Hike #1194; Johnstown to Williamsburg
1/18/19-1/22/19 Johnstown to Williamsburg with Daniel Trump, Jennifer Tull, Janet Janet Lynn McCourt-Finsen, and Carolyn Gockel Gordon
I have wanted to do a longer group trip for quite some time, and I figured that as we continue westward on the 911 National Memorial Trail route, it will eventually require us to do overnighters.

Portage Railroad maps
Jillane left for an extended trip to Israel in early January, and I needed to keep myself occupied, so I figured this was the best time to shoot for the longer trip.
My original plan was to cover some of the heavy road walking sections located along the Juniata River west of Duncannon. During these Winter months, walking on the off road sections would be harder, and it would actually be easier for us to walk roads in those situations. It seemed like the perfect fit.
Dan and I talked extensively about this trip, and he kept pushing me to go further west. At first, I was reluctant, if not averse to going out as far as Johnstown. It didn’t quite connect with the other stuff I’d done, and I didn’t want to push out that far just yet.
In the weeks prior to this, it was looking like the weather was going to stay warmer, so I started opening up to the idea more. I also then realized the distances, and that I could connect this to Williamsburg, where I had passed through with Jillane on the Mid State Trail route. If I could connect at least to there, I would be happy and we would have knocked out a HUGE part of the trail.

The extent of this trip is the part to the left.
Dan and I stayed in contact and started planning out where we would spend the nights. I had already had good relations with the Cassandra Railroad Overlook Motel, because Jillane and I stayed there once and the owner talked to me for hours. Dan had stayed there too, so that was a good stop. I’d also used Blue Lantern Bed and Breakfast in Williamsburg, and the owner there remembered me Dan said.

Train ride
Dan reserved us rooms at Holiday Inn at Johnstown, Comfort Inn in Duncansville, and worked out train ticket details out of Huntingdon. Huntingdon was the planned final day, a 23 miler between there and Williamsburg. Things didn’t work out quite as planned, but I’m quite happy with how they went.
We met in Huntingdon on Friday night. We would take an Amtrak train from there to Johnstown and walk back. Janet arrived first and found that we needed parking permits for town. Fortunately, she was there early enough and was able to get them ahead of time.

Horseshoe Curve
Timing was pretty good. We walked over to the station platform and chatted with people there for a bit. A freight train went by while we were there. The section of former Pennsylvania Railroad is the busiest one the Norfolk Southern currently runs.
When the train arrived, we boarded and immediately befriended the conductor, who was a rail fan himself. Not only was he a fan, he had a table cloth made with Pennsylvania Railroad logos, postcards of the train which he gave to Dan and I, and even custom “Welcome Aboard” M&Ms for us!

Pennsylvania Canal scene
Dan and I watched out the windows at old railroad alignments and an old tunnel. Some of the line closely parallels what we would be walking. Most significantly, we went around the Horseshoe Curve, where the railroad doubles back in it’s climb of the Allegheny Mountains. It was this engineering marvel that eliminated the Allegheny Portage Railroad with it’s ten inclined planes.

Johnstown Canal basin
Most of this hike would follow the “Main Line of Public Works”, a series of canals and railroads that connected Pittsburg and Philadelphia.
The Main Line of Public Works consisted of 82 miles of the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad between Philadelphia and Wrightsville on the Susquehanna River, 43 miles of the Easter Division Canal from Wrightsville to Duncan’s Island at the mouth of the Juniata River, 127 miles of the Juniata Division Canal from there to Hollidaysburg, the 36 mile Allegheny Portage Railroad from Hollidaysburg to Johnstown, and 103 mile long Western Division Canal from Johnstown to Pittsburg. The development of this system cut travel time between these points from 23 days down to only four.
The Allegheny Portage Railroad ran from 1834 until 1854 when the Pennsylvania Railroad completed a competing line. The line carried canal boats up and down ten inclined planes and over eleven level sections, with an ascent of 1,398 feet from on the eastern side, and 1,171 from the western. It’s summit elevation was 2,322 feet above sea level.

Canal Aqueduct in Johnstown
The 911 National Memorial Trail follows much of this historic route, or at least close to it. I figured it would be really cool to walk the entire route of the Allegheny Portage Railroad anyway, so this would be great.

We got off of the train in Johnstown after making some nice friends on board. We then headed a few blocks away from the station to the Holiday Inn on the corner of Market and Vine Streets. We checked in, and it was a pretty nice place.

Johnstown Flood; Archival Photograph by Mr. Steve Nicklas
We put our backs in our rooms, which could be connected by a door that turned it into a sort of suite. Happy that we’d made it to the start point, we all had some wine, and decided to go out and find a bit to eat.

Aftermath of Johnstown Flood from Benjamin E Andrews History of the United States
Arriving was one of the biggest deals. For any hike, the worst part is getting started. I am always relieved once we get on our way. Having the train part out of the way, to me, signified the start.
We headed out of the hotel and decided to go over toward the famous Johnstown Inclined Plane. This was apparently put in originally out of fear from the famous Johnstown Flood 1889, as it would serve as an escape route. It was completed in 1891.
The flood was the result of a major dam break on South Fork Dam some fourteen or so miles east of Johnstown. The dam and reservoir were created originally to provide water for the Western Division Canal. When the canal became obsolete, most of the lands were sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad. The reservoir and adjacent lands were sold to weather private interests, including affiliates of Carnegie Steel, to form the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club.
The dam was in poor shape, and all of the hardware used to draw down the levels during canal days were sold for scrap. Repairs to the dam were made haphazard and on the cheap.

Original Conemaugh Viaduct destroyed by the flood
After particularly heavy rains, the dam burst and water of depths of up to sixty feet inundated villages on the way to Johnstown.
The death count was reportedly 2,209, but there were also many undocumented people living there, so it may have been much higher. This would become a topic of conversation later.

Johnstown Plane
We walked down Union Street toward the inclined plane, because they had told us at the hotel lobby that it was open. From what Dan found on line, it was not. We figured we would check it out anyway.
Unfortunately, it was closed right at the stairs up to it, but then we saw that across Rt 56, the steps were open. We dashed across the road and went up to get a closer look at the plane. It had a nice bridge over the Stonycreek River. We were able to get right up to the base of the plane which was really cool looking, but not on.
We headed back across the bridge and dashed across the highway, and decided to head further into town looking for food. This brought us south, to where there were good views of the Stonycreek River with it’s “JOHNSTOWN” sign, and to Scott’s by the Dam. The little placed looked like it might be good, and there was something about it being known for tacos. I didn’t want anything too heavy, and I figured a taco would be pretty good.

Big Taco
We went in and ordered, and there was a small and large taco. I went for the small, thinking it’d be just something slightly glorified over the size of taco bell, although the price made me think it was a little steep.
The taco ended up being the largest single taco I’ve ever eaten, AND it was a small! Not only that, I ended up finishing the food of others as well because it was so much.
From this stuffing visit, we headed back toward the hotel again. It was decided that we would go into the bar there and hang out a bit before getting sleep. We’d have to get up early in the morning, as snow was on it’s way and we wanted to do the bulk of the miles prior to that.

Hanging out at the Polacak party
There was some sort of private party going on in the place, but they told us we could order drinks anyway. There was also a lot of food out, and Carolyn kept going over and swiping stuff for Dan to have. I wasn’t going to order a drink. There wasn’t any good beer like Weyerbacher, and the strongest thing on the menu was the Long Island Iced Tea.
As we sat there, the girls caught the attention of a stocky greying man in a nice blazer. He started talking to them, and it turned out he was the host, and one of the co owners of the largest employer in Johnstown. His name was John Palacek, and he owned the old steel mill buildings in the town. He started talking to us about the history of them and of where he had worked. It turns out, he knows Donald Trunk, and started showing us his selfies with him on his phone. The girls were vocally not fans of him, but it brought upon a good conversation where Polacek said “I like the results, not the means”. He went on to say that he needed to lay of the Twitter, and that he didn’t 100% agree with the border wall, but said that something needed to be done. There was a lot of back and forth intelligent discussion it was nice to be a fly on the wall for.
His brother and co owner, Bill Polacek, came over and I struck up conversation with him. He took knew Trump, and started talking to me. He admitted himself that he talked to him about his social media behavior. I asked in what way Trump responded. He said “Well…he said ‘The media is making my revolution’”. He went on to tell me that Trump said that all he had to do was post something and people go nuts. It was more interesting stuff to hear from people a bit more on the inside. It doesn’t make me agree or disagree with it more, but certainly adds to the layers.
They covered all of our drinks and invited us to have the food that was out for their party, and were especially happy to hear we were doing the 911 National Memorial Trail. The brothers are somehow involved in security systems, and John said he was in Washington DC when the plane hit the Pentagon, and that he’d heard it.

Room with a view
Their business was built through need, circumstance, and opportunism. John Polacek Sr. started a welding business in 1957 out of the back of his pickup truck to make ends meet for his nine children. When he passed away in 1987, Bill purchased the business from his mother, which at the time was operating out of a garage. He was the only employee at the time.
Bill changed it to Johnstown Welding and Fabrication and expanded. The Bethlehem Steel facility in Johnstown closed in 1992, and the industry expanded into the 500,000 square foot former Lower Works. Bill shortened the name to JWF Industries to reflect the continued diversity.
In 2007, they expanded further to JFW Defense Systems, with Department of Defense contracts and affiliations with the army and navy. They’ve gotten involved in the Marcellus shale fracturing, and have involved themselves in the process of containing and transporting byproduct to water treatment plants.
Bill Polacek now sits on the White House Manufacturing Advisory Council. He is the President/Owner/Operator of JFW. John Polacek Jr. is the Chief Operating Officer. He went through the Marine Corps, and went on to work in defense system organizations before joining his brother in JFW. It’s a pretty amazing story of how the two brothers got together using their respective successes to create the JFW Defense business.
It was such an interesting night, but we did have to turn in to be up early. The first day would be the longest.
DAY 1
Actually, this would be day 2, depending on how you look at it. We did cover a couple of miles around Johnstown the night before, and we weren’t gallivanting around in cars between places.
The hotel had no breakfast, and so we took a slightly out of the way walk to the nearby Sheetz, just on the other side of the Stonycreek River. I walked the long way around because I didn’t see a fence blocking the way to it.
We hung out at Sheetz for a while. I decided just to get a snack bar or something because I wanted to not eat too heavily on this trip. That would not work out at all the way I planned.

Map of the canal and railroad layout at Johnstown
Once everyone was ready, we headed out of Sheetz and went north back across Stonycreek River on Franklin Street (we came over initially on Rt 403).

Canal remnants shortly after it's closure.
I had wanted to walk Railroad Street, because that is built directly on the original grade of the old Allegheny Portage Railroad, but we missed it and went further north to walk along the old steel mills, which had an old freight station turned restaurant or something, and probably a later Pennsylvania Railroad spur along it.
In 1851, the New Allegheny Portage Railroad was constructed to follow the same route as the original but eliminating the inclines. It had a slightly different route in places, but through Johnstown it was the same.
In 1857, Pennsylvania Railroad purchased most of the entire Main Line of Public Works, and most of the portage was all abandoned, save for sections used as spurs. A bit of the New Portage was re-laid with track in 1904 and used as a bypass for the busy railroad, but that was removed too in 1981.

Starting out
The Pennsylvania Railroad had it’s own reincarnations as well. It was rerouted bit by bit over the course of what we would be following. In some places, it took over the Main Line of Public Works. In other cases it found it’s own better grade nearby. Often, the older Pennsylvania Railroad differs from the later, and at times there are different rights of way for the old Portage, the new Portage, the old Pennsylvania, and the currently used Pennsylvania/Norfolk Southern.
We followed along the edges of the steel mills which seemed to go on forever. We even went by where they used to clock in, which was pretty cool. The tracks we had been following opposite ended, but we could see the right of way continuing on as we walked out through Conemaugh, the east part of Johnstown. That was the original and New Portage Railroad routes. The steel mill building ended and we were up alongside the Little Conemaugh River. We crossed the river on Rt 271 and continued straight ahead. We had a good view of the inclined plane from this point at crossing as well.
Ahead, we passed beneath a culvert under the former Pennsylvania Railroad and emerged on Plum Street. Ahead, there was an abutment as well as stanchions to where there used to be a bridge. I couldn’t figure out what would have passed through here, but I later heard from someone on the abandoned rails page that this was the Southern Cambria Railway, a trolley line that operated from 1908 to 1928 between Johnstown, Ehrenfeld, and Nanty Glo. We would end up following some of it later.

A train on former Pennsylvania Railroad
We continued along Plum for a bit, with an abandoned right of way to the right of us on a slight slope. My plan had been to follow the portage railroad route entirely, but we ended up over there because of a misunderstanding about the previous railroad street that it followed back in Johnstown. This was now the Woodmont section. The portage railroad remained on the south side of the Little Conemaugh River.
We continued for a bit, and passed beneath the Dellwood Street Bridge, and soon after cut over to the right to cross the tracks. I figured there would be a cut through when I saw a church on the other side for people to go over, but there really wasn’t a good way. We got across several sections of track, then climbed between parked cars. We walked between them to the north, climbed over more, and found ourselves atop a big stone wall with a big drop. We had to walk along the top of that to some beat up old metal stairs that took us back down to street level at Jasper Place.
We headed out to the main drag, Maple Avenue/Rt 271, and turned to the left.

Historic image of Portage Level 1 just before the great flood
The 911 Memorial Trail is generally routed through here, and across the bridge ahead that takes the road over the Little Conemaugh River again. The original walkway closer to the edge had been closed off much of the way, and the pedestrian lane added into the middle of the bridge. We crossed, and had some views of former steel mill areas to the right. There were CVS trucks parked over there, and I commented that CVS was everywhere. To the left, the Little Conemaugh River was in good view beyond. After crossing, we switched sides of the road to a fenced walkway on the other side. Trains were going through on the former Pennsylvania Railroad, and Dan commented that these were trash trains from NY City and areas east being transported out here.

Pennsylvania Railroad curve
We continued along, with the town of East Conemaugh in view off to the left. To the right, our side of the river, the settlement of Franklin was in view. We crossed to the right on the next bridge, which went over the former Pennsylvania Railroad. This route was the original route of the Allegheny Portage Railroad from 1834, the New Allegheny Portage Railroad from 1856, and later the Pennsylvania Railroad supplementary line.

Plane 1 to the Tunnel
We made the left turn on Main Street on the other side, and started heading gradually up hill. There were some really beat looking houses along the way. One of them looked like it was ready to just collapse into the road. We continued up the main street and crossed a little bridge over the Clapboard Creek. Dan was watching the historic documentation he saved to his phone, which said that the Allegheny Portage was just to our left at the other tracks. The Path of the Flood Trail was up hill from here however, around a sharp corner in Main Street, and then a left on Pershing Street. We did this, and there were “no trespassing” signs that contradicted the public park signs saying that it was open during daylight hours.
The section appears to follow an abandoned section of the road. There was snow on the ground, but it wasn’t too tough to walk through yet. We turned to the right, and followed what appeared to be the old road along the slope to the right.
There were good seasonal views down into the valley, with former industrial site below. The former Pennsylvania Railroad main line was always across the river from us, several tracks wide, and it seemed like every few minutes another train was going by, with it’s whistles blowing, low rumbling, and screeching of the rails.
The trail was a bit undulating, but mostly pretty easy. It was rail trail width, but wasn’t a railroad grade yet. We descended after a bit, down to the same grade as the former railroad bed to the left of us. We then crossed a foot bridge over a creek and reached the base of Inclined Plane #1 on the portage railroad.
There were ten inclined planes on the 36 mile route of the portage, in operation from 1834 to 1854. This first one felt much harder to go up than it should have felt, but the snow did make it harder. At the top of the plane was the Staple Bend Tunnel, the first railroad tunnel in America.
We had only recently visited the oldest tunnel in America, the Union Canal Tunnel in Lebanon, built about 1832. This was the second one built, as the Auburn Tunnel on the Schuykill Navigation came first, but it was blasted away. The Staple Bend was the third transportation tunnel, but the first railroad tunnel.
Some argue that Staple Bend is not the first proper railroad tunnel, and consider the entire portage to be part of a canal. It was horse and mule driven, and boats were loaded onto rail cars and carried 36 miles between canal sections. I still consider it a railroad though, because there were long levels between most of the inclined planes.
The tunnel had a beautiful Roman Revival façade that’s been well restored. The floor of the tunnel has apparently been filled over for pedestrian use, because the older photos seem to show it coming to an angle at the base.
There were no remnants of the engine house at the plane, and there was some sort of thing there for an underground conduit of sorts that still makes use of the tunnel. It was closed off for many years, but in more recent years became a public trail. Even the section to the west of the tunnel on the old road was apparently a rather new addition to the trail system.
We entered the tunnel, and passed through quite easily. Hand rails were along the edges with water able to drain off. It took six years for workers to complete this early tunnel.

Staple Bend Tunnel
The east side of the tunnel was not as manicured as the west. It supposedly once had a similar façade to the west end, but it was beyond restoration. It still had an arch, but it protruded with crumbling masonry surrounding it. We continued from here along the grade on a high shelf, and the sound of the railroad continued.

Sleeper stones still in place
As we walked, we soon came to where old sleeper stones were still exposed to the right. The Allegheny Portage Railroad, being an early railroad, did not use wooden railroad ties. Like other old railroads, they used stone “sleepers”, which the rails were secured to. We Despite the snow, the tops of the sleepers were exposed. I suppose it must have melted off of those first.
We moved on along the grade, and soon came to an original stone culvert. There were a total of 73 culverts and 85 drains constructed on the route, and many of them still exist today. I climbed down to the left to get a better view of the old culvert before moving on. It was filled on the inside, and replaced by a pipe drain just to the east of it.

Staple Bend Tunnel
We followed the grade all the way to the next parking area at Beech Hill Road at Mineral Point. The portage railroad continued ahead a bit more to the east, and is then overtaken by some degree by the route of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which is also on the route of the New Allegheny Portage Railroad. The trail officially turns to the left down Beech Hill Road, past the historic markers and to a traffic light on the south side of the underpass for the very active railroad. We followed this beneath, and then to the little settlement of Mineral Point on the other side.

Old culvert
This town was almost completely wiped out during the Johnstown Flood as well. I’ve read that the entire land around the creek was scraped down to bedrock. There were definite historic structures in the town, including an old stone one that came into view first. It was right along the river, but I think it might have been one to survive the flood.
There were abutments to an older bridge near the stone house, which I watched as we continued across on the road bridge. The trail route turned right on the other side, and there was an historic marker on the bridge abutment, but it was so covered with snow and ice that I couldn’t read it, and it wouldn’t scrape clean enough to be legible.
We continued on Front Street to where the trail turned hard left up to Reynolds Lane, and the Path of the Flood Trail which at this point follows the route of the Southern Cambria Railway, an abandoned trolley route that used to connect Johnstown, Ehrenfeld, and Nanty Glo to the north. It was in service from 1908 until 1928, and was known for it’s accidents. It was a pretty interesting line though, and traveled on a high shelf above the Little Conemaugh River which made it a pretty nice trail to be on.

Old trolley historic view
There was always a seasonal view through the trees toward the Little Conemaugh. We could see the Pennsylvania Railroad and it’s trains still moving by on the slope on the other side, and could barely make out, near some houses, what might have been the grade of the Allegheny Portage.

Old Conemaugh Viaduct
Soon, we came to a great view of the Little Conemaugh Viaduct. The bridge was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad to replace the original that washed out in the Johnstown Flood. The original bridge was built in 1833 for the Allegheny Portage Railroad, and was reused by the New Portage Railroad. It was built well enough that it lasted until the Pennsylvania Railroad years. When the flood came, the bridge backed the water up behind it for a time, but eventually succumbed to the pressure and was washed away. If it had not been for the flood, maybe the structure would have survived until today.
The structure was a single arch span rather than the double one that replaced it. There was a temporary wooden structure put in place after the flood, and rail service was restored in short order.

Old Conemaugh Viaduct
We continued on, and could see the former Pennsylvania Railroad below us as more trains went by. There was a spur that came up slope from us, and we saw one that appeared to go even more up grade from the trolley bed. There were apparently coal mines throughout this area at one time.

New Conemaugh Viaduct today
We continued on, and could soon see some of the settlement of South Fork coming into view.
I goofed around with the ice on the signs and made happy faces that I could pick up in the hardened material, which everyone seemed to get a kick out of.

New Conemaugh Viaduct in 1889 after construction, with remnants of the original laying about.
The Pennsylvania Railroad crossed the Little Conemaugh again, and the original portage remained on the north side. There is a right of way down below the trolley bed, which I didn’t’ really notice at first. We passed a parking area for the east end of this trail section, and then continued on Portage Street into the north end of South Fork.
We continued on the road, and passed by a totally weird house with no doors and windows in the front, and only one window in the side. I suppose the door would be in the back, and that’s one way to save money on siding.

Weird
We continued east toward Ehrenfeld. This towns claim to fame was that it was the first to ever have an alternating current power plant, in 1901. It was built by General Electric for the Webster Coal and Coke Company.
The town was somewhat effected by the Johnstown Flood, in that water back flowed up the branch of the Conemaugh there. We followed 2nd Street through town there a bit, and I figured the portage railroad was down below, but that it would be inaccessible. When we started reaching the end of Ehrenfeld to the east, I realized that I could see a good grade below us. I turned back, and could see where I could have gotten onto it on the street, but it was a ways back. Instead, I decided to bully my way down the slope through the dry Japanese Knotweed to reach the grade. The girls continued ahead on the road toward the town of Summerhill, and Dan bushwhacked down to follow me. We both wanted to see this as best we could.

Old portage rr
The rail bed was clear enough to follow east. It was not that high up above the level of the Little Conemaugh River, but it was not badly eroded out. I also didn’t see any sleeper stones. This section was likely used as an industrial spur by Pennsylvania Railroad in the later years anyway. Maps seem to show this was used as the Summerhill Branch of the Pennslvania Railroad.
We passed a weird culvert thing to the left, and then passed what appeared to be a mine drainage tunnel to the left. We then continued below steep cliffs on the rail grade and around a corner to where Route 219 has obliterated it. We kept on going, through mucky lands, across some tributaries, and then under the highway bridge which required that we leave the railroad bed and go to the right toward the river. Once on the other side, the grade came into view again, and we climbed back to it. We were then able to follow it right back to the active former Pennsylvania Railroad main line. Originally, the line continued across this point. Both the new and old portage routes went just about where Railroad Street, which is now Rt 53 is through Summerhill. We turned left on the later Pennsylvania Railroad, which was rerouted to the east of here in 1902 with a major cut and fill project similar to the Lackawanna Cutoff back home.
We only followed the tracks briefly to the overpass at Main Street, and turned right. There was an older rusty signal bridge here, which Dan said they are slowly phasing out. He said this one would be replaced some time soon too.

Old signal bridge
The girls were on their way down, and we could see them heading to the bridge on the other side. Once they joined us, we continued on the street out to Rt 53/Railroad Street. At that point, it was really confusing to figure out the railroad alignments all the way to Lilly. At times, there were at least four different railroad grades from different generations. Sometimes, the new and old portage were one and the same, but not always. The Pennsylvania Railroad’s original 1854 alignment was there, as well as new alignments from between 1898 and 1902.
At this point, the original portage continues parallel with Tunnel Road, which is old 53 heading to the northeast, under a nice stone culvert from the 1902 Pennsylvania Railroad. The original Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) continued on the current alignment of 53 from what I can tell. The New Portage and old Portage were one through this section. In fact, this section was referred to as “Long Level” because it was the longest stretch of the thirty six miles without an inclined plane.

Old Pennsylvania RR underpass
We continued under the bridge, and after the next intersection, we could see somewhat of a grade parallel with the road to the left. It was a really nice route to be walking. Some of it wasn’t paved, and there was very little traffic. Little Conemaugh River was right beside us the entire distance.
We passed beneath the 1902 PRR again through another old stone culvert, which crossed the Little Conemaugh again (it crossed it the first place we went under too). We then went slightly up hill and cut to the left which took us up hill. It seems the original Portage and New Portage went straight to remain more closely parallel with the Little Conemaugh. Rt 53 came close again, on the old PRR, and we descended to pass beneath the 1902 PRR again.
At this point, there was a pond frozen over to the right, which I think was the pre-1902 route of the Little Conemaugh River. It seems the railroad moved it a bit. Just on the north side of the PRR, there was a grade along the waterfront that I believe was the Portage Railroad. It came out to reach Tunnel Road again just ahead, and we passed beneath the PRR yet again. I believe the old and new portages both follow Tunnel Road again somewhere in this area.

Old portage is above on the left
The road soon comes out to Rt 53. At that point, we could see a grade straight ahead across a wetland looping around to the south. I at first thought that was the portage railroad, but apparently they switched here. Route 53, now known as Portage Street, is the route of the old and new portages, and the original Pennsylvania Railroad continues on the other side of that swampy area.
We turned left to begin following Rt 53, and soon passed again beneath the 1912 PRR by way of another culvert.
In the section ahead, I noted that there were what might have been grades parallel with the road, which I think might have been one of the two portage alignments. We continued on the road into the little village of Willmore where we made a pit stop at McGough’s Fruit Market. The little store had good chocolate milk, so I had one, and we just warmed up a little bit. The girl working the register seemed neither amused or angry about us being there. We asked if there was a place to get prepped food nearby, and she said there was a pizza place ahead pretty much in sight.

Old portage grade
We headed out and continued on the street. This is also the route of the 911 Memorial Trail, but the road section had “no pedestrian” signs on it. We politely ignored it and continued.
Soon, we reached Fox’s Pizza Den. This place looked pretty good, so we stopped for a good break. It was really windy, and it had been snowing since we first came out to Rt 53. It was bearable, but the wind against the face was painful.
There were a lot of good things on the menu, but I opted to get the taco pizza I think it was. They charged me for a taco, which was big and expensive like the Johnstown one and misunderstood that I was trying to order a taco pizza in lieu of that. Fortunately it worked out.
When we were done, I was pretty stuffed. I had told myself at the start of this that I was going to lose weight and barely eat, and then I ate a lot. I even had a can of four loco with my pizza, which was something I’d not had in a while. But I was feeling happy.

New Portage grade
We continued down Rt 53 on the old portage path, There were definitely former grades to the left some of the way. When the Little Conamugh River turned away to the right, there was a definite grade turning off parallel with it to the right. At the time, I didn’t know which line it could have been, but I figured it was the portage.
Now, I know the old portage railroad remained on Rt 53, but that the New Portage went to the right here.
No one in the group wanted to try to follow this grade to the right, but curiosity was eating me up and I had to do it. I followed it out over a nice fill for a while, but then it led to a missing bridge site over the Little Conemaugh River.

New Portage bridge site
I figure this must have been used by Pennsylvania Railroad as a spur or something later, because the piers appeared to be coated with a sort of concrete. I went down to the bottom, and the river was flowing fast. I still figured it’d be easy enough to cross, so I decided to go for it. It was freezing cold, but I figured if I kept on moving, my feet would be able to handle it.
As I headed beneath the bridge, the water directly under started getting super deep. It was at a somewhat flood stage already, and I didn’t want to get completely soaked. I had to turn and walk down stream a little bit, and then cross in the heavier but shallower current. I even made a video of it because I figured no one would believe I was crazy enough to cross it in the cold snow.
Once on the other side, it was a fruitless venture because the grade appeared to go into private yards. I turned left and followed the Little Conemaugh along a sanitary sewer right of way, and then cut up between homes to reach Blair Street. I went left, then turned right on Orange Ave, and made my way to the Sheetz store in downtown Portage.

Mid way up Plane 2. New Portage went to the left on the Portage Street having crossed mid way.
The town, of course, takes it’s name from the portage railroad. It was a major stop, located at the base of Inclined Plane #2. We made our stop at Sheetz for more snacks and such, and continued along 53.
It was only a short distance away to the foot of Plane #2. Rt 53 is on the first part of it heading up hill. Before reaching half way up, 53 turns left on the route of the New Allegheny Portage, which crossed over the old one near mid way up the plane. I could see the grade for this on the opposite side of 53 as well. The rest of the plane is now Plane Street heading up hill from that point. We climbed to the top, and then enjoyed a nice level section of road built on the grade right through residential area.

Old portage grade nearing Cassandra
We passed by some older homes, but many newer. There was one really beat abandoned one on the left just before crossing over Jamestown Road. Beyond, the portage went over a stream, which might still have an original culvert carrying the road, but I didn’t get down to look. It was starting to get late, and we were already at over twenty miles for the day.
We continued to where Plane Street dropped down to 53 again, but the rail bed obviously continued to the right parallel with it. We followed this for a time, and there was a little slope I felt rather certain was Plane #3. It at first looked like it was on historic maps, but somewhere in this area the old Portage switches back over to following Rt 53, and Rt 53 goes directly up the route of the plane just ahead. We ended up going directly across the former Pennsylvania Railroad, another cutoff section that was put in in 1898, and continued directly ahead on the earlier PRR alignment. It was a nice walking route, and it took us right out to the start of the town of Cassandra.
The railroad grade reached Benscreek Road, and we continued ahead on it a bit more. There would have been a junction with another branch out there, but we didn’t go too far. We continued above a large lot area, and the old PRR was partially mined away by a small mining thing, which looks like coal, just ahead. We turned left from a higher fill and slid on our butts like sleds down to the lot and out to Portage Street turning to the left away from 53. This was where Plane #3 was. I wished I’d taken a photo, but I didn’t this time.
We continued out and under the 1898 PRR re-alignment and into the little town of Cassandra. The road route here was reportedly the route of the New Portage Railroad. In a short while, we reached the Cassandra Railroad Overlook Motel.

Cold and wet
Dan had been in contact with the owner; we had both stayed there before this. I was there with Jillane and I think Dan was rail fanning of some sort too. The owner was out shooting pool half the night, but left his office unlocked for us with the keys to our two rooms on the desk.
The girls wanted the room facing out toward the road on an angle, and Dan and I took the one in the back. It turned out we made the better choice, because the girls were stuck with no hot water. We let them come in and use our shower after we were done.

Entering Cassandra. Literal light at the end of the tunnel.
The place was otherwise totally comfortable, and I’m sure we were all pretty exhausted from our 23 mile or so day.
Day 2 (or 3 depending how you look at it)
We woke and were ready to go pretty early. We had to be ready with breakfast stuff the day before because there is literally nothing around in Cassandra, and probably not in nearby Lilly.
I’m not sure how these settlements got their names, but I’d bet it has something to do with the wives or daughters of someone associated with the old railroads.

Railroad Overlook Motel
The motel we stayed at is not even on google. It’s an interesting little spot that’s popular with rail fans because of the railroad overlook, which is actually the former route 53 from before it was re-aligned in the 1930s onto the old Portage route.
Directly behind the motel, the original Pennsylvania Railroad grade passes. Dan and I went and chatted with the owner for a while in the morning after we got up, and pet his friendly cats. They were not the same cats that were there when I had visited several years ago, but they were as nice.
The girls were all outside ready to go while Dan and I were chatting away, so we did have to get going.
We got a good amount of snow the night before, which messed up a lot of the plans. We’d not be able to do a lot of the route I’d wanted to, but we’d make the best of it anyway.

Pennsylvania Railraod overlook
We headed through town and turned right where 53 originally went. We crossed the former Pennsylvania Railroad from before 1898, then ascended to the foot bridge on the old highway across the tracks, known as the Cassandra Railroad Overlook. There was a sign inviting rail fans to the site.
This site is maintained by the motel owner. He told me when I visited in the past that he had cleaned it up and put the signs up. Even though usually the railroad doesn’t go for things like that, this spot has been overlooked quite a lot, and it’s still a very popular spot.
We went up on to the bridge, and waited for a train to go by. Typically, there’s one every few minutes, as there had been most of the time we were parallel with the tracks the day before, but since it was a Sunday, it was pretty dead. We waited a while, and nothing happened, so we left.
There was a nice spring bubbling out of the mountain on the other side, the only break in the otherwise deeper snow we had to fight through to get up to Rt 53 on the old portage route. I wore my really super heavy boots that Annika Krystina gave me a couple of years back. It was a good thing I’d had them, because it was insanely cold and they were quite necessary for stuff like this.
We turned left on 53 and started heading north. I still didn’t quite understand the alignments yet at this time, or I’d have taken more photos of the area. We continued to another little settlement ahead known as Plane Bank. This was clearly another reference to the inclined plane on the Portage, as it was very near the top of Plane #3. Route 53 went up hill here, but the portage railroad turned to the left along Plane Bank Road. We followed this for a bit, and when the road turned hard to the right, the railroad bed continued straight into the woods. The property had a for sale sign on it, but we opted not to go through there. People were out everywhere shoveling snow and we didn’t need to look suspicious.
Plane Bank Road went back out to 53, which took us up hill a bit more, then gradually descended toward Lilly. To the left, as we neared the bottom of the descent, the old portage railroad bed came into view. It soon joined with the highway again as we entered the town proper.

Plane 4 from Lilly Level
There were people out everywhere shoveling or using snow blowers or whatever. They all looked at us like we were crazy. This and the next day were the coldest of the year so far. The high temperature in the neighboring towns was about six or seven, and the wind chill was at – 17. I had to wear my hat, my scarf over my mouth, and several layers for this one. I actually purchased more thermals specifically for this trip.
I didn’t actually need gloves, surprisingly. My hands typically stay really warm, and while I had them in my pockets, I never got cold enough to want gloves on.
We headed through town, and posed with a weird garage that read “Asshole’s Garage”, with a second sticker under it that read “Jesus Loves You”. We soon reached Piper Street, after crossing a little bridge over the Bear Rock Run. I didn’t think to look at it, but this was actually an old portage railroad bridge that was repurposed for 53. Dan pointed out how Plane #4 was straight ahead at the intersection. We had to turn left to the next street, Willow Street, which paralleled the plane. We could see it behind houses, then turn right on North Street to Level Road, which continues up the second half of Plane #4 up Wheeler’s Hill.
We reached the top, and it was again lightly residential. This section was known as the Lilly Level. The road was plowed, but not salted. It wasn’t really slippery, so it was a very pleasant walk on the former portage line.
Along the way, we passed by an historic school houe that was up along the right side.

Old Dutchtown School on Lilly Leel
We crossed over Route 22, which was a reroute from the original through the towns, and then soon reached the base of Plane #5.

The road continued the entire distance of the plane on Lilly Level Road. It seemed like a tough climb, even though it was nothing compared to what I’m used to.

Plane 5
Once at the top, we continued across old 22 in the town of Cresson. The area was a sort of resort spot for the well to do railroad entrepreneurs after the Pennsylvania Railroad took over. It was named for Philanthropist Elliot Cresson.
The portage line follows the route of Portage Street across Rt 22. There were no stores or anything, so we had to continued. I was hoping that on the next long trail section that we would have had snowmobilers or cross country skiers already there to beat the path down for us. Such was not the case. We had one cross country skier pass us on our way in, and he said he had to turn around because he kept busting through.
We continued into the woods, and soon passed beneath Rt 22. We took a break under it because it was so hard to fight through.
We followed the portage railroad bed all the way from here to The Lemon House.
The Lemon House was a stop at the top of Plane #6 on the Portage Railroad.

The Lemon House
Samuel and Jean Lemon built the house as a pub and overnight accommodation for travelers on the Portage Railroad in 1832. They already had operated a tavern on the nearby turnpike since 1826. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were served at the convenient site. Planes 6 through 10 were very close together, and so it was an obvious waiting spot, and therefore great for business.
There were years of prosperity on the Portage Railroad, but things began to decline and the Lemons moved to nearby Hollidaysburg in 1847, although they continued to spend Summers at the house.
The property remained in the Lemon family until 1907, and then passed through other hands until the National Park Service took it over in 1966. Today, the Six to Ten Trail follows the route of the remains of all of those planes.

Plane 6
I was really looking forward to hiking this section, but the Portage Railroad between Cresson and the Lemon House was just too brutal. We opted to head out to Old Rt 22 instead and just continue walking that. We would have to come back another time to finish the Portage Railroad.
We did parallel closely to Plane #6. There are tracks on a portion of this section where the National Park Service maintains a museum to the railroad.
We headed down hill, and the next point of interest, at the base of Plane #6, was the Skew Arch Bridge. It was built in 1833 by the Fenlin, Darlin, and Kinimouth Company, the only bridge designed to cross over the Portage Railroad. It carried turnpike traffic in the form of carriages in the early days, and saw some motorized traffic through 1922 when Route 22 was routed around the historic bridge. It’s skewed at an angle after construction began due to the flow of traffic over top.

Skew Arch Bridge
I wanted to keep going, but after the previous section, we had no real choice but to follow 22 down hill. It made for much easier walking, and gave us an interesting view of the Blair Gap Reservoir on the right. This was a reservoir originally built as port of the portage railroad but turned over to Altoona water supply. There were a few of these reservoirs, including the Plane 9 Reservoir a bit further ahead. The dam on this first one was obviously old, but had been refurbished.
We continued walking down hill, and passed the Gallitzin Spring. This was a favorite stopping place for Prince Gallitzin, noted Prince-Priest and missionary who founded the settlement of Loretto in 1792. He was also known as Father Smith.

Reservoir at Blair Gap
The next point of interest was one on the New Allegheny Portage. The way the line got around five inclined planes was a more roundabout route from Hollidaysburg, weaving around to Gallitzin where it passed through a tunnel to the north. It had a very sharp bend similar to the famous Horseshoe Curve on the Pennsylvania Railroad, but it was called the Muleshoe Curve. The Pennsylvania Railroad purchased the new Portage and abandoned it, but then re-laid some sections of it, including here, to relieve congestion on their main line. This part remained in service until 1981.
The railroad crossed old 22 on a beautiful stone arch, and prior to that passed beneath by way of a double stone arch that also went over the Blair Gap Creek.
The east and westbound lanes of 22, which were separated up to this point, came together, and we had more traffic to deal with. We passed the Plane 9 Reservoir and occasionally could see some remnants of the planes off through the woods to the right, but not much.

Old cabin
The next part of the hike dragged the most for me. My feet were insanely heavy in those big boots. I could barely handle it. I fell way behind the rest of the group because it was a chore to just lift m y legs up. I took the lead on the trail section, leaving giant foot prints for others to walk in, but then I was feeling totally burned out.
The next town was Foot of Ten, named obviously for the plane. We should have been on the road to the south to be closer to it, but we stayed on old 22 for simplicity. We ended up taking a break at Dollar General, which had barely anyone in it. It was just nice to get in and lean on things. I think I got a candy bar or something. We were just exhausted.
We left there, and continued only up the road a bit more to where we stopped at Steve-O’s Pizza.
There was a lot of room here. I barely sat down for a moment at the Dollar General just because there was nowhere. This felt like a real break. I took my big boots off and put them in my pack, and swapped out for my black Adidas that I’d started the hike with. They were still soaked from fording the Little Conemaugh the day before, but I didn’t care. The weightlessness of them was better.
I found those shoes at Spruce Run while working one day, and ended up wearing them on a hike when I had nothing else, and they’ve turned out to be really good. There’s rubber hanging off the bottom, but it’s not broken off in hundreds of miles. I’m amazed at how good they are.

Uhhh... Okay....
The pizza was good, but it was the weird Pennsylvania kind. It’s what they call “Old Forge Style”. Jason Kumpas first introduced me to the stuff. They often top with white cheddar, and they are all cut into squares. They serve it by the “tray” instead of by the “pie”. The slices are referred to as “cuts”.
The funniest part of this place was the fact that there was a sign with prices. It went from one through 28 slices, each one a dollar. But it spelled it all out. It had each number, one through twenty eight, all shown with it’s price, not budging from a dollar each. So strange….

Duncansville area
We left here, and it was much easier to walk. I thought my feet would be colder, but it wasn’t too bad.
We soon started heading into Duncansville. The old portage line came close to the highway where Foot of Ten Road came in to the right. The New Portage swerved to the south a lot more for a better grade approach, and then followed the old portage a bit to the west. They came together again just ahead, and we could see an old stone bridge where the railroad crossed over the Blair Gap Run.
We passed a very nice old log cabin called the Jacob Walters Homestead built in 1820, and continued to the Rt 220 underpass. There, we turned right on 7th Street, and then left on 2nd Ave. This took us closely parallel with where the railroad tracks started up.
The railroad here has cars on it that read “Everett Railroad”. I was surprised to see that. There used to be an excursion line out of Everett, where I’d backpacked before, on the Huntingdon and Broad Top, but it’s been abandoned and ripped up.
The Everett Railroad was forced to close when Conrail abandoned the Huntingdon and Broad Top in 1982. They moved to the Hollidaysburg area and acquired trackage there.

Everett Railroad
We continued to 3rd Street where we turned left to cross over Rt 22 and the tracks. A short distance to the north, we came to the Comfort Inn of Dunansville, our home for the night.
We headed to our rooms and got changed, and then decided we’d have dinner at Hoss’s, a great little restaurant chain with all you can eat soup, salad, and dessert bars, and pretty good food otherwise.
Again, I had told myself that I wasn’t going to pig out too much on this trip, but this was the one that really did me in. I had four crocks of soup: two lobster bisque I think, one hamburger and pasta thing, one chicken noodle, and one French onion. Then, I had several servings of salad, as well as a chicken parm dinner, and a bowl of ice cream. I felt like I was going to explode.
Still, it worked out pretty well. We brought wine and beer with us, and really enjoyed the time there, glad to have been done with this day.
DAY 3 (or four, depending how you look at it).
Carolyn left us in the morning. She could have gone on longer, but was happy to have gone the two days with us.
This day would be very telling on what we could accomplish, because we would have to see what the snow cover looked like on the Lower Trail. If it was impassable, my originally planned four day trip would just not work out as planned at all. All of those miles on the Lower Trail without any packed snow would be impossible. The last day I had planned was to be another 23 miles. We just couldn’t do it.
We headed out from the hotel and stopped by a store where everyone could get some breakfast or whatever. The place had waffles and such, and I had enough of those in the morning. More food that I wasn’t planning on eating, but had anyway.

Old canal route
We followed along Rt 22 to the east into Hollidaysburg. It was a nice little walk for a bit to get started. I just went in my Adidas again because I couldn’t handle the boots any more. As we reached Allegheny Street in Hollidaysburg, there was a sign saying that it was the end of the Allegheny Portage Railroad. Indeed, this was where the canal basin was on the Juniata Division of the Pennsylvania Canal, which ran from here to the Susquehanna River 127 miles away. It opened just before the portage railroad, in 1832.

Old Juniata Division Canal
I didn’t expect to find much of the canal. I know there is a lock that’s been excavated on the south side under what was rail yard. I’d visited it with Jillane. It just didn’t make any sense to try to find that this time, as it would have been buried in snow anyway.
We continued along 22, and turned to the right on South Juniata Street. This took us close to the former Pennsylvania Railroad tracks. In a short while, this road should have been directly beside where the canal was, which was much taken over by railroad yard.
We continued to where the road was blocked, and there was a gate over it that read “Old Canal Inn”. It looked like the way to go, so we continued on the dirt road. It took us out behind the Old Canal Inn, which looks as though was probably just up slope from the canal. The road might be it. We continued back up to Rt 22, Blair Street, and turned to the right. There was then a section to the right that looked like it might have been the old canal.

Old Juniata Division Canal approaching Frankford
We headed east out of Hollidaysburg, and passed by a large rock outcropping. The railroad yards to the right came to an end, and I could see the end of the last bit of track. This section ahead was the former Petersburg Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad. This I believe was originally the Williamsburg Railroad, or at least part of it was, before becoming the PRR. It’s the same rail line that becomes the Lower Trail further to the east.
As we walked, I soon saw there was a large ditch to the north side of 22. This turned out to be a very surprisingly intact section of the old Juniata Division canal.

Pennsylvania Railroad Petersburg Branch
An historic marker said that this was originally a Shawnee village known as Assunapachla. Route 22 is built on the former native trade path known as the Kittaning Path. The next settlement, known as Frankstown, is named for a trapper trader named Frank Stevens who had a post he operated as early as 1734.
We continued along 22 with the old canal to the left and the old railroad to the right into the main part of Frankstown where we made a pit stop at the gran n go mini mart. It was sunny, but brutally cold out, so the pit stop was a great thing. We basically leaned up on counters and such right inside the door, and Dan was apologetic to the girl working who honestly said “Oh I don’t care!”.
I forget what I ate while there, but I know it was something.
From here, we continued on just a little bit to the intersection where there’s been a new bridge built over the Frankstown Branch of the Juniata River. The rest of our trip would be pretty much along this river. There was a nice old stone house on the corner, and the railroad turned away from Rt 22 at this point. The canal and the river became one at this point. There was a dam for slack water, and Locks 41 and 42. The river does have a bit of slack to it in this area, because it appears that remnants of the dam still hold back water. I’m not exactly sure where it went from here.
Canal details are here: https://americancanals.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Juniata-Division-PA-canal2.pdf
We continued walking up hill a bit, when a driveway went off to the right. I decided we could follow a bit of this, then cut over to the right on the Petersburg Branch of the PRR. We did just that, just before reaching a private home. The rail bed was clear and very nice for walking from here. The only problem was that the snow was still deep, and it was difficult trudging. Still, it was shorter going this way than it was walking up hill and turning right on Juniata Valley Road.
The trail on the rail bed turned off to the right and followed more closely to the Frankstown Branch of the Juniata for a bit. It was a really pretty area. We continued on this until it started getting tough to pass through. I then bushwhacked to the left over the rail bed again, and then up to the now parallel Juniata Valley Road. I continued ahead on the road while the others bushwhacked, and then turned to the right to the right at White Bridge Road. The bridge was closed to public, but still standing. I met the others there. We could have continued on the closely parallel railroad bed, but I decided we’d walk the road, which is the official 911 Trail route anyway. Hopefully one day the railroad bed will be public, and when I come back to re do the other sections I’d missed, I’ll certainly walk this section because I’d soon see it was not posted on the other end.

Lock Ridge
The road turned away from the railroad bed, and passed through some beautiful scenery with the lovely Lock Mountain in view. I saw the multiple utility clearings going over it and remembered camping with Jillane on one of them on the Tussey Ridge, the next ridge over.
We continued on the road past Lind Crossing Road. We didn’t go down there to the former rail crossing, because it would just be out of the way. We remained on the road, and then I realized that the former canal was right beside us, probably for a while. The trench for the canal became very obvious after a bit, and I was impressed anything was still there. We had gone through a field with some cows, and they must have been standing where it was.
We soon passed through Upper Reese, where Reese Crossing road came in from the right. We continued ahead, and eventually got to where I could see the canal crossed the road. A house was on the right, and another on the left, and the yards were set up in such a way that the canal would have been filled in over them. Just past this, the old railroad grade went across the road. The two must have continued ahead together. We continued on the road as it turned sharply to the north.

Rail bridge site
The railroad was off to our left, and there was what appeared to be a remnant of canal berm on the left as well. The road was a nice easy walk now parallel with the Lock Ridge. We continued to where it turned to the left along the river, and then reached where the railroad used to cross.
Only piers remained of the railroad bridge, and just beyond we could see where the canal likely passed across the road. Juniata Valley Road started heading up hill from this point.
In this area, aerials seem to show there used to be a dam. I would bet this is where the “Crooked Dam” used to be, because the map clearly shows that it certainly would have been crooked.
We continued up hill on the road, which went up and down hill quite a lot. When I got to the top of one of the hills, I stepped off to the right to get a good look at the Lock Ridge. It was really a great view.

View to the gap and Lock Ridge
We continued down and up a bit more, and then the last up hill had a great view ahead, and a good one back where we’d come from. Rt 22 was coming into view again at the bottom of the hill. To the east, we could see piers of a spur from the Pennsylvania Railroad that went up along the Canoe Creek. When we got down to 22 and turned right along it, no spur line was apparent to me, and it is probably to the north under waters of Canoe Creek Reservoir. That’s more stuff I hope to one day explore.

View along Juniata Valley Road
We continued on, and there was new trail work going on alongside the road in this stretch. It’s probably improvement to safely get cyclists and walkers from the Lower Trail to Juniata Valley Road.
We turned right on one new section of the trail that went out to Weller Road and Flowing Springs Road, then turned right to cross the river. It looked like there might have once been a dam at this point, but not sure. There are certainly some that could have been it.
We headed to the left after the bridge in hopes that we’d find the old railroad grade, now the Lower Trail in this section, packed down enough to walk.
It was not. In fact, there wasn’t even a single set of footprints. There was no way we could go through it. My thought was that if we found it this way, we would end up bagging the rest of the weekend after getting to Williamsburg. I felt a bit let down at first, but also a bit relieved that it would be over with.
I told Jenny that there was no way of getting through on it. Twelve miles out of Williamsburg before the trip into Huntingdon would be murder we just couldn’t do it. She seemed disappointed.

Along the Juniata
We headed back to 22 and started walking east a bit. I immediately started seeing remnants of what were probably the canal along the road to the right. I was not feeling so bad about doing the road walk at this point, because the canal was actually on this side. It would be really cool to see these remnants. So I started getting into it more after the let down.
I then started thinking about it more. The hike would be over with when we got to the Blue Lantern Bed and Breakfast that night, because we couldn’t continue on. However, I’d already hiked the entire Lower Trail section from there to Alfarata, just west of Alexandria, because it is part of the Mid State Trail. I started getting the idea that we could Uber to the Alfarata trailhead, explore the river and canal route more closely, and then head into Huntingdon as previously planned with only a fifteen mile hike and it would be a separate hike from the rest of what we’d done.

Old canal remnant at Ganister
Jenny and I were ahead, so I started running it by her, and she seemed to like the concept. Janet also didn’t want to bag it. Dan and I of course were gung ho for the entire thing from the start.
I went over the stuff in my head more as we walked, and I started feeling better about it.
We passed by some really pretty promontories as we went through the gap in the Lock Ridge. I wondered if the ridge was named for a canal lock that used to be there, but I’m not sure.
We turned right on Juniata River Road next. This was a smaller, less busy road along the river. We could often see the rail bed on the other side, but we could also see some likely canal remnants on the near side again. It wasn’t too bad a walk, and we soon came to the settlement of Ganister. There were obvious former quarry areas through there. Ganister was quarried out and used as a liner in early iron furnaces, and there’s a lot of those operations around the area. I read about some of them when hiking the near section of the Mid State Trail.
We passed by a former road bridge site on the right, and then after that we saw an obvious former railroad bed on the left. This descended parallel with the road until we reached a truss bridge over the river. Next to it, there were abutments to another bridge over the river. At first, I thought the road bridge might be a former rail bridge, but then I saw where the second bridge abutments would have been too narrow for a road bridge. The railroad definitely crossed there, then turned to join the eastbound Pennsylvania Railroad.

Historic Williamsburg map that shows how a railroad went right by the bed and breakfast!
We crossed over, and then ahead crossed over the Lower Trail. Again, it had not a single foot print, even as we got closer to Williamsburg. The rail bed went closer to the river, away from us, and came back again near Mill Hill Farm Supply, but the trail continued along the river, separate from the railroad bed. We continued on in to town, and made a right turn to head up toward the Blue Lantern Bed and Breakfast. We passed a quote that read “Darkness Cannot Put Out Light! Be a Light!”, which to me sounds like it’s derived from a Martin Luther King Jr. quote. It was, after all, MLK Day.

Blue Lantern B&B
We continued up to reach the Blue Lantern, with the beautiful Big Spring right alongside it.
We were welcomed in and sat down after the long day, and ordered pizza from a nearby place. I got myself an entire taco pizza, which was very filling, but I finished it. Everyone pretty much got more food than they needed, and I ended up taking home some of Jenny’s pizza as I recall.
Dan and I shared a room for the last night, and he insisted on giving me the bigger of the two beds. By the time we went to sleep, we’d agreed on a plan for the next day: our wonderful host would give us a ride to where I’d been on a previous hike in Alfarata, and we would hike back to Huntingdon, and just have it be a separate hike while still getting done another big section in this series.
We woke up in the morning and had an enormous breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes, omelet, bacon, and more. Again, I’d intended not to fill myself too much, but really stuffed myself like crazy again!
Even though things didn’t work exactly as planned, things were working out very well. I was glad for what we were doing, as it would make some things a lot easier, and it would also give us more time looking for historic remnants rather than just powering through high mileage.
HAM
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