Starter trip for Beginners in the Ohio/WV/PA area

<p style=”text-align: left;”>For a great beginner hike I recommend The Old Loggers Path in Loyalsock State Forest in PA. A nice 27ish mile loop hike with great views and great swimming holes.</p>

I live in Southeast MI so we’re practically neighbors (and football rivals!).  Dolly Sods in the Monongahela National Forest seems popular with area locals.  We went during the COVID lull in late August 2021 and found trails to be muddy and a bit overrated.

Red River Gorge KY is a very popular place.  I think the views are better.  They currently allow dispersed camping but changes are coming with plans to switch to designated campsites throughout the area.  Get trail maps from outragegis.com

In Michigan the Manistee River Trail / North Country Trail loop is one of the more popular lower peninsula loops.  In the UP Pictured Rocks is VERY popular.

Also worth exploring other sections of the North Country Trail.

I’ve taken a bunch of newbies on the Old Loggers Path – I think I’ve hiked that loop 6 times.  The direction in which you hike it depends on the time of day you’re starting.  Starting from Masten you should hike it clockwise if you’re starting in the morning…That puts both of your campsites at nice watering holes (11-10-6 miles by day.  If you’re starting in the afternoon, go counter-clockwise to stay at the same sites (6-10-11).  PM me for more details about the OLP if you’d like.

My current newbie favorite loop in PA is the Pinchot Trail (near Thornhurst PA) on the Pocono Plateau.  It doesn’t have the elevation gain/loss of the OLP so it’s a bit less strenuous.  It’s also close to a “figure-8” trail so you have the easy option to bail halfway through if the weather turns nasty or you have other issues.  You always want the first trip to be successful.

Another quick PA loop is the John P Saylor trail near Windber PA (a bit further west).  Not a lot of elevation gain/loss and some cool rocks (Wolf Rocks) to climb on along the trail.  Sadly it’s a local graffiti spot, but you can still climb around.  There’s also a cool suspension bridge over the creek at the campsite.  Again – PM me with questions.

There’s another great 2-night loop just outside State College called the Ironstone-MST loop.  It starts/ends in the Shaver’s Creek Environmental area and includes a nice gradual uphill as well as a solid 1/4 mile straight up followed by a great ridge walk.  It connects with the Mid State Trail and then comes back to Shaver’s Creek passing an old iron furnace.

I can also make some suggestions for Dolly Sods…Good luck!

You could try the trail at Raccoon Creek State Park, which is very close to Ohio and is a loop of something like twenty miles with plenty of cross trails to make it shorter.  Very little slope and no rocks. You could also try the Laurel Highland Hiking Trail, which runs from Ohiopyle to near Johnstown.  It’s 70 miles, but you can do an out and back or get a shuttle to cut the hike shorter.  It is more steep and really rocky, but the scenery is much better.

Those were my first hikes when I started. Both of those have you reserve a site and you camp in an established location with an outhouse and water (though water you need to treat in most cases) and are well-marked.  The LHHT even has shelters with fireplaces and (usually) stocked firewood.  It’s a very nice transitional step from car camping to backpacking a wild site.

The LHHT is probably great for beginners and here are a couple of suggestions:

• Since you’re unlikely to do the entire 70 miles in a first outing, I’d suggest you skip the section from Ohiopyle to Rte. 653.  You can park at the Laurel Ridge Cross Country Ski Center and start your hike from there.  From Ohiopyle it’s A LOT of uphill to get up to the plateau and, while the views are nice, it can be exhausting to get to the first shelter.  After that stretch you’re mostly up on the plateau with more reasonable elevation gains/losses until you get to the end of the trail.
• When I did the LHHT we skipped some shelters, which made for a couple of long (14 miles or so) days.  It’s a little demoralizing to get to the shelter cutoff after doing a long day to discover that it’s another mile to the shelter.  If you don’t skip shelters, the days are pretty reasonable.
• Park your car where you plan to get off the trail and arrange a shuttle to take you to the beginning.  Cell phone coverage is spotty in that part of the state and it might be tough to connect to someone as you’re coming off the trail.  Having your car waiting for you can reduce some stress (versus having someone waiting for you).
• It is quite civilized (and very nice) to have a picnic table and outhouses at the campsite.
• In 2019 some of the water pumps took a LONG time to bring water up, but they did work.
• If you’re planning to go over a weekend, reserve your shelter as early as possible because they do fill up on weekends.  Even if you’re planning to stay in your tent I’d suggest the extra couple of dollars each night to reserve a shelter in case you’re in a downpour.  If you have a free-standing tent you can put it up (without the fly) in the shelter as mice protection.