Allegheny National Forrest - Hickory Creek Wilderness Trail

Day: 4
Miles Travelled: 469 (plus today's hike)
Current Location: Allegheny National Forrest

After packing up the campsite we drove to the Hickory Creek Wilderness Trail which is part of the national forrest.

On the website the trail is described as an 11 mile loop of easy to moderate hiking.  We started at 9:30 and figured to be done by 1:30 or 2:00. The website neglected to mention that there is a 1.4 mile hike to get to the trail and you then have to cover that same 1.4 miles on the way out.  Also, the trail is actually 12 miles long and is only moderately maintained meaning there are hundreds of obstacles like fallen trees, mini-swamps, rocks, creeks, etc. To make it even more difficult, the trail is marked by infrequent yellow paint marks on trees. We lost the trail several times and had to find our way back.

Needless to say I somewhat underestimated the hike but we both feel great that we stuck it out and did not turn back. The only real wildlife we saw were three deer that Laura spotted very early on. We did not finish until 4:30, putting us behind schedule for the trip to Pittsburgh.  When combined with last night's camping we only saw 3 people (2 of them in cars on the drive in) in a period of 28 hours. 


Click here for the full Hickory Creek Trail photo album