November 2010 Monthly Hike

The Clarion County Chapter of the North Country Trail Association held it’s November 2010 monthly hike on Sunday, November 21, 2010.

We decided to hike along the Alternate North Country Trail route along the Clarion Highlands Trail from where the trail crosses Fern Road west of Shippenville to where Bryner’s Mill Road meets Deer Creek south of Shippenville.  The Butler Outdoor Club was planning on hiking that stretch as stage 18 of their “Tour de NCT of PA”, so we decided that we would have our chapter hike along with them. 

The “Tour de NCT of PA” is an effort organized by the Butler Outdoor Club to hike the entire North Country Trail in Pennsylvania.  After this hike today, they have 3 more stages to go and they will have completed their goal of hiking the entire North Country Trail in Pennsylvania.   The remaining 3 stages that they will be hiking next year are all in Clarion County’s section of the trail so I am sure that we will be combining hikes with this delightful group of hikers again.

After meeting at the Country Fair store at 9:00 AM, we left for the end of Bryner’s Mill Road where we left most of the vehicles at the parking lots down by Deer Creek.  We then took a minimal amount of vehicles to the trail head on Fern Road.  Once at the trail head, we took time to take a picture of everyone and headed on down the trail.  It was a pleasant day for mid-November with temperatures reaching the upper 40’s, low-50’s.

Most of this hike was along old railroad grades North of Route 322.  It was very pleasant hiking except for one section between Pine City and Knight Town Roads.  Along this section we ran into an area of water that required careful planning to navigate around.  Not very bad though and just about everyone was successful at keeping their feet dry.

After following along the trail for exactly 5 miles, the group took a short lunch break in a game lands parking lot along the railroad grade just off Station Road.

After eating lunch, the hikers took walking sticks in hand again and continued on the remaining 3.7 miles of the hike.  This started out with a half mile road walk on Station Road and Route 322.  After this short road walk, the trail heads into the woods again at a State Game Lands parking lot off of Route 322.  We traveled through the game lands for 1 ¼ miles to where the trail crosses Route 208.

After crossing Route 208, we continued along the trail through State Game Lands 63.  This final 2 miles of the trail for today follows an old railroad grade into the deer creek valley.  After reaching the parking lots and our awaiting vehicles, some hikers went down to Deer Creek.  One hiker, Mike Ciccone, couldn’t resist walking across Deer Creek to the other side.  He even did it without the use of the stepping stones that were put in place by Clarion Chapter this summer to help hikers keep their feet dry.  A good end to a good day on the trail.  In all, the hike was 8.7 miles on a perfect mid-November day.  An image of the GPS track file of the hike is found below.

Keystone Trails Association visits Clarion NCT

Some of Friday's Work

A very large work crew came to the trail in Clarion County this weekend, November 5-7, 2010.  This crew was organized by the Keystone Trails Association and included members of the Keystone Trails Association, North Country Trail Association, Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy and the Butler Outdoor Club.

On Friday, the early-comers began working at improving side hill along the Baker Trail / North Country Trail in Cook Forest State Park.  The trail in Cook Forest gets a lot of traffic each summer and needs almost constant repair and improvement.  A large section of trail was reworked and some rock steps were put in place.

Saturday was the biggest workday of the weekend.  The main project for the weekend was supposed to be an approximately 300 foot section of turnpike to allow the Baker Trail / North Country Trail to travel across a very wet, but beautiful section of Clear Creek State Forest just north of Cook Forest State Park.  So many people showed up that the crew had to be broken up into 3 separate groups to head out to different sections of the trail.  The largest group of about 20 headed up to the trail head at Maple Creek Road to work on building the turnpike.  The other two groups went to work on more side hill at two different locations in Cook Forest State Park.

The groups that went to work on sidehill in Cook Forest State Park freshened up an amazing amount of trail throughout the day.  They reworked large sections of the trail along the hillsides.  The hillsides in Cook Forest are teeming with rocks and the crews removed many of them from the tread. Some of these rocks were used to construct a handful of carefully crafted rock staircases.  Very impressive work.  The vegetation trying to consume the trail, mostly mountain laurel, was also cut back.  The reworked, rock-less tread, along with the new trimming and newly constructed staircases will make the trail very appealing for hikers who visit Cook Forest State Park next Spring and Summer.

It was awesome to have enough people on hand to complete these projects in addition to the turnpike project.  Incredible work they did on the trail in Cook Forest State Park.  The trail through Cook Forest State Park gets a lot of traffic and this work will make the trail much more memorable for those who visit it.


The crew that went to construct the newly dubbed "Baker Trail / North Country Trail Turnpike" also completed an absolutely incredible task.  A project that was estimated to take the entire weekend ended up being completed in less than 7 hours.  It was amazing to see how well the group worked together on the project.  Everyone seemed to know what they were doing the moment the work started.  And they also knew how to do it fast.

The first step in the process was to lay geotextile down on the trail.  Next, heavy 10 foot hemlock logs were brought in and laid down on top of the geotextile on both sides of the trail and staked into place.  After the hemlock logs were put in place, an army of wheelbarrows and a brand new DR Power Wagon were used to bring limestone gravel to fill in the 2 feet left in between the logs.

The gravel and geotextile for this project was supplied by DCNR since this section of the trail travels through Clear Creek State Forest.  DCNR selected the hemlock trees to be cut down to be used as the sides of the turnpike.  Dave Galbreath and Ed Scurry cut these trees down and cut them into 10 foot sections a few weeks before the project to save doing this during the project weekend.  DCNR also moved most of the gravel from the parking lot to the work site.  A DR Power Wagon that was just purchased for the use of all of the Pennsylvania Chapters of the North Country Trail Association was broken in on this project.  The DR Power Wagon was used to move the remaining gravel from the parking lot to the work site.

I know personally (LOL) that many people felt the effects on Sunday of pushing themselves so hard on Saturday to complete this huge project so quickly.  I was just a dump truck on the Turnpike.  I am sure our log trucks weren't moving so fast on Sunday.

On Sunday, there were once again three crews of workers.  These crews went out to do another 4 hours of work before heading home.  One crew went back to the hillsides in Cook Forest.  Another small group went to an area of trail approximately a mile north of the turnpike location to improve a very rocky section.  The third group returned to the turnpike area to use the DR Power Wagon to move the remaining gravel in the parking lot to fill in low spots on the trail leading up to the newly constructed turnpike.

To everyone who participated in this amazing trail work weekend, and especially the Keystone Trails Association for setting it up, THANK YOU from the Clarion Chapter of the North Country Trail Association.  We hope everyone enjoyed the weekend.  THANK YOU.  I wish I had a picture of everyone that participated for the weekend.  However, the picture below shows everyone after the turnpike project.