PA Mid State Trail

[Ramble~On]

Wow ! MD to NY ?

I love this trail, used to live in State College.
I always hated the maps. New maps are out and it's grown...that's great
The MST is what got long distance hiking into my blood.
I have hundreds of photos of this trail and some show my gear at the time.. oh my, things have changed!

Bears, gnats, rattlesnakes, porcupines, rocks, dry ridges and no people !

[The Solemates]

did 45 miles of the MST over thanksgiving and used the new guide thanks to ki0eh! thanks to all who put so much work into making the guide and maps up to date! the guide worked great for assisting in our walk. the section of trail around state college we did was very well blazed...excellent trail!

[ki0eh]

I was wondering how y'uns made out. Did you do a TR anywhere?

[volks-man]

here is a video of a typical trail on PA's MST.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmSG0bd4EPA

there are plenty more MST vids there. some are set to music. http://www.youtube.com/user/volksmanhiking
one also depicts my wife climbing the '1000 steps' near mount union PA. (lame music due to copyrights... it was set to stairway to heaven)



enjoy.

[phishpapond]

The state is going to stop taking care of this or already has. The Bald Eagle state forest portion kicked my ***

[ki0eh]

The state is going to stop taking care of this or already has.

Huh, what? The Mid State Trail Association http://www.hike-mst.org is still very much in business. Soon there will be an announcement of a 40th anniversary brew at http://www.elkcreekcafe.net/ More volunteers are certainly needed, in September there will be an opportunity to come out with a group in Bald Eagle forest, based at Poe Paddy: http://www.kta-hike.org/index.php?op...d=19&Itemid=37

[ki0eh]

Just wanted to let everyone know about a 40th Anniversary Party for the Mid State Trail. The party will be held on July 12th from 2:00 - 4:00 PM at the Elk Creek Cafe + Aleworks http://www.elkcreekcafe.com/ in Millheim, PA. The Elk Creek will also be debuting their newest beer at the event: the Mid State Trail Ale. All are invited for good times and good beer.

[volks-man]

Just wanted to let everyone know about a 40th Anniversary Party for the Mid State Trail. The party will be held on July 12th from 2:00 - 4:00 PM at the Elk Creek Cafe + Aleworks http://www.elkcreekcafe.com/ in Millheim, PA. The Elk Creek will also be debuting their newest beer at the event: the Mid State Trail Ale. All are invited for good times and good beer.

a pint of 'double rainbow' and a burger (man, they are good!) would have been fine with me.....
the mid state ale is a bonus! now, what will i be doing on the 12th that i will have to get out of to be in millheim?

[ki0eh]

MST is featured in the Summer 2009 issue of "American Hiker" magazine.

(And the beer party for the 40th anniversary is this weekend!)

[volks-man]

MST is featured in the Summer 2009 issue of "American Hiker" magazine.

(And the beer party for the 40th anniversary is this weekend!)

how'd the party go?
anyone get arrested?

alas, it wasn't in the cards for me and the wife to make the 6+ hour drive on the 12th. i had wanted to thank you nice folks in person for keeping my trail going like you do (beer was a motive too). i hope it was a blast!

[The Solemates]

we're headed back for another 5 days along in a month. we are going to do from the NY border sobo. I know there are a smatterin' of roadwalks in this area, but according to the mst website we should be good to go.

does anyone have any further updates that we need to know about?

[ki0eh]

how'd the party go?

I heard it was good. I couldn't go, but I did observe that Dr. Thwaites survived because I saw him and Barbara at the ATC biennial meeting the following weekend.

we're headed back for another 5 days along in a month. we are going to do from the NY border sobo. I know there are a smatterin' of roadwalks in this area, but according to the mst website we should be good to go.

does anyone have any further updates that we need to know about?

The privately owned RV's Mt Top is a much cooler midsummer location than the Corps of Engineers campgrounds either side of it. Those folks are having a tough time making a go on the mountain so you will be most appreciated, too.

There is a privately owned free campsite a little bit south of PA Route 660. Location is shown on the 4/09 revision of Map T19. Firewood's cut and stacked. As of a couple of weeks ago the landowner said no one's yet signed the register. I've been away for weeks so have been unable to generate the newest temporary guide to go with those currently posted maps.

It's also been tough to keep ahead of annual growth this year. Most of the Cowanesque Lake area was mowed a couple of weeks ago - at that time it showed little trace of having been mowed end of May/beginning of June. Most of the north end yet sees so little use that annual growth could make wayfinding difficult, although most of the really bad areas have been mowed at least once. A few spots get bad nettles too.

Detailed observations good or ill are appreciated, if you don't feel like sounding like the toilet paper guy you can PM them to me.

[Hoop Time]

Huh, what? The Mid State Trail Association http://www.hike-mst.org is still very much in business. Soon there will be an announcement of a 40th anniversary brew at http://www.elkcreekcafe.net/ More volunteers are certainly needed, in September there will be an opportunity to come out with a group in Bald Eagle forest, based at Poe Paddy: http://www.kta-hike.org/index.php?op...d=19&Itemid=37

I have tried two or three times to check out the brewpub while at Poe Paddy fishing. Each time the darned place has been closed on Monday or Tuesday.

As for the trail and the work party, I am hoping to get up for that. I did a short piece south of Poe Paddy in the spring and it badly needs maintenance, particularly remarking the blazes. This trail is not a worn footpath to anywhere near the extent the AT is and without blazes it would be easy to get off track. A couple times in that short section I found myself searching and searching for the next orange blaze to know where I was going.

Also did the rail trail portion north of Poe Paddy with Cookie Monster last weekend. A very beautiful, though undemanding stroll along Penns Creek. That section is pretty low maintenance and prob. needs little to no work in September.

If things work as planned, I will get to Poe Paddy early Friday to fish a little in the evening before the maintenance work Saturday.

[ki0eh]

I just passed on another report received on e-mail (even more recently than yours) about the area between US 322 and Poe Paddy. I'm planning to be on the work party too, that stretch badly needed work in March this year when I did some of it so surely needs more now. There has been a good bit of work south of US 322 but conditions change drastically as soon as you come out of the culvert.

[ki0eh]

we're headed back for another 5 days along in a month. we are going to do from the NY border sobo. I know there are a smatterin' of roadwalks in this area, but according to the mst website we should be good to go.

does anyone have any further updates that we need to know about?

Just remembered, here's a trip report from another site of the far north end: http://www.adkhighpeaks.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=8316

[The Solemates]

thanks for the update ki0eh. we'll post upon our return. if you think of anything else in the meantime, please let us know. we plan to hike from the border south to blackwell.

[ki0eh]

I'd recommend unless you're a total blaze purist, wandering off the orange blazes for the last 2 km onto the entry into Blackwell taken by these folks: http://www.pahikes.com/trails/midstate11.asp (which was the intended route if you want to be totally absolutely pure anyway ). The final vista here was proclaimed by Tom Thwaites himself to be the best on the MST system, perhaps not all will agree but that's certainly an authority.

[Blue Sky II]

Check out the exotic animals at the Tioga Hunting Preserve. The lone Amererican Bison was an intimidating presence when I walked by a few years ago. There was a huge guard dog in a pasture right just south of the entrance to Mt. Top Campground, you might want to stay out of that pasture. Don't camp at Sand Run Falls on a weekend or you may have many neighbors. Of course, no late summer walk through Pennsylvania will be complete without stinging nettles, which may be found along some runs just south of Lake Hammond. The three lakes are all nice: nice walk around miles of Cowanesque, Lake Hammond has a camp store next to the trail, and there is a nice isolated sitting bench in the woods at one end of Hills Creek Lake with a great view looking down the lake. Oh, and there are "primitive" walk-in campsites near the trail on the north shore of Cowanesque.

[ki0eh]

Check out the exotic animals at the Tioga Hunting Preserve. The lone Amererican Bison was an intimidating presence when I walked by a few years ago.

MST's been relocated (April 2009) away from that fence (including digging up the "Cowanesque Lake 6 km" sign and re-planting it), but one can blue-blaze over through campground property to see one corner of the preserve from where that sign used to be.

There was a huge guard dog in a pasture right just south of the entrance to Mt. Top Campground, you might want to stay out of that pasture.

Still there according to the TR linked below:

...here's a trip report from another site of the far north end: http://www.adkhighpeaks.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=8316

But that area's easy enough to detour on gravel roads paralleling MST to the west.

Don't camp at Sand Run Falls on a weekend or you may have many neighbors.

Yep, that's the official loose dog campsite of Tioga County. Nice to see though.

Possible alternatives are a clearing 2.5 km north, just barely within State Forest land; and the bottom of the Nickel Run Falls side trail (past the falls, onto the railroad bed) 5 km trail-south. This blog post shows the locality of the second option. (It was supposed to be on the main trail but at the last minute wasn't due to a bureaucratic snafu.)

[The Solemates]

Just got off the trail today. we had beautiful weather the whole time and really enjoyed ourselves. did ny - blackwell sobo.

more southern portions were more scenic and well maintained. we especially like the stony fork area. the northernmost sections skirted around private land and were overgrown. thankfully, the trail was very well blazed. thanks to ki0eh and all the trail maintainers!!! we would have lost the trail many times if not for it being so well blazed (actually we did lose it many times, but were able to find it again by backtracking to the last blaze).

the only portion that was nearly unbearable was the few miles just south of the antrim road crossing. we got all cut-up trying to follow the trail (ripped my pants to shreds), and ended up bushwhacking back to the road and followed it all the way to 287. some portions in this section were chest high with blackberry thorns with no evidence of a trail. we did get about 3-4 cups of fresh blackberries for our efforts though. we talked to some people in town who said the hunting club will not allow people in there (I think he meant ATVs) to keep it cleared.

our feet were constantly wet in the northern sections since we were always walking through knee-high grass that did not seem to dry out during the day. fresh corn was abundant (but dont tell the farmers) although we only took the cobs that had already fallen to the ground.

regardless of the time of year you hike, if you plan to hike the MST bring pants. we were thankful for them many times even though they made us sweat. between the high grass, thorns, stinging nettles, etc, pants are really a necessity. you will be bushwhacking at times.

the road walks were hard on the feet, but gave us decent countryside views. we got tired of the road walks at times, enjoyed them other times.

other than that, the trail was in decent shape. looking forward to the next section hike of the MST.