ABOUT THE PARK:
Tiadaghton State Forest - Pennsylvania DCNR
DIRECTIONS:
GPS Coordinates 41.438933, -77.510676
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| Clark Farm Utceter Station Parking Lot |
TRAIL MAPS:
Golden Eagle and Bob Weber Trail Brochure - Pennsylvania DCNR (does not show Dragon's Back Trail and describes hike in the opposite direction).
Pine Creek Map - Pennsylvania Grand Canyon - Lizard Maps
HIKE DISTANCE: 11 miles
THE HIKE:
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| Before leaving the parking lot, a bald eagle soaring over Pine Creek. |
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| Leave the parking lot on the Pine Creek Rail Trail and turn right. |
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| At the stop sign keep straight and cross the bridge over Bonnell Run. |
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| Just after the bridge, turm left and cross Route 414 |
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| The access trail follows along Bonnell Run which was bone dry on this day. |
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| Trail Register |
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| Where the access trail meets the Golden Eagle Trail. We turned right. |
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| The trail ascends, not too steeply at first. |
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| The higher you get, the steeper it gets but there are never any scrambles. |
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| Finally at the top.... |
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| ... and time to catch our breath. |
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| Continuing on a fairly flat section. |
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| Watch for an unmarked side trail to the left that leads to a view of Wolf Run. We would be climbing back up along Wolf Run soon. |
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| Back on the GET and on to ... |
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| ... Ravenshorn. This is a prime rattlesnake hangout so I checked thoroughly before letting Brodie get too close. No snakes in sight today. |
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| Had my fear of heights not prevented me from stepping out further onto Ravenshorn I would have been able to get a better shot of Pine Creek down below to the right. |
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| The trail descends to the right of Ravenshorn. This is looking back up at Ravenshorn from the trail. |
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| The trail descends steeply along ... |
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| ... interesting rock formations. |
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| Then it switchbacks more smoothly down to Wolf Run. |
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| At Wolf Run, left on the trail. |
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| A more gradual ascent along Wolf Run, also very dry on this day. |
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| Just a little trickle here and there. |
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| The dry creek made for easy crossing. The trail crosses over about 4 or 5 times. |
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| Almost at the top. |
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| A little bit of a view to the left. |
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| The GET turns right on a very wide, grassy woods road to ... |
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| Beulahland Vista |
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| Taking a loooooong break here. |
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| Continuing along the woods road to the next overlook. |
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| The GET continues down along Bonnell Run but we would not be going that way. |
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| Continuing on the woods road. |
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| When the GET leaves the woods road to the left ... |
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| ... and the Hilborn Run Trail starts to the right ... |
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| ... straight on the grassy woods road becomes the yellow-blazed Dragon's Back Trail but there is no sign. |
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| The woods road ends but yellow blazes are visible straight ahead beyond the ferns. |
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| After navigating through the ferns, the trail opens up and although it is obviously very lightly used, it is well-blazed and easy to follow. |
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| After going through the woods, the trail rides the spine of the ridge. |
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| A really nice view of Pine Creek to the right. |
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| At this point the trail turns right and becomes the Quarry Mountain Trail, still blazed yellow. There were supposed to be more views straight ahead but there really wasn't anything worth climbing that hill for, lots of blow downs, spider webs and bear scat to what apparently was the quarry at one time. |
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| The Quarry Mountain Trail switchbacks down steeply. |
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| Route 414 comes into view below. |
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| Continuing straight along Route 414 to the Tomb Flats sign ahead. |
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| Looking back where we just came out at the Quarry Mountain and Dragon's Back Trail sign. |
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| Turn right at the Tombs Flats sign... |
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| ... then left on the Pine Creek Rail Trail. It's about 1.5 miles of flat rail trail all the way back to the parking lot. |
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| Off to the right, an old cemetery. |
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| And now we know why it's called Tomb Flats. |
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| Back on the Pine Creek Rail Trail coming up on Pine Creek. |
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| A bench for another break. |
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| Coming up on ... |
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| ... the parking lot. |
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| After depositing our hiking gear in the car we headed down a short fisherman's path to ... |
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| ... Pine Creek just in time ... |
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| ... to see two bald eagles fly in and land in the trees, one of the left and one on the right. |
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| Balloon #54 of the year was actually in my neighbor's yard across the street as I was loading the car at 5:30 AM. Chased it down in dark, I did! |
