Hike #1404; Old Womans Gap to Meadow Gap

Hike #1404: 4/3/21 Old Woman's Gap to Meadow Gap with Serious Sean Dougherty, Jennifer Berndt, Jennifer Tull, Diane Reider, Jim "Mr. Buckett" Mathews, Eric Pace, Jim Kohan, and Professor John Difiore

This next hike would be another point to point, this time the fifth in our series to do the entire Standing Stone Trail, from where we last left off in Old Womans Gap to Meadow Gap.

Compared to the previous sections we had done of this trail, this section was definitely the easiest yet. There wasn't really any bad elevation gain on it, and the most substantial was at the very beginning, climbing up out of Old Womans Gap.

We met at the end point in Meadow Gap, at a parking area for State Game Lands #81 just a little bit up the road at the end. We then shuttled with as few cars as possible back to where we had left off in Old Womans Gap. We'd have to take few cars to that location because it was very limited on parking to be down further below, near the intersection of Jacks Tower Road and Laurel Mountain Road.
I brought a can of Devil's Backbone, a crowler from my local store to sip at the start of this one.
We got to the parking area and started making our way up Old Woman Gap along the little creek, which had some nice little cascades along the way as we climbed.

We passed the old quarry operation remnants we had seen the last time up there, and the road started to level off just a little bit when we reached that height of land.

We continued up the mountain along the road to the intersection to the left where another woods road to the left continues through State Game Lands #99 near Carouthers Gap.
The trail was gated where we turned off, but it was as easy as could be. It was literally just a gravel road that continued on through woods heading west at first, then south.
This was among the most relaxing hiking I'd done in a while. The trail remained on these roads for a while, but then turned to the west just a bit more onto a foot path through woods parallel with the woods roads.

Even this was not at all bad.
The trail took us through the woods and then out a bit closer to the steeper slopes on the west side of the mountains. This provided us with some splendid little overlooks, seasonally through the trees to the west.
It was really a great little section.
Even with the rocks, it wasn't all that hard. The trail started to descend a bit, and had a few little ups and downs. I wasn't expecting it to be quite like that through this section, as we descended into Hoopers Gap.

It skirted around the left edge of the gap, went down, and came back up again with some nice stone steps and such through the section.
Jim and I moved a few branches out of the trail that had fallen.
There were a couple of knife edge rocks jutting up which added more to the scenery here.
We crossed a dry wash at the bottom of Hoopers Gap, and then cut to the left a bit. Pretty soon, the trail picked up a very old logging road and started using that to ascend.

We ascended onto another foot path a bit, and then emerged onto another game land road. This was a rather smaller one, and the ascent on this was back ot the north a bit, but gradual. I have Eric one of my Blithering Idiot barley wines which he quite liked here.

Pretty soon, we came to another intersection. This was another leg of the same state game land road we initially turned off of the Jacks Tower Road on.
We turned hard to the right and then ascended to another peak of Jacks Mountain heading south. 
It was nice and easy after we got to the top of the peak. Just a nice gradual walk down the gravel road toward Route 829 just east of the community of Saltillo.

The road had some tight switchbacks on it before we came out ot the highway, and a small spring along the edge.
We turned left on the road and gradually descended into the little village of Three Springs.
This area is named for the confluence of springs that become the Three Springs Creek.

The village first appeared in the 1870s and grew around the East Broad Top Railroad which was built through here in 1874. It served a tank farm at the site and had a small rail yard.

When we got to the middle of the settlement, we stopped for lunch at Pizza Star II, which was a nice little eatery. The food was very inexpensive and a good size serving, so I was quite happy about it.
When we finished lunch, we headed down Huston Street, the main drag, and turned right on Rio Grande Street just a little bit to check out some of the old East Broad Top Railroad, which skirts the edge of the Community Park. The Standing Stone Trail doesn't pass through the community park for some reason, but rather just stays up on Hudson Street through town. I decided walking the park would be nicer.

The very obscure but intact rails of the East Broad Top Railroad were visible through the grass of the community park when we got down there.

This is one of the oldest and best preserved narrow gauge (3 ft) railroads in America.

The East Broad Top Railroad and Coal Company operated the line from 1871 to 1956.
At its height, it operated about 60 miles of track.
It was designated a national historic landmark in 1964.
Sections of it operated as an excursion ride until 2011.
Now, sections of the line are actively being cleared for excursion service in the near future, and hopefully we'll get back out there to ride it. I would love to have the opportunity to hike the line before it's done, but not sure how realistic that is. I would only do this one with specific permission, if their group was willing to allow us to be involved.
This was one of those lines that I'd been hearing about forever. When I was little, I used to grab pamphlets for every railroad or basically every attraction all over the tri state area.

I had several of them for the East Broad Top, and the fact that it operated until 2011 and I missed it was kind of a real bummer. So I'm quite glad to hear it is coming back to service. If they get down as far as Three Springs, that would be awesome.
We walked the tracks through the community park and then came out to Elliot's Run Road. It's barely visible, the tracks go right through the back yard of a house there, and then continue through the yard heading to the east. We turned off of the tracks and got back on the official trail route on Hudson Street ahead.

To the right of the road, we could see the through girder bridge where the tracks crossed the Three Springs Creek. Then, just ahead, the tracks came back out to cross Hudson Street after obscurely making their way through another front yard.
They continued on the other side, overgrown and barely recognizable.
It was at about this point that the trail turned right to follow Meadow Gap Road uphill a bit.
We passed by a cow farm on the right, and then an abandoned house where the people are living in a trailer adjacent to it. The trail continued on Meadow Gap Road over undulating terrain.

Major Tom powered ahead of all of us high speed on the road walk sections.
At the height of land between Three Springs and Meadow Gap, we passed through some upland farms, and then descended for a while, saw more old houses, and closely paralleled the Lick Run.

We weaved around some corners with some beautiful scenery including of the Blacklog Mountain coming up ahead. Pretty soon, we crossed over the Aughwick Creek. 
On the other side, we turned right on Rt 475 and passed a goat farm.

It wasn't much farther till we reached out final turn on Locke Valley Road to the left. This dirt road led up toward the top of Blacklog Mountain, but the trail cuts in at the parking area for State Game Lands 81 well before gaining that much elevation.

I quite enjoyed this section as it was so much easer than the previous Standing Stone Trail trips, and we were getting really close to finishing this one. I was really happy that we're actually doing these series and seeing them through to completion. Some of them have a long way to go, but stuff like this had been going great.