Fall Hike in the Laurel Highlands

I was fortunate to have a little bit of time to get out for a hike in the Laurel Highlands as the leaves were getting into full Autumn mode. Jenny and I were with her family at Laurel Hill State Park, which has a number of great trails. Many of them are interconnected, and some are parts of longer trails that continue into Forbes State Forest. Connecting several trails is a great way to make a big loop to both get some miles under the boots and have the opportunity to explore some different terrain in the park. For this particular hike, I hiked from our cabin out to the Ridge trail, then down the Shay trail to access the Pumphouse trail, which took me over to the CCC dam. From there, I took the Tramway trail along the creek out to the state park road, looped over the bridge crossing the creek, and then picked up the Ridge trail back up to the cabins. It was just about four miles of hiking, mostly without seeing or hearing anything other than the woods and water and wildlife. That’s a pretty nice way to spend a couple of hours with a camera. I took a different route last year that involved a rather steep descent from the Ridge trail to the other side of the CCC dam, and then a wet crossing of the creek to get onto the Tramway trail. On that hike, I ended up getting wetter than expected when I slipped during that wet crossing and my foot came down in a deeper hollow in the creek, and then I had to work to try out my jeans back at the fire. It had been raining this year and the creek had a pretty good flow, so I decided I wasn’t going to risk that again this year!