Guys, a tire dealer and repair shop on Sans Souci Parkway. , Hanover Township, and trailers must be disposed of properly.
Sugar Notch Trail was targeted for cleanup efforts because Sugar Notch Run is a tributary of Solomon Creek and the Susquehanna River. About two miles of the trail, which winds through the national forest, lies beneath Interstate 81, where many believe the tires were illegally dumped.
