Dravo Cemetery on the Yough River Trail
Several miles into our bicycle ride last weekend, my back started to hurt. I told Jonathan that I was going to stop for break.
He said, “Dravo Cemetery’s ahead. Only two more miles.”
You may have caught on by now that old cemeteries fascinate me. I certainly have enough photos of them in our blog. I personally believe that my love of history claims more responsibility for this than does my morbid streak. I am going to write more about the affinity soon.
In any case, I and my back toughed it out to the trail rest stop at the ghost town of Dravo. This is one of my favorite spots on the Yough River Trail (the section of the Great Allegheny Passage that stretches along the Youghiogheny River). A picnic pavilion stands at the former site of a church that was destroyed by fire. Next to the pavilion is the old church cemetery.
Next to the cemetery is a campground for trail users. I checked it out for a potential future trip. There are several campsites along the river at Dravo’s Landing, along with two picnic tables and two fire rings. A water pump and natural restroom are located between the camping area and the trail. Note that this is intended for trail users, and is not accessible for car camping.
How cool would it be to camp next to a cemetery?
I do have an idea of what it would be like to camp at Dravo’s Landing. Jonathan and I actually did once camp on the Yough River Trail, in 2008. We parked at the Boston trailhead, rode past Dravo, and camped at Cedar Creek Park, which was 18 miles from our car. Here is Jonathan’s write-up of that trip. I have a few things that I would like to add about it:
1.) As Jonathan mentioned in his blog post, I was nervous about bears. I woke him up several times that night thinking that I heard a bear outside our tent.
2.) There are multiple active railroad tracks directly across the river from the Yough River Trail. When I slept on the ground that night, it often sounded to me as if the trains were coming straight at me. (I know, this does not make much sense because I wasn’t sleeping on railroad tracks, but what makes sense in the middle of the night?)
3.) “Good fences make good neighbors,” and very few campsites come equipped with fences. Our campground “neighbors” at Cedar Creek Park drove their SUV down the trail so that they could unload it at their campsite. They also set off fireworks all night. I woke up multiple times wondering whether they planned to kill us while we slept. (I kid, I mostly spent the night worrying about the bears and the trains.)
Looking back, that was a good camping trip and we might camp on the trail again this summer. I might be able to talk Jonathan into camping at Dravo Landing this time. That way, I can wake Jonathan up all night worrying about the bears in the cemetery.
