2020-12-05 05:55:45
OFF-ROAD BIKE TRAILS YOU’VE GOT TO RIDE Bring your mountain bike or rent one, and get ready for an off-road adventure on one of Pennsylvania’s many gravel trails, offering everything from rugged natural beauty to industrial historic sites. Dubbed Pennsylvania’s “2020 Trail of the Year” by the Pennsylvania Trails Advisory Committee, the 46-mile Ghost Town Trail is simply spectacular, brimming with scenery and history. The trail, which runs through Cambria and Indiana counties, has an abundance of streams, wildflowers, woodlands, and remnants of now-abandoned coal-mining towns that attest to the area’s industrial history. Comprised of hard-packed limestone, the trail has an easy grade, promising a wonderful ride. In Bucks and Northampton counties, explore any of the 60 miles of the Delaware Canal Towpath at Delaware Canal State Park, and you’ll easily be able to imagine a bygone time, when mules pulled cargo-laden boats through the canal. The crushed-stone towpath begins in Easton at the D&L Trail and continues to Jefferson Avenue in Bristol. Bikers, walkers, runners, and bird watchers are all welcome, so be mindful to share the trail. The 10.5-mile Houtzdale Line Trail in Clearfield County abounds with vestiges of the area’s rich coal-mining history. Now lined with beautiful hedgerows of multiflora and other deciduous shrubs, the gravel trail traverses wetlands, upland forest, and a stream corridor filled with wildlife and native plants once you get beyond Ramey and Houtzdale. There are nearly 8 miles of improved surface with the best access point at the trail center in Houtzdale. Recognized as one of the “10 Best Places to Take a Bike Tour” by USA Today, the Pine Creek Rail Trail is one of the northeast’s premier rail-trails. Located in the bottom of the Pine Creek Gorge, the 62-mile trail with its hard-packed gravel surface takes you on a journey through land once used to transport freight by train from Wellsboro to Williamsport. The trail has a small grade of around 2 percent and runs mostly uphill. For even more untamed natural beauty, Allegheny National Forest’s hundreds of miles of graveled roads are open for cyclists to enjoy, offering scenic vistas, tall trees, and an abundance of wildlife. The 3.8-mile Blaisdell-Emery Trail is a relatively easy ride with an improved stone surface and built on an abandoned railroad grade that follows the main branch of the Tunungwant Creek. The trail passes the derrick of a wooden oil drilling rig and has a path leading to the historic Penn-Brad Oil Museum in Bradford. Find even more gravel trails to ride at visitPA.com.
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