Hike #1376; Pittsburgh PA to Weirton WV

Hike #1376: 11/26-11/29/20 Pittsburgh PA to Weirton WV with Jillane Becker

This would be one of the most substantial hikes of my life for a multitude of reasons, many of which we wouldn't know for quite a while.

I once again had some more time off because of the pandemic craziness. There were all of these "work from home days" and I'd already finished all of my online training, so I could take more time off. Plus, if I needed a vacation day at work, I really didn't take any for the past year because of the pandemic, so I had a lot of it banked.

Jillane and I had already hiked almost the entire length of Pennsylvania together. She was only missing one bit on the Lehigh River to fill in the gap prior to this.

She had done and 5 multi day/backpack trips and 5 day hikes with me to get us this far, and we were only about three days walking to finish walking across the entire state together. It seemed like we should really go out and finish it. There were a lot of good trails through the area, and the Panhandle Trail led from close enough to Pittsburgh all the way into Weirton West Virginia on the Ohio border.

It wasn't that long before we had done a hike that finished in Pittsburgh, and then I did my own hike without her on the Great Allegheny Passage. I felt bad doing that because I told her it was high on my priority list, but she wasn't interested and told me to do it with my friends. When I did, she said she wouldn't go to Pittsburgh again.

Fortunately, that attitude did not linger, and we were out in Pittsburgh staying at the Hampton Inn and Suites just north of The Point where the Monongahela River and the Allegheny River join to form the Ohio River.

DAY 1

We got up for our first day out and wandered through the streets of Pittsburgh. People were still wearing masks and behaving quite fearfully. It's pretty much just in the city that people are like that. Outside of there things get to be a bit more normal.

We meandered through the city a bit and made our way to Point State Park and the forer site of Fort Duquesne. We checked out the waterfront a little, and then made our way onto the Fort Pitt Bridge up to and across the Fort Pitt Bridge, one of the signature yellow bowstring arch bridges over the twin rivers.

Penn Lincoln Parkway crosses the Fort Pitt Bridge from Great Allegheny Passage in Pittsburgh PA.
The bridge was opened in 1959, and is the first double decker bow string arch bridge, as well as the first computer designed bowstring arch. It replaced the earlier Point Bridge.

We continued off the bridge to the west, and then headed over to the Duquesne Incline. I had already ridden it before, but I didn't want that to deter Jillane from trying it. It's really an amazing piece of history.

The funicular incline was built in 1877 to carry freight and later passengers to the top of Mount Washington. It was originally steam-powered, 800 ft long and 400 ft high, with 30 degree angle.

The popularity of the incline grew through the course of the 19th century, and soon inclines were built up and down the slope.

By the middle of the 20th century, all but two of the inclines has closed, mostly due to new roads and automobiles. It closed in 1962 in need of repairs, but a nonprofit organization took it over and reopened it just a year later.

Today, only the Duquesne Incline and the Monongahela Incline remain in operation and are immensely popular among tourists and residents.

We crossed the pedestrian bridge up to the base of the plane, which historically would have traveled a bit further down, and paid our fare to the top.
It was a really nice ride, and we got off at the top and checked out the museum as well as the amazing view of the confluence of the rivers. 

The Point is where the French established the fort in 1753, and was later taken over by the English. Bricks now line where the fortification was, as well as its replacement Fort Pitt.

It was also in this area that the expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark started in 1803. Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson, the due and cohorts ushered in western expansion with travel down the Ohio River.

The previous bridges over the rivers at this point were the Point Bridge over the Monongahela River and the Manchester Bridge over the Allegheny. They crossed near the end of “The Point” or “Golden Triangle” as it’s called, now Point State Park. Manchester Bridge was replaced by the Fort Duquesne Bridge.

Fort Duquesne is a bowstring Arch Bridge completed between 1958 and 1963, except for the connection on the east side.

The bridge remained closed to traffic until 1969 when the on-ramps were completed. For years, it was known as the bridge to nowhere because it just stopped at the end with no connection.

From here, we walked to the west on Grandview Ave to "Point of View", where there is a great view and a statue of George Washington with Seneca leader Guyasuta. Washington met with Guyasuta, who helped navigate the wilderness, twenty years later during the Revolution, and the statue depicts the reintroduction of the two men.

At this point, the Emerald View Trail makes its way down slope a bit. I had followed some of this with the group over the previous Summer, but never followed it through. It would work out perfectly as part of our connection to the west.

We went down hill slightly, then switched back to the left. The views were even better with less leaves, but the steep drop offs that much more unnerving.

The trail weaved around the north to the west side, and came to a power line opening that offered a nice view of the West End Bridge, another bowstring arch structure, across the Ohio River. It was completed in 1932.

We continued to the south, and the trail joined a private driveway briefly before crossing Greenleaf Street. When we were here over the Summer, we turned right at this point and walked to the West End Bridge. This time, Jillane and I continued on along the trail to the north.

It was a miracle we made any good time on this, because these slopes are littered with all sorts of antique bottles. Two centuries of them being lobbed off the hillsides from promontory homes leaves them often somewhat exposed due to constant sliding of the soft land.
The trail continued to the south and climbed a bit more to an open rock wall created I believe by quarrying over the years. I could sit right on the ridge, and there was a view out to the West End Bridge, and ahead at the little community of West End. It is situated along a tributary known as Sawmill Run.

I ran up and along the rock face to get a better photo, and almost slipped. That was a dangerous spot; a wrong step would mean the end.
We continued along the trail as it shifted from south to east, and there were some views through the trees including an abandoned railroad girder bridge over the Sawmill Run, formerly of the Pennsylvania and West Virginia Railway, now abandoned.

There was a sign along the path denoting the site of acid mine drainage.

The area today known as Mt Washington was originally known as Coal Hill, and was the birthplace of the bituminous coal industry. We made our way around to the east and came down to Shaler Street. Another trail had gone left, and the Emerald View Trail continued across I guess, but we turned to the right on Shaler Street.
We crossed a bridge over Rt 19/Sawmill Run Blvd, and had a view to the east of a trestle on the former Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal Railroad, and then we turned right on Wabash Street.

We followed the road to the end, and then there was a pedestrian bridge over the Saw Mill Creek that had signs for customers only, and fence work made to keep most anyone but pedestrian out. We crossed it anyway. Almost overhead was the abandoned trestle we had seen earlier from the former West Virginia and Pennsylvania Railway.

We continued west on Woodville Ave, and then reached the intersection with Greentree Road. There was something on google maps called China Street with basically nothing but some foundations or something, so we went to check it out.
My plan was to go from here onto a road called Kearns Street, which becomes abandoned and is now a trail, and then head out ot the Wabash part of Pittsburgh to stay the night in one of the hotels in that area, but I noticed that the railraod track seems to disappear in that area. I assumed there would be a tunnel up in that area. Despite having some reservations about trying to use this, it turned out to be an interesting route we couldn't ignore.
At the end of the "China Street", there was a set of concrete steps. The google maps made it look like it was only a tiny distance to the tracks from here, but it was incredibly steep with a whole lot of abandoned concrete steps.
The steps used to climb up the slope and cross over the Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal Railway on a foot bridge that is now long gone, and then climb up probably to Journal Street, but possibly also to Junius Street which used to be a through route but no longer is today.
Climbing these steps was no easy task. Some sections were very easy and in good shape, but others were missing the walkway sections entirely. We had to walk on the narrow footings for each area of steps. Because I saw the fate of some of the other steps, those with nothing beneath them left me inclined to stand only atop the footings anyway. They could likely break at any time.

All of these stair systems are locally known as "City Stairs". There wasn't good public transportation between top and bottom of these hills except along the big rivers where the funiculars were, and so the stairways were used by workers in order to get to the mills where they were employed.
Near the top, when we got to the same level as the tracks, there was a fallen telegraph pole with some good intact insulators on them. I think I grabbed at least one. I also went to the top of the old bridge abutment where it would have gone over the tracks, and I could see the walkway complete with a metal hand railing still in existence on the other side.
We had a break here at the top, and then began following the tracks to the west.
My suspicion about their being a tunnel was correct. We soon came upon the Greentree Tunnel, built in 1903 for the Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal Rail. At 4,225 feet long, this active tunnel was longer than the Oxford Tunnel, which is usually my personal gauge for a really damn long tunnel.
This one was of course not full of water, but it was active. There was plenty of room to get to the side if a train had come, but still I wanted to get through pretty quickly.
The tunnel had stalagmites of mud on the floor, which was pretty cool.
The other side is the approach to the Rook Yard in Greentree. The yard is named for Charles Alexander Rook, who was publisher of the Pittsburgh Dispatch Newspaper. He helped to ease the lobbying of the Pennsylvania Railroad against the Jay Gould railroad plan, which materialized as the Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal Railroad.

A little ways out the west portal, we were able to bushwhack up to the right ot get out to Mansfield Drive, which was close enough to the Doubletree by Hilton. 

We made our way uphill a bit and to the hotel and booked a room for the night.

I seem to recall we ordered pizza or something while we were there. There was no hotel restaurant, and with the pandemic crap ramping back up again, it was probably not going to be open if there was one.

DAY 2

I woke up early as I always do on these long trips, but unfortunately on this one there was no continental breakfast. All of these places at this time opt out and probably save a ton of money by simply offering a really crummy bag deal. The paper bag is sealed and would usually have an apple, a pastry, maybe a fruit bar or something, and some sort of juice container.

I thought to walk down the end of the parking area and bushwhack to the next little business lot, but it was too steep and full of thorns, so we headed down the road. I took a shortcut on the switchback of it a bit and Jillane went around.

We then headed to the west on Mansfield Drive. We followed this to Noblestown Road where there was an old bank repurposed as something else, and the entrance to the Chartier's Cemetery of East Carnegie.

The entrance gate stone work read that it was established in 1861, but we observed grave stones older than that. Either the cemetery is actually an older burying ground before 1861, or some of the older graves were relocated. I couldn't initially find anything on it.

We walked to the top of the hill in the cemetery. I got to the very height of the land and got a nice view out to the west. We followed the cemetery roads to the east and then descended back toward Noblestown Road to cut out to the road again.

We ended up in a bit of a situation here because there was no way out of the corner of the fence. There was a fence that wasn't all that high, but it was a pain to get over with the full size packs. I didn't have the tent with me because we'd be doing hotel nights, but I still had a pretty full load in my regular backpacking pack.

We got over it eventually, and then continued on along Noblestown Road downhill and into the middle of the town of Carnegie PA, incorporated in 1894.
This town was once home to coal mines and steel workers. It was named for Andrew Carnegie after he donated one of his famed libraries to the town.

The town was really pretty cool; it had plenty of historic old buildings sometimes adorned with old painted advertisements

It had an old church, formerly a Presbyterian Church, and now the Attawheed Islamic Center.

We walked down Main Street through the town, then reached the Chartiers Creek bridge, which had tracks along it that we walked up to Mansfield Street, and then back down the other side back to Main I think it was. We then continued west a bit more and I think it was the Carnegie Mini Mart for drinks and snacks before moving on.

Across Main Street was the old Pennsylvania Railroad Panhandle Line, and this would be the subject of our hiking for the remainder of Pennsylvania.

The Panhandle line opened between Pittsburgh PA and Steubensville Ohio in 1865. It later became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system with double track. Although it was a very busy line, it was scaled back and abandoned in segments. It was abandoned to Burgettstown in 1991, and to points east of there in 1995. There is still the segment just to the west of Carnegie to Walker's Mill with rails still in place, but that reportedly has not seen any traffic since 2017. The first section of trail opened up on the line in 2000.

I had thought that we might not get on it for the first bit, and have to follow parallel roads, but we were able to get on it pretty well.
The first bit was clear and easy. We followed it parallel with Main Street and across the intersection with Prestley Street where an abandoned spur came in from a business on the left, across Main Street and Robinson Run on a bridge on the other side. A utility pipe crossed an an adjacent separate bridge.

We continued as the line turned away from Main Street, and there were good ATV paths along the right side of it for walking. We then moved on ahead and passed beneath the Raymond B. Shafer Highway bridges. There was a memorial off the tracks to the right for someone named Tyler.

We crossed Robinson Run again just ahead, and there was a chain link fence blocking the railroad. It was cut open which made it easy for us to just walk on through.

We passed through some woods on a shelf, went under a bridge beneath Noblestown Road, and then crossed Dorrington Road in Ewingsville PA 

We moved ahead past former industrial spur sites and reached yet another bridge over the Robinson Run. This one was a bit more difficult to go through. There were holes in the chain link fences that blocked either side, but they were a little harder to notice without being right up at them.
A little ways ahead of that last crossing it got very badly overgrown. We had to bully through the weeds on the tracks worse than anywhere before, and they went up onto a bit of a fill. I recall we got off of the tracks altogether at one point and had to parallel.
There was a giant rock outcrop to the left of the tracks as we reached Walkers Mill area. A house was on the right that had extended its yard up over the tracks, so we had to dip down there anyway. 

Near the rock outcrop, the railroad bed became the driveway to the private home, which might have had something to do with an adjacent hunting club. I wanted to get out of there rather quickly.
We walked the road out to Walkers Mill Road, beyond which the Panhandle Trail officially starts.
Walkers Mill apparently was once a station stop, but I have no photos to show what it might have looked like. 

There were a lot of people on this trail right away. The line had been double tracked, and the one track bed was now the crushed stone surface trail, but the other part was just a mowed grassy area. We crossed Robinson Run again on a bridge ahead, and then some former quarries lined the right side, in nice mowed areas with picnic benches. One of them had a great seating area and an impressive fire pit. There were stones from quarry blasts I assume that had names etched in them and dates including from 1928.
The Robinson Run was beside the south side of the rail bed and had some lovely spots with rocky cliffs.

There were other trails south of the railroad bed that ran parallel with the Robinson Run on the other side, and foot bridge across near an access point. We crossed Robinson Run again near the town of Rennerdale, and then again a short distance after that. We then left the park area, and the Robinson Run again in a more sparsely wooded area. This was once the area of a former Nike Missile base, and I understand there is now a road across in the area called Nike Site Road.

The rail bed turned into where both track beds were now trail. There was a new development going in to the left, and a paved side trail under development up to it.

The rail bed went into a cut ahead of here. On this line, there were several tunnels, but many of them were eliminated. 

• Tunnel No. 7 at Bowerston
• Tunnel No. 6 at Fairplay
• Tunnel No. 5 at Broadacre
• Tunnel No. 4 at Reeds Mill

There has been some question as to which tunnels were daylighted or how they were eliminated. Apparently tunnels 4 through 7 were in Ohio, but the others were in Pennsylvania. I know where some of them, but not all of them were.

Primrose Station

Those tunnels in Ohio were bypassed but still exist, but it makes sense that the same would have been done in Pennsylvania. What I read about it was that they were daylighted, but I'm not so sure. After posted the photos from this trip on the Metrotrails facebook page, Mark Petrishen sent me messages saying he felt the Pennsylvania tunnels might still exist. He may just be right. This spot could possibly have been one, but it wasn't all that deep.
The next little settlement was Gregg Station. Barely a couple of houses, and a grade crossing at Gregg Station Road. There was a spot near here for a former overpass, only abutments remaining.
We passed some sheep grazing, an abandoned house in a field, and what looked like a bituminous coal operation now overgrown to our left. We crossed Robinson Run yet again, and then reached the town of Oakdale. 

Oakdale was once home to a major TNT factory during World War I. The Aetna Chemical Plant in Oakdale exploded in 1918 and killed at least two hundred workers.
We took a little break at a pavilion sort of thing without a roof along the Robinson Run. Halecon Brewing was across the street, and so while Jillane took a break, I went over to see what kind of stuff they offered. It was actually all low ABV stuff so I wasn't interested in getting anything and headed back out.
The Robinson Run was much smaller in this area as we headed west, and it ran close to the north side of the rail bed. It crossed under us to the south side, then back to the north side again at Noblestown, almost the same town as Oakdale as it was almost seamless. 

Next, we entered the settlement of Sturgeon. After we crossed Station Road, we headed west and walked into the sunset. We crossed Laurel Hill Road before reaching the town of McDonald where we would be staying the night. Somewhere in this area, the trail became paved.

McDonald is named for native American trade agent John McDonald, who founded a trading post at the site in 1775.

The western Pennsylvania town was a stop on the Panhandle Line, with the station stop built here in 1865. The town grew around the railroad, and around the oil industry that began growing in 1889.

The oil began to dwindle by 1897, and shift to bituminous coal mining began around 1897.

At the parking lot was a replica of the Wilson Hill Covered Bridge, which the trail goes through, but the bridge doesn't span anything at all.

The original Wilson Mill bridge, a Kingpost truss built in 1889, was moved from the Wilson family farm in 1978 when the area was to be flooded for Cross Creek Lake. The bridge was vandalized and fire damaged in 2002, and was dismantled. It was considered too far gone to restore, so this replica was built in McDonald.

The station used to stand  in this area, but is of course now long gone. 
We walked to the right down McDonald Street into town, which was originally called Havelock Village.

Early in the trip, even when we were leaving Pittsburgh, I had to try to figure out how to book a room for the night in McDonald. Literally the only lodging available anywhere on the entire Panhandle Trail was the Caldwell House bed and breakfast.

Although it reads both "hotel" and "Bed and Breakfast" in different places, it's more like a hostel with separate rooms and shared restrooms.

The original hotel, reportedly built in the 1870s, burned to the ground after 1910 and carried names such as Hotel Harvey and Hotel Valentour. The hotel was rebuilt to almost the same specifications in brick, and became Pitt Hotel.

Today, the building retains historic ambiance and serves travelers as well as long term residents. The street level restaurant is named Valentour's after one of the early incarnations.

This place was weird. There was some sort of private agency that was taking phone calls for it, and they sent me some sort of link to reserve online the room for the night. I went through the steps to get a confirmation for the room and it just seemed like a weird process for it being the only available lodging.

When we actually arrived at the place, the inside was very nice, but the folks we saw around there were not the trail type. It seemed like everyone was basically just living there. They had a few rooms in a row that were rented out for the night for visitors, and a couple of bathrooms were shared with the rest of the building.

When we got our room key, none of it was made up. In fact, it looked like someone had just left the room as it was a shambles. So the first impression here was that it was perhaps the seediest place we'd ever stayed.

Fortunately, we found the live in caretaker for the building. He was really cool and came down with fresh linens for the bed. Jillane went and used the bathroom and shower, and I helped him make up the bed, and then chatted with him for a while. He explained that he lived there when the current owners took over the place, they were told that he comes with the building and they'd be happy he was there because he takes care of things. I wish I could remember his name. Really nice guy, originally from the area and a wealth of knowledge. As are most people I engage with, he was very interested in the journey we'd taken across the state, and that we literally only had one day left walking to finish Pennsylvania.

We headed out from there to find some dinner, and I think we went to McDonald Pizza just up the street and to the right on Noblestown Road. We had a good sit down dinner and I think we walked up the street the opposite way a bit. We then went south and we stopped at some stores to get some supplies for the morning and the next day.

It really wasn't a very comfortable night sleeping. I got up early and went around getting some history then and now compilations that I've included here.

DAY 3

We geared up and started heading back up the street to the railroad bed west a little later than we should have considering the distance it was to the next hotel, but it would be okay.

The town of McDonald once had two stations, for both east and westbound passengers and such. The old Coal Supply Co building is still standing adjacent to where the westbound station was, but no station.

Not far outside of the main town of McDonald to the west was the massive McDonald Viaduct of the Montour Railroad passing overhead.

This route is now a trail known as the Montour Trail and connects from the Ohio River west of Pittsburgh to the Monongahela River near the confluence of the Youghiogheny and McKeesport on the Great Allegheny Passage. It's another of the rail trails on my list to do.

It was chartered in 1877, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Imperial Coal Company. It broke away from the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad at Caraopolis PA. In 1901 it was taken over by the Pittsburgh Coal Company and major expansion occurred in 1912. By 1914 it reached several other coal mines and out to the Monongahela River.

The height of its operations was in the 1930s when the 27 miles it served produced over seven million tons of coal annually. The line had fifteen stations and offered passenger service until 1927.

The line was sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad and Pittsburgh and Lake Erie in 1946 and operated it jointly until the P&LE took it over solely in 1975.

Like most rail lines, there was a slow decline to this point, and by the 50s most of the coal had been worked out. The line remained in service until 1984.

In the 1990s, the first segments were acquired for the construction of the Montour Trail.

There was a connection to the Pennsylvania Railroad beyond the McDonald Viaduct, and it is also now a connecting trail, but we didn't follow that this time. Hopefully we'll get back to it one day.

A little past the McDonald Viaduct was the all new Southern Beltway Bridges, a new major limited access highway. It was not yet open, but it did open soon after we passed over it. For one day, just after completion, it was open for walking and biking. Unfortunately we didn't get to head out to do it, although I figured out a loop that would have worked for it.

Bulger Station

We continued west past the construction site on the new highway, past "Junction Station" kiosk where Montour Trail made connection, and then went through a sparsely wooded area where we passed beneath Noblestown Road and passed an old coal mining area to the left. There was some sort of ruin out in the weeds. Signs read "covid19 plan in effect" but nothing other than the metal sign denoting this was in place, so who knows what they meant.

We soon reached the little town of Midway PA where we were up on a bit of a fill. I saw some businesses below the railroad bed but we apparently didn't need anything at this point. There were also some footings to my left that I figure might have once been part of a station platform.

We crossed over St John Street and Prospect Street on bridges, followed by the Robinson Run for the last time as it begins in fields to the north. We then passed over a very wide open former mining area with expansive views in all directions. This was probably reaching the summit point of the entire branch before coming to the Ohio River, but I'm not totally sure.

We passed through a scenic spot and then descended to the little settlement of Bulger.

After passing by the Bulger trail head, and on the way to the next settlement of Joffre, we passed through a deep cut that I understand was one of the tunnels. This one looks to have been daylighted because I don't see anything in aerials to show that it was simply bypassed.

We continued to the west through Joffre, and there wasn't much to see. We then meandered on in to Burgettstown, which was a more substantial community.

At this stop, we had at least a handsome old station. It was now an ice cream shop, and so we stopped to get some and had a little break.

I'm not sure if really any of the station is original, but the signage seems to claim that many of the original timbers were used for the reconstruction of the old station, which had gotten to be in bad shape.

After our break, we continued to the west, and there were some big brick ruins off the trail in the weeds.

We soon passed through a very deep cut that was definitely one of the tunnels that was either daylighted or bypassed. Aerials seem to show a very deep cut to the north, which might have been a tunnel area, but might also have been a strip mine. I'm not sure.

After this location we began to follow the valley of the Harmon Creek, and would do so the remainder of the distance.

We continued west to the Bertha Road trail head with more parking, then passed through Dinsmore. The railroad bed went onto a large shelf in the areas ahead, and the east and westbound track separated substantially. The one to the left was still paved, but the one to the right, which went the same place, was actually not developed at all, so we chose to follow that. It was a great choice because this other route had great views out into the valley of the Haron Creek and confluence of Ward Run.

We continued on this, and eventually it came back to the other right of way. There was a path down to the right, which led out toward another right of way below. I thought maybe it was an earlier alignment of what we were following, but I'm more inclined to think that it was a spur, because it appears to go north to likely an old mining area out of this valley.

The next point of interest was the site of Hanlin Station. Steps still existed up to the road, which we went over. The spur line bridge site was still visible to the north, down from us, with the wooden footings of the bridge new in use.

The steps for the platform of Hanlin Station itself were also along the trail there.

It was getting dark really fast. I'd had a plan that we would walk uphill when we got to West Virginia to a hotel near the border, but we'd have to be sure we had enough light to do it otherwise I was a bit concerned about it. 

The rail bed and Harmon Creek came closer to the same elevation and it got very pretty. We crossed it, and then crossed it again, and remained somewhat closet to it as we approached the West Virginia border.

It was a really warm day; I was in shorts and a tee shirt until the sun really started going down and it got cooler.

We crossed Harmon Creek once more just before Creek Lane Road, the last road crossing in Pennsylvania.

It was already mostly dark by the time we got to the state line, at another crossing of the Harmon Creek. There was a nice sign denoting the entry to Washington County PA, and Jillane found some sticks and grass to ceremonially burn. 

Just past this site was an old railroad marker and picnic bench denoting the two counties and entering West Virginia. 

This was a pretty special moment. We just finished walking the entire length of Pennsylvania, and both of us had done it (actually Jillane is missing like two miles within Pittsburgh, but we'll get to that). 

Although we made it to this point, we weren't done for the day. We had to figure out where we were going to stay for the night, so we had to continue into West Virginia.

This wasn't four first time touching West Virginia. We had reached it on our Cumberland backpack, but only did a tiny bit there. It didn't really link to a trail that led us anywhere into that state at that point.

I was glad that the West Virginia side was not paved like Pennsylvania. It felt more rustic. They did have one of those stupid signs telling us to wear a mask outside, but no one in this area ever followed that for sure.

We wallked on through the little village of Colliers along the creek, crossed the creek and road, and headed west.

A road called Thompson Hill Road used to continue through to the north and to the Holiday Inn of Weirton, but I was worried about getting through in the dark, and also didn't want to head uphill. If we continued to the west, we would be able to get to downtown Weirton where google maps showed that there was a motel. 

We passed beneath Colliers Way which would have been our road connection, and just went west. 

The sound of the creek was really nice passing through here, and the light of the moon provided enough to cast a shadow. There was an abandoned spur bridge over the creek to the left we saw before we got to the last trail parking on the entire trail westbound. Eventually it'll continue through as this is part of the Great American Rail Trail, but it's a ways off before completion.

We continued on under a large signal bridge with "Panhandle Trail" hanging on a sign from it. The trail did continue beyond to the west of this point, but even google maps did not show it going through.

I wans't going to worry about that at this point. We would get through one way or another.
We continued on the trail ahead, beneath Rt 22 and its exit lanes,  with Harmon Creek on our right, and the light of homes and businesses along the way making it lit up enough to see.
There was a sign for the end of the trail, and some sort of a fence, but we went right on through. This led us out to the active railroad yard, with some ambient light shining all around.

A through truss bridge fitted with a walkway looked like it was probably once across the Harmon Creek, but was now laying along the rail bed.
There was a nice new blue through truss bridge over the creek to the right, just along the edge of the rail yard. It looked like if we could just get across that, we would be in the town of Weirton.
There was a building to the left with bright lights and definitely cars parked, so we had to hurry over as not to be seen. It was dark, but still we wanted to get out of there.
We followed the tracks beyond the bridge out to Cove Road in Weirton, and it was a relief.

The town was all decked out for the Christmas season, and we walked along the Cove Road to the Municipal Plaza drive which brought us out near the library and Main Street.

We continued down the Main Street, found an old phone booth still working, and looked for a motel to stay the night in.
We made our way to a road to the right called Freedom Way, but the motel that was showing on Google Maps was closed indefinitely. In fact, Jillane went in, and it looked like it had been taken over by homeless people, and was a complete wreck.
We should have gone on up Thompson Hill like I was originally planning, because then at least we'd have something to jump off from, and maybe walk the next day, but it was too late to go back to that at this point. We had come too far beyond it.
I checked google street view, and it looked like there was no walkway over the Rt 22 bridge over the Ohio River. It was narrow and busy, and it would have been pretty dangerous for us to attempt to walk any of that.
The only other option, which we also should have taken, was the still active Panhandle Railroad bridge. It doesn't see that much traffic, but we didn't know it at the time.
Weirton was once a major industrial city. It started out with modest roots in the 1700 as Holliday's Cove. It was the site of Fort in 1774 constructed by soldiers from Pittsburgh's Fort Pitt. The area grew with an iron furnace early on, and more industry to follow culminating in the Weirton Steel Company. By 1940, it was the largest unincorporated city in America.
The Weir Cove area and other communities merged to form the City of Weirton soon after.

Jillane was actually for trying to cross the Panhandle Bridge. I found out later that people walk it all the time, and that we should have done it because there was a hotel right on the other side, but I was being a wimp about it. Instead, I got hold of a taxi service that would come and pick us up.
Jillane wandered around and checked out some abandoned buildings, and then we both got some Burger King which was right on the corner.
We got a taxi back to Pittsburgh and spent one more night out there to finish off the trip.

It was great to finally finish our walk across the entire state of PA, but little did we know that both of our lives were going to change drastically, and very soon.