Lebanon Valley Rail Trail - Day Trip

 Saturday, July 8, 2023

Although the forecast for the day was for a hot and humid afternoon and evening, we decided to take a chance and leave early for a bike ride on the Lebanon Valley Rail Trail in Lebanon County.

The trail follows the former railbeds of two railroads; the Cornwall & Lebanon Railroad and the Cornwall Railroad. The railroads were built to transport iron-ore and other by-products to iron furnaces and mills.

The 18-mile trail starts in Lebanon where there are several road crossings before heading out of town where the trail passes some farm fields and along a tree-shaded corridor. The trail continues to follow the rail-bed to Cornwall, which was home to the Cornwall Iron Furnace. The old furnace building now operates as a museum. To visit the site riders need to travel from the Cornwall trailhead about a ½ mile on the streets to get to the site of the furnace. Riders can also enjoy a stop at a barrel-shaped snack stand at the Cornwall trailhead.

Barrel snack stand at Cornwall Trail head Along the trail

Along the trail Along the Trail

After Cornwall the trail goes uphill into Mount Gretna, site of a historic vacation resort. We took the side trail into town where we hitched our bikes to a post and walked around the town a bit before heading back to the trail and our return to Lebanon.

Welcome to Mt. Gretna

Mt. Gretna Public Library

However, the trail continues downhill from Mount Gretna through the villages of Colebrook and Lawn, and passing under the PA Turnpike before ending at the start of the Conewago RecreationTrail in Lancaster County. We rode this section of the trail back in May 2022, starting in Elizabethtown and stopping in Mount Gretna. We’ve included a couple of photos from that day here.

Conewago Creek

Lebanon Valley Rail Trail

The Conewago Recreation Trail continues on from the Lancaster/Lebanon County line southwest for about 5 miles to the outskirts of Elizabethtown. The Conewago portion of the trail follows the Conewago Creek for its entire length. The trail has a hard-packed crushed-limestone surface. It is wooded for a short distance, then passes through some farm fields before heading back into the woods. The trail does cross some busy intersections on its way, but for the most part it’s an easy ride.

We had a great ride both times, and our decision to leave early for our ride from Lebanon was a good one. Most of the trail was tree-shaded and the ride uphill into Mount Gretna wasn’t as bad as strenuous as we were expecting. In our opinion, the ride from the other end in 2022 was much more strenuous!

After completing our 18.08-mile ride back in Lebanon, we loaded up the bikes, ate an early lunch, then headed back to Mount Gretna for our reward: ice cream at the Jigger Shop – a must if you’re in the area. We got there just as the doors were opening at noon. After enjoying our cones on a bench in the park-like setting, we drove to Cornwall to take a look at the historic furnace building there. Although the museum was open, we decided to just walk around the grounds and save the museum for another day.

Cornwall Iron Furnace

If you are ever in the area of Elizabethtown or Lebanon, Pennsylvania, we both recommend riding or walking this trail. If you plan to ride the length of both trails in one round trip, we suggest starting in Elizabethtown and doing the steepest part of the trail into Mount Gretna first. It’s pretty much all downhill from there into Lebanon, and the return to Mount Gretna from this side is a slow, steady, climb compared to the other end. Then you can enjoy a nice downhill ride on both sides of Mount Gretna.

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