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.