Our accommodations were convenient to a couple of really nice hiking trails, as well as the wonderful 62.5-mile Pine Creek Gorge Rail Trail, where, as you would expect, we were going to get the majority of our exercise! The trail sits on the former roadbed of the Jersey Shore, Pine Creek and Buffalo Railway, which was built as a connection for the New York Central Railroad in order to access the coal in the region around Clearfield, PA. In fact, many surviving concrete mile markers (see photo at above left) along the Pine Creek Trail refer to the distance to the connection with the NYC at Lyons, New York.
The trail is mostly finely-crushed limestone, so we took along our respective Bianchi "All-road" bikes. Sue's Impulso is an e-bike, and although she certainly could have handled the distance on her standard-pedaling Colnago, she felt the pedal assist would give her the opportunity to ride more at my regular pace. We ended up riding three sections out-and-back during the week, and while I covered the entire 125 miles, Sue was along for about 90 of them!
The trail was really well-marked, not only with the former railroad mileposts, but by countless wooden signs installed by the parks department. Not only were there mile markers, but also signs showing all the creek and campground names, plus placards at the trail crossings. It was simple to use the TrailLink website and plan all of our rides around the landmarks.
Our first day out would cover the top end of the trail, starting at the nearby community of Ansonia and pedaling down to the Tiadaughton Campground. Although conditions were much cooler than they had been at home, we were still glad the steep gorge walls and plentiful trees kept the path in the shade. At the campground access road, we turned around and rode the 16.5 miles to the northern terminus at Wellsboro Junction.
North of Ansonia, the landscape opened up a bit, and there was a wetlands area along (appropriately named) Marsh Creek.
At the trail terminus, we found out that ice cream comes in very generous portions up here in the mountains, when we stopped at the Pag-Omar Farms Market for a couple of scoops. I snuck across the street to see what was parked at the engine facility for the Wellsboro and Corning Railroad (part of the Genessee and Wyoming system), before we turned back for our Ansonia starting point. Along the way, we saw a huge, algae-covered snapping turtle trying to cross the trail near the marshes.
Weather in this area can be unpredictable during the summer, and we had been paying close attention to the forecasts when planning our ride days. Initially, Monday seemed liked it would be the only day during our stay without a significant chance of rain, but boy, did AccuWeather get it wrong! Although there was a chance of a thunderstorm in the early evening, we thought that we had left that morning with plenty of time to complete our intended route without getting wet.
We planned our longest ride at the gorge's lower end, during the largest window of forecasted dry weather in the hope that I would be able to squeeze in a shorter route later in the week and complete the whole trail distance. We drove about forty-five minutes south, out to the Golden Eagle trailhead near the community of Cammal (a strange contraction of Campbell, the name of early settlers of the area).
Shortly after our start, Sue snapped a shot of me charging into the woods:
There were a few remnants from the original railroad, including impressive steel truss bridges at Waterville and Ramsey (below). Sue was feeling a little leg weary from our previous ride and hike, so she decided to keep her daily total at thirty miles and turned around, leaving me to finish the additional miles (ten out and back) into the borough of Jersey Shore.
While crossing Bridge 1 from Watson Township into Jersey Shore, I could see dark clouds ahead with an obvious sheet of rain falling on the last ridge of mountains. Before long the skies opened up, but I was hoping that, after pedaling through the downtown area, I would eventually dry out on my way back up the gorge to Cammal.
The paved section near the trail terminus on Seminary Street was a three-inch-deep river of water, and I became completely soaked. The situation was rather ridiculous, but there wasn't much I could do about it - at least I was keeping warm while pedaling hard.
Unfortunately, the rain never cleared - it seemed the storm was following me back up the gorge. My expected quick return on a fast, dirt/cinder track turned into a challenging slog through mud and wind-driven rain, the whole twenty-five miles!
I was not surprised to find the trailhead lot empty when I finally dragged my muck-striped butt back into Cammal, because I suspected Sue might try to ride down the parallel highway in an attempt to intercept me and shorten my torture. Sure enough, about five minutes later, I could see the Honda Fit headlights coming back up the road.
Now that she knew I was safe, we could enjoy a good-natured laugh at the state of my cycling kit. We just needed to find enough towels and rags to put me and the bike into passable condition in order to load into the car!
A couple of days later were able to squeeze in a five-mile hike on the gorge's western rim, across the Pine Creek from Ansonia. Our goal was the top of the ridge at Barbour Rock, for a refreshingly breezy overlook of the gorge.
Earlier in the week, we saw that Thursday was supposed to be a washout, and we considered doing the last segment of the Pine Creek Trail after we checked out of the apartment on Friday morning, when the weather was supposed to be wonderful. It would be a bit of a hassle, as we would have to unload/reload a few things to get the bikes out of the car, but we really wanted to do that last piece of the route.
Fortunately, AccuWeather had it all wrong again, and the pleasant conditions rolled in earlier than expected. We drove south again, about a half hour to the community of Blackwell and rode down towards the Golden Eagle Trail. We were soon aware that some of the grade on this middle section was more noticeably downhill, so Sue pedaled under her own power to conserve some of the charge on her bike for the uphill return leg.
Just north of Cedar Run, I took a photo of Sue crossing Bridge 4:
Just outside of Cedar Run, the trail was lined with tall, straight-trunked trees that had been stripped of all the lower limbs, probably to help keep the trail clear of overgrowth and falling debris. The situation created a really cool vanishing point effect, and I had Sue take a pic of me riding into this section of the trail:
Sue announced her intention to leave me to ride the last eight miles past Blackwell to Tiadaughton by myself, so she cranked up the speed when we turned around at Golden Eagle. For the next ten miles it felt like I was in a Keirin race and she was pacing me with the derny - holding fifteen miles per hour on a slightly uphill, unpaved trail is not easy!
Because I was fairly wiped, it took a few minutes for me to get back up to a decent pace when we split up. Eventually I was churning along near Tiadaughton, where I stopped to take this shot:
I turned around and was finally taking on the homestretch of my Pine Creek goal. Closing in on Blackwell, I was putting the remainder of my energy into sprinting out the last bit of that lonely eight-mile segment. The next day we would be off to Kane, PA, for more cycling adventures.
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