Steuben County, NY

The escaped prisoners from New York have possibly been spotted in Steuben County.

Fun fact: the northern terminus of the Great Eastern Trail is also in Steuben County!

CNY Hiking has a whole page about hiking opportunities in Steuben County, including South Bradford State Forest where Moss Hill Lean-To is.  It's a gorgeous county that probably rarely has escaped killers lurking around.

The second sighting was closer to Pennsylvania's Cowanesque Lake on the Mid State Trail than Moss Hill Lean-To.

Exciting times near the GET.

Recent SAR near the Great Eastern Trail

When a short hike goes wrong is a news story about a recent successful rescue mission in the Ramsey Draft Wilderness in Virginia, which the Great Eastern Trail passes through, hosted on the Shenandoah Mountain Trail.

The Mountain House trailhead where the hikers got lost is just down the mountain from a GET trailhead at Confederate Breastworks.

Coincidentally, Confederate Breastworks is where a man went missing in November 2012.  No trace has been found.

Remember to be prepared even for dayhikes.

View from Confederate Breastworks trailhead

Standing Stone Trail website

The SST has a new website!  Congratulations; it looks fantastic! Check out this trail!

http://www.standingstonetrail.org

Help Preserve Pennsylvania Hiking!

The Pennsylvania Game Commission has recently announced proposals affecting their State Game Lands: one would require hikers to carry permits and another would ban non-hunters during some of the best times of the year: the end of September through mid-January and mid-April through the end of May.  During these periods, the trails would only be open to hikers on Sundays, eliminating any chance for a long-distance hike.  The proposal is located here at this link. 

This would affect 95 miles of the Great Eastern Trail and would limit the season for both northbound and southbound thru-hikers, in addition to severely restricting the opportunity for people to hike sections of it during pleasant times of the year.

Please take five minutes of your day today to write to the Pennsylvania Game Commission to let them know your thoughts.  The next meeting will be on the 25th, so please send in your comments as soon as possible!  The Keystone Trails Association sums up the situation nicely and provides contact information at this link.  

Shenandoah Mountain news

New Plan Offers Protection for Shenandoah Mountain is an article about a great example of compromise and synergy between user groups who enjoy their trails in different ways and want to protect the land that they love. Check it out.

 Some portions of the GET are open to bikes and the Shenandoah Mountain Trail is one of them.  (There are other portions of the GET where I’d love to eat popcorn and watch people try to bike it.)

Bikers have done a lot of maintenance on trail, and those we met ranged from courteous to ultra-friendly, offering us water (we didn't need it, but it was a very sweet gesture).  I was not offended to share trail with them – I felt like they were the ones sharing it with me.  I was grateful to be there.

The Shenandoah Mountain Trail would make one of the best section-hikes along the entire GET and I highly recommend it, whether you have a few days to thoroughly enjoy it or whether you have a day to hit some of the highlights.  This trail has far-reaching views, a sweet tower, a hidden spring, flowing streams, easy grades, and is well-maintained.  It also hosts the high point of the GET: a small field with seasonal views called Bother Knob.

This is a spectacular area.  Sometime in the next decade I'll be deciding between re-hiking the GET or revisiting another trail, and this section is huge plus for the GET.  No one who has visited Shenandoah Mountain would question why it needs protection.   I hope this plan will become reality. 

You can check out the Friends of Shenandoah Mountain page for more information.

For right now, a guide to the area can be found online.  Soon it will be in book form!  Woohoo!