An estimated 5,000 tires were removed along Sugar Notch Trail and Sugar Notch Run, a tributary of Solomon Creek, by volunteers on Sunday. Ed Lewis | Times Leader

An estimated 5,000 tires were removed along Sugar Notch Trail and Sugar Notch Run, a tributary of Solomon Creek, by volunteers on Sunday. Ed Lewis | Times Leader

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HANOVER TWP. — Sugar Notch Trail is rugged and rocky with slight to steep elevations at certain points along Sugar Notch Run in a tract of Pinchot State Forest traveling five miles from the Hanover Township Sports Complex on Earth Conservancy Drive to the border of Warrior Run 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 cleaned-up Sunday by approximately 50 volunteers who carried and rolled 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 clean-up.

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 from The Tire Guys, a tire dealer and repair shop on Sans Souci Parkway, Hanover Township, and trailers to be properly disposed.

Sugar Notch Trail was targeted for clean-up due to Sugar Notch Run being a tributary of Solomon Creek and the Susquehanna River. About two miles of the trail, as it snakes through the state forest, is below Interstate 81, where many believe the tires were illegally dumped.