Since starting at PEC in 2018, I have been scheming a bike ride from Pittsburgh back to my home, just south of State College — a trek of 150 miles. The route is possible thanks to the Trans Allegheny Trails, a loose affiliation of 13 different multi-use trails stretching from Pittsburgh east towards Altoona. Roughly following the Pittsburgh-to-Harrisburg Main Line Canal Greenway and the Rt. 22 corridor, the Trans Allegheny Trails are self-described as a “system of rail trails with attitude” because many of them aren’t exactly a typical rail trail with a consistent, nearly-level grade and surface. The Trans Allegheny Trails also form an eastern arm of the Industrial Heartland Trails Coalition (IHTC), a group of organizations and stakeholders led by PEC and the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy that are working together to connect over 1,500 miles of multi-use trail in Western PA, New York, Ohio, and West Virginia.
PEC has played a role in convening the Trans Allegheny Trails Operator Group (TOG) for the past several years, and I had the pleasure of working with the group to design a new informational map of their trails, which was released in 2021. Working on those maps sparked the idea, and the itch, to complete a Pittsburgh-to-Harrisburg bike tour. Life happened, as it does, and it took me a while to finally have an opportunity to do the ride, but that opportunity came in mid-June, when a work trip gave me a reason to make the journey home, over the course of two days, on my bicycle.
I rolled out of Pittsburgh in the early afternoon on a Friday. It had been raining all morning, and I’d been watching the weather forecast closely. Less than 24 hours before, I was considering bagging the ride due to a forecasted 90% chance of thunderstorms all afternoon into the evening, but by morning, the forecast had improved, and I committed myself to following through with my plan. The sun broke through the clouds as I pedaled along the Pittsburgh Waterfront, heading south on the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP). I followed the GAP for about 10 miles, past the Hot Metal Bridge and through Homestead to the Rankin Bridge, where it was time to leave the trail and head east.
I had to ride on-road for another 10 miles, from Braddock to Trafford and the start of the Westmoreland Heritage Trail (WHT). This area along Turtle Creek is the site of a current design and engineering project for the Turtle Creek Connector Trail, which would connect the GAP with the WHT and eliminate this on-road section. The roads from Braddock to Trafford were the busiest of my entire ride traffic-wise, in addition to being the most navigationally challenging, signaling the need for an off-road connection.
The WHT is currently broken up into two sections: 9.2 miles from B-Y Park in Trafford to Export, and another 9 miles from near Delmont to Saltsburg, where it meets up with the West Penn Trail. I expected the WHT to feel more suburban given its location, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it nestled in a gorge along Turtle Creek, separated from the hustle and bustle of the neighboring towns. I crossed beneath both I-76 and Rt. 22 without even knowing it, observed a great blue heron wading in the stream, and took a lovely detour through Duff Park on the Funk Bikeway.
About 5 miles of roads connect the two sections of the WHT, but the long-term goal is for them to be connected to form a continuous 22-mile off-road trail. While on the road, I looked behind me and saw dark clouds approaching. Back on the WHT, near Slickville, the clouds let loose, but the shower was brief and felt good in the heat. I kept moving, undeterred by the rain, and soon enough, the sun was shining again.
In Saltsburg, after crossing the Conemaugh River, the WHT connects to the West Penn Trail, operated by the Conemaugh Valley Conservancy. The West Penn travels 17 miles from just north of Blairsville, past the town of Saltsburg to its terminus just under 2 miles from its intersection with the WHT. About 5 miles up the Kiskiminetas (“Kiski”) River, the Roaring Run Trail picks up west of Avonmore and follows the river to Apollo. The hope is that someday there will also be a continuous or nearly-continuous trail corridor along the “Kiski” as well, which would provide more direct access to the Trans Allegheny Trails corridor from the northern part of Allegheny County.
The West Penn is the epitome of a “rail trail with attitude,” and that’s just how I like them. The first 4 miles from Saltsburg east were relatively smooth and flat, but then the trail left the rail grade and traversed more hilly terrain through State Game Lands 328. The trail became slightly narrower, somewhere in between singletrack and doubletrack A highlight at the beginning of this section was a mosaic-clad tunnel at Elder Run. These 2 miles are known as the Dick Mayer section, which leads to the Conemaugh Lake Recreation Area. From there, the trail follows a road down to a bridge across the Conemaugh River just downstream from the Conemaugh Dam, then climbs up a gravel road to the top of Bow Ridge before steeply descending to river level yet again.
As I carried my fully-loaded bike down the steps on the eastern side of the ridge, I peered through the trees to check the water level. As a flood control facility, one of the Conemaugh Dam’s jobs is to prevent water from flooding the communities downstream, so the level of the lake will fluctuate greatly,sometimes even flooding the old railroad bridge that carries the trail across the former river. It had been dry lately, so I was pretty confident that the trail would be passable, and luckily it was. Otherwise, it would have been a long slog back up and around on roads.
The final 4.5 miles of the West Penn Trail crossed the Conemaugh River 4 more times en route to Newport Road, just northwest of Blairsville. There currently is no direct off-road connection from the West Penn to the Ghost Town Trail, the next in the series on my journey eastward, but work on pieces of an eventual connection is underway. I followed tranquil, low traffic volume, rolling roads for about six miles to make the connection. The sun was dipping lower in the sky, bathing Blacklick Creek in a pinkish hue as I passed across it on my way to the small community of Black Lick. The cool of evening had settled in, but I still had plenty of daylight. By my estimation, I would reach my destination for the night by about 7:30 or 8 PM. I was staying at the farm of a friend of a friend near Dilltown, just a mile or so from the Dilltown Trailhead of the Ghost Town Trail.
The Ghost Town Trail totals 49 miles, including a 17-mile horseshoe spur called the C&I Extension. The mainstem is 32 miles long and connects Black Lick to Ebensburg through Indiana and Cambria Counties. It also connects to the 10.5-mile Hoodlebug Trail, which heads north to Indiana, PA. Named for the long-gone coal mining communities that once dotted the area, the trail follows Black Lick Creek and offers a remote and scenic experience in the wooded, rhododendron-filled valley. There are also several historical features along the trail, including two iron furnaces, old coal-loading tipples, coal refuse piles, and other traces of industrial history. The Ghost Town Trail has proved so popular that it was named the Pennsylvania Trail of the Year in 2020.
The trail ascends as it heads towards Ebensburg, and after 70 miles of riding that day, I could feel every foot of elevation gain. The wet crushed stone surface didn’t make things any easier, and it felt like my tires were velcro as I struggled to move forward quickly. I stopped a few times to stretch,snack, and enjoy the soft light of the setting sun. It was dusk by the time I made it to the farm, just in time to avoid using my bike lights.
The next morning, I rolled back down to the Ghost Town and continued my journey. First I passed one group of runners going the same direction as me, then another group and another. Unbeknownst to me, it was the day of the Ghost Town Trail Challenge, a 50k running and walking event on the entire length of the trail. Not wanting to keep calling out “on your left” or risk startling someone every couple minutes, I decided to get off the trail and use paralleling roads in a couple sections. The roads were nice and saw little traffic. Aside from Ebensburg and a few small towns, this area was rural and quiet.
Ebensburg marked the end of the trail-heavy portion of the ride. I’d be on back roads for much of the rest of the way home, with the exception of some gated game lands roads and the Bells Gap Trail. I refueled at a coffee shop and headed north, towards Prince Gallitzin State Park. The roads were hilly, with a lot of steep, punchy climbs, but they were very pleasant with very few cars and pastoral views.
A long climb up Wopsy Road took me to the top of the Allegheny Front and the entrance to State Game Lands 108, where I turned onto a gated gravel road lined with wildflowers. The throughway narrowed, with no cars in sight, and briefly I worried that the road would peter out. But after a mile or so, it popped out on a wider and more well-traveled gravel road, which I followed across the undulating plateau to the top of the Bells Gap Trail.
The 6-mile Bells Gap Trail drops down the Allegheny Front to Bellwood, first on a grassy, dirt doubletrack and then on a crushed stone surface for the final two miles. After Bellwood, I had one more big climb and then about 15 miles of rolling roads through farmland to home.
All in all, I spent about 15 hours on the bike over the two days and loved (almost) every minute. I’d definitely do it again, and I’m planning to try it in the other direction. The route was incredible – about 60% on trail or unpaved roads, absolutely beautiful, and an eclectic sampling of what western Pennsylvania has to offer.
Check out the Trans Allegheny Trails website for more information about all the trails in the corridor.
Interested in similar stories? Check out my ride across the eastern half of the state in 2019.