GET Hiking Great Eastern Trail Newsletter Volume 8, Number 1, March 2019 By Timothy A. Hupp Please feel free to print out or copy and distribute this newsletter Contents, this issue New Trail Guidebooks forget 1 – 3 GET Hiker miles 11 GET Hiking Challenges 3 – 4 Flagg Mountain Complex 12 – 13 Trail updates 4 – 8 Pinhoti Trail Youtube Series 13 Upcoming Events 9 – 10 Photo Album 14 – 16 Various News Items 10 Web Addresses & Emails 16 New Trail Guidebooks for GET sections We have a number of new guidebook for the Great Eastern Trail, just recently published. They include a new PATC Guidebook, first edition that covers the Headwaters Section, plus some of the Tuscarora and Allegheny Trails. There also is a new edition of the Mid State Trail in Pennsylvania. There is a new guide book for the Standing Stone Trail, plus a couple others covered in these pages. The Great Eastern Trail: $9.60 PATC Members, $12.00 Non-Members (First edition, 2018). PATC’s publication is the first guidebook to the 200 miles-plus of the Great Eastern Trail between SR55/US 48 and White Sulphur Springs, WV (I-64) in West Virginia and Virginia. The trails making up the sections of the GET covered in this guidebook include part of the Allegheny Trail and part of the Tuscarora Trail. Between these trails is the Headwaters Section, a series of different Forest Service trails and roads largely on Shenandoah Mountain and North Mountain. 120 pages, 5 maps, 23 photographs Regular price $12.00 Discounted member price $9.60 https://www.patc.net/ItemDetail?iProductCode=P C118&Category=AW 1 Mid State Trail Guide and Maps Allegheny Trail Guide Part of the Great Eastern Trail in Pennsylvania Now Available! Order the latest 2018 13th Edition of the Mid State Trail Guide, and get the current FULL COLOR MAPS here, to support PA's Longest and wildest footpath! $27.00 The Trail Guide to the Allegheny Trail consists of 3 parts. https://www.wvscenictrails.org/shop/allegheny-trail- guide Part 1 is a Hiking Guide. A smaller book that details This compact book is your essential companion to hiking the trail section by section. Pennsylvania’s longest and wildest footpath, with information Part 2 is a Trail Map Guide. This section contains about distances in both directions, parking, water, camping, Topographical Maps of the trail. Part 3 is a Wildlife Guide. This guide gives you a and a few tidbits about the nature and culture the trail comprehensive look at the Flora and Fauna along passes. Descriptions give distances both ways using the th the length of the trail. same text, to save weight and bulk. The 13 Edition describes crossing the entire waist of the Keystone State, Utilizing all three sections of the guide even the from Maryland to New York. novice hiker can enjoy the beauty and challenges of the Allegheny Trail in WV. Standing Stone Trail Guide *Online orders are normally processed within 1- 2 business days* The Printed Guide for the 84-mile Standing Stone Trail, all part of the Great Eastern Trail, can be The Great Eastern Trail follows the southern part of obtained on request at: the Allegheny Trail, south from Upper Meadow https://www.standingstonetrail.org/ Trail from Lake Sherwood. This overlaps the PATC Guidebook’s coverage, as far as White Sulphur Springs, WV. 2 Guidebooks, continued Linda Clark-O'Brien states that she “also finished updating trail guides for Alabama, Georgia, & Tennessee. They are available free upon request.” [email protected] GET Hiking Challenges Hike 50! The final 10 km to make a total of 50 km in 2019, can be (individually or cumulatively) along more of Mid State Trail Association, the all-volunteer non- Mid State Trail beyond the minimum in each region profit group that cares for Pennsylvania’s longest – and/or along a list of trails from Virginia to and wildest footpath (2019 Pennsylvania Trail of Ontario, Canada, that connect to MST. the Year!) announces the Hike 50! Celebration in honor of Mid State Trail’s 50th anniversary. Hikers do not need to register with us until the Hike 50! is completed. However, hikers on this quest are MST began as a project of Penn State Outing Club encouraged to use the social media hashtag in 1969, and grew to cross all of PA in association #Hike50MST with PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (five state forests, eight state parks, and See attached form for more information, which will general support directly and through Keystone also be posted in the MST Facebook group Trails Association), Pennsylvania Game https://www.facebook.com/groups/midstatetrailpa Commission (six numbered game lands), U.S. and on the MST web site www.hike-mst.org Army Corps of Engineers Tioga-Hammond and Cowanesque Lakes, and about two dozen private Any questions, e-mail [email protected] or landowners. contact me. In 2019 (through New Year’s Day 1/1/2020), hike Pete 50 kilometers (km) along Mid State Trail – 10 km Peter Fleszar each (individually or cumulatively) in at least four different parts of Mid State Trail: Vice President (volunteer) Mid State Trail Association, Inc. (non-staff non- Everett Region – from MD Route 144 north profit) to US Route 22, guidebook sections 0 PO Box 885, Huntingdon PA 16652 through 6; 717 576-3112 cell or text State College Region – from US 22 to PA [email protected] Route 192 at Raymond B. Winter State http://www.hike-mst.org Park, guidebook sections 7 through 11; https://www.facebook.com/groups/midstatetrailpa Woolrich Region – from PA 192 north to Twitter: @MidStateTrailPA PA Route 414 at Blackwell, guidebook Instagram: @midstatetrail sections 12 through 16; (Note – 50 km = 32 miles) Tioga Region – from PA 414 north to the New York State border, guidebook sections 17 through 20. 3 There are no time constraints so you can complete all SST Sweet 16 Trail Challenge 16 challenges at your pace. Become an official Sweet Starts January 1, 2019 16’er by reaching all 16 features on or after January 1, Do you enjoy hiking? Discovering unusual tidbits of 2019. Please download our detailed brochure and Pennsylvania history? Exploring beautiful valleys and learn how to get started. If you decide to participate, vistas? If so, this challenge is for YOU! please also download the Trail Challenge form and follow the directions in the document. Reach all sixteen challenges and become a Sweet 16’er! You will receive a certificate and commemorative patch. Trail Updates Kentucky Little Shepherd Section: (From Bill Ramey, PMTC VP) We continue to extend the south end of the trail, added maybe 5 miles on the Little Shepherd Trail Birch Knob Section: this past year (this adds to about 4 miles constructed The north end Canyon Bridge has found some more in 2017). The new trail occasionally intersects with funding. The Breaks Interstate Park has bought in a secluded ridgeline road, thus breaking the trail on the project and secured another $150K and has into several shorter hikeable loops with easy road announced the project publicly. The design and access. This should be suitable for less experienced engineering phase should start up this coming year. hikers looking for shorter hikes, a feature lacking on the rest of our trails. Trail re-routes around private property are a continuing effort. We routed around some private No trailbuilding near Pineville, as of now. property that denied us continued trail access. We spent a year and a half working with the National Forest Service with a re-route on their property, Tennessee: only for them to conclude they had never actually acquired the tract and their own maps showing Cumberland Trail: otherwise were inaccurate. Now the property sits (From Marty Dominy, from the CTC meeting) with no apparent owner and no one ever having paid any taxes on it. The NFS has not completed After election of officers, approval of minutes, and their approval, but, the sections are flagged and a rather tedious treatment of the budget, matters usable for hikers. moved into the trail building portion of the agenda. The discussion included all anticipated projects The PMTC did actually purchase and take from this March with college students to 2022. possession of a 4 acre shelter site on the Birch Knob These will be outlined below in a north-to-south Section of trail this year. A trail benefactor had geographic order. In general, more good work has purchased a larger tract and allowed us to choose been done through 2018 although volunteer and purchase the site we desired for the shelter. The participation (outside of the alternative spring shelter site purchase is at Cable Gap which is break) is lower than in past years. Paid work crews midway between the existing shelter at Birch Knob continue on a number of project sites even though and the trailhead at US 23 at Pound Gap. retention of crew is a difficult proposition because it is hard manual labor and the weather is frequently Highlands Section: less than ideal. We have a new Highlands Section map that will be available this coming year. 4 Construction activity in a north-to-south order: only a little was done in 2018. Most of the construction is complete over the eight plus miles CUMBERLAND MOUNTAIN SEGMENT from Devil’s Breakfast Table to Peavine Road (just (Cumberland Gap to I-75 at Caryville): This east of Fairfield Glade). However, a 0.4 mile gap segment was not even mentioned during the and a 0.8 mile gap have not been finished.