Hike #1441; Ohiopyle/Connelsville/Dunbar

Hike #1441: 9/25-9/26/21 Ohiopyle/Connelsville/Dunbar with Jennifer Tull, Professor John DiFiore, Kirk Rohn, Jillane Becker, and Everen.

This next hike would be one that I had looked forward to immensely, finally getting back to the Great Allegheny Passage to connect where I had left off in the Summer of 2020.

It felt like the timing had been perfect. My son was born, and right on time where there was this immense world of stroller-able hikes top on my priority list to do.

I wanted to try to do the trail in consecutive order; I had already connected to Cumberland on other hikes at the east end of the Allegheny Passage, but I still figured I wanted to go west to east.

For this one however, it seemed to make more sense to go from Ohiopyle to Connellsville rather than continuing eastbound as we did before, because we could literally finish at the hotel rather than have to drive anywhere at the end.

I would have preferred to do two days in a row on the Great Allegheny Passage, but I also saw that there was another rail trail called the Sheepskin Trail that went south from Connellsville, although not all that far, and I would like to do that as well.

I went into this planning to do at least the missing segment between the two towns, but if I was able to do the Sheepskin Trail as well, all the better.

I didn't expect a huge group to sign up for it, and I'm glad those who signed up for it did so. I look at my regular hiking friends like extended family, and since my son has been born, have pictured all of them in some sort of aunt or uncle type of capacity with him. It actually seemed to pan out quite like I had thought it would, and assume it will probably be similarly so in the future.

We stayed over in Connellsville the night before, at the Comfort Inn literally right on the trail. That would be the meeting and end point of the first day. We then shuttled to the start in Ohiopyle State Park in John's car, which held all of us and the jogger stroller.

We parked near the intersection of Main Street and Sugarloaf Road to start the hike. This was just a bit south of the Great Allegheny Passage rather than right on it. I wanted to see the Ohiopyle Falls and some of the trail along the river at the start.

We went through a tunnel under the road, and then out along the Youghiogheny River, which is just incredibly beautiful. 

The trail had an impressive set of transportation interpretation signs with sculptures of the modes of transportation along the edges.
It started with foot traffic and trail breaking, then wagon trade and the old national road, then went to railroads, followed by the revival of the National Road by motorists. 

Lots of signs were all over the area with more information than I could read at once, out to the river and the beautiful view of the Ohiopyle Falls. 

There was a great observation platform there, and not terribly too many people walking around at this time. Just beyond, there was the enormous stump of what had been a monster of a tree. In this area, the pedestrian bridge on the old rail bridge piers came into view just upstream.

It was a bit confusing at the start of this hike, as we were walking upstream on the Youghiogheny, but we were supposed to be following it downstream. We would in fact be doing so after getting on the railroad bed, but at the state park area the river makes very dramatic bends, and our start point was just out of the way of the rail bed.

We headed over to the Falls Market I think it was before getting onto the trail heading west, because we would literally not be passing anything else for the entire hike. Until we got to Connellsville, we would not be crossing a single road at all. So that would be over twelve miles of deep woods, one of the most secluded sections of rail trail in Pennsylvania.

I think I got chocolate milk and some snacks and such, and stuff for Jillane, and then we headed over to the ramp up to the railroad bed and old Ohiopyle Station, which is now a visitor center.

The name of the settlement comes from a Lenape native American word "ahi opehele" which means "it turns very white", referring to the waters of the Youghiogheny.

Of course, the Lenape were not the native tribe to the area. They were from further east, and were the ones that inhabited where we all in our group had lived. What had happened was these tribes were forced further west due to colonization, and so remnants of many tribes inhabited the area. Just prior to European settlement, the area was inhabited by the Monongahela tribe, a mound builder culture that disappeared under circumstances I am not sure of. Most native Americans had left the area of Ohiopyle by the French and Indian War.

Interestingly, King George III, regarded as the great villain behind the American Revolution, in 1763 declared all of the lands in and around Ohiopyle an "Indian Reserve", and ordered that all colonists must leave. The colonists refused to leave, and King George III was forced to purchase the land from the Iroquois in 1768.

Both Pennsylvania and Virginia laid claim to the lands, a dispute that was not settled until 1784.

The Youghiogheny River was important from exploration on to the development of trade as a passage to the west. At first, lumber and such could be transported via the river, but then the valleys were the passages for roads and railroads.

The first railroad to arrive in Ohiopyle was the Baltimore and Ohio, completed to the town in 1871.
This line is still the active Capital Limited line, and basically parallels the trail the entire length. On the last trip, we were almost never out of earshot of a train, which went by across the river frequently, all the way from Pittsburgh.

The Great Allegheny Passage up to Connellsville followed several different routes, but for much of the distance it was on the former Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, known as the "Little Giant" because it carried so much coal and coke despite it being a relatively short line.

The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie ended in Connellsville, and from there the Western Maryland Railroad continued. The GAP trail follows the Western Maryland pretty much the entire way from Connellsville to Cumberland.

For more details on the history of the rails on the western portion of the Great Allegheny Passage, refer to the journal entry for Hike #1342 where we hiked from Pittsburgh to Connellsville.

Western Maryland Railroad was rather late in its arrival to Ohiopyle: 1914. It was a direct competitor to the Baltimore and Ohio. Eventually, as rail lines everywhere were having mergers, the Western Maryland became part of the Baltimore and Ohio, and it was abandoned in 1975. It became part of the trail in 2006.

We made our way up and past the station, and then onto the pedestrian bridge occupying the piers to the old rail bridge. It provided us with splendid views of the Youghiogheny both up and downstream. 

There was a little loop trail that broke off on the other side of the bridge and went along the slopes of the Youghiogheny, in what is known as the Firncliff Peninsula. It's only just over a mile and a half long and I'd love to do it one day, but we opted not to bother with that this time.

We passed a parking area to the right just ahead, and that is close to the southern end of the Laurel Highlands Trail, which is another I've been dying to do.

The surfacing on the trail through this area was perfect, way better than the sections I'd already done. I suppose it is because it is so close to parking and popular areas.

Soon, we reached the Ohiopyle High Bridge. This was actually a railroad bridge left in place, with ties still under the boards of the trail. The deck girder structure took us high above the Youghiogheny again, and provided awesome views of the rocky river below.

Beyond, we made our way into some rather deep woods, usually on a shelf above the Youghiogheny, but sometimes on a fill where a stream came down, or through a cut around corners. The mile markers were like we had seen last time, a rather expensive looking stone material with routed numbers in them. 

Near mile 75 of the trail, we passed a rock outcrop with layers of coal in it. This area was still full of bituminous coal mines like the areas we had previously passed through. 

A little further ahead, we passed School House Rock, where there were some climbers roped up and enjoying the day in their own way.

There were other people going by with their children towed by bicycles in weird carrier things as we went by. We were certainly the only ones pushing one this distance, and I like it. 
To me, bicycles are great, but I miss far too much. Distance just blows away, and sure I could stop to see things, but the inclination to do so when I have inertia I recognize is not there. I don't want to get dismissive of what could be a cool stop, and I further think that the mind is sort of wired to interpret the world at the pace one can travel by foot. I credit my knowledge and ability to retain it in part by the fact that I interpret so much of the world at this rate of speed.

I wasn't expecting to find any access or road crossings, but we did find one unpaved access where we crossed Brunner Run, which was a take out for boaters on the river. We took a little break at a bench there.

The railroad bed was high above the river much of the time, and we came to one point where it was washed out and the trail had to go around to the left. There was a utility line crossing there, and we were provided with some nice views up and down the river at either end of the spot.

There was one other access I was not expecting to see with anything developed on the river. That was the Christians for Camp Carmel facility. There were a couple of buildings to the right, and someone operating a chainsaw. We were by the entire place in short order, but it was just a surprise to see anything.

Around mile 80 on the trail, we came down closer to the river again, which was quite nice. Or the river stoppped losing elevation as much. We could hear the people in their boats going downstream, and heard the funny interactions of friends complaining to one another.

John and I went down to the river at a path in this area for a dip in the river. It was getting kind of late season for swimming, so of course only the two of us went in, but it felt great. The Youghiogheny is really the perfect river, so any opportunity to swim in it I have to take.

The little streams that flow into the river often have waterfalls on them, but on this stretch the majority were inaccessible. 

The one of them that we did get to see was Great Passage Falls, which is just south of Connellsville. This one was a sort of rock overhang with abundant springs flower over its top.

We had a second cascade of acid mine runoff before reaching the outskirts of town also, which is always interesting to see.
Before we reached the long bridge toward Connellsville over the Dunbar Creek, we reached the former site of Bowest Junction, where a spur of the Western Maryland went down to a yard. This is now the route of the Sheepskin Trail.

From here, we got on the bridge over Dunbar Creek known as the Bowest Bridge, which also crossed other rail branches, some abandoned but the still active former Baltimore and Ohio to Dunbar is still there. Another branch of the B&O was a branch to the Bitner Mines and coke ovens to the west. The far end of the bridge was once passed under by the Pennsylvania Railroad, which continued south to the Watt Transfer, Bowest Yard, and then on to Dunbar and beyond. It was known as the Southwest Branch.
The bridge started as a through truss. It was double track wide because the Western Maryland built the bridges for widening should the need for it arise, but that never materialized. The bridge shifted from through truss to deck girder ahead of there. 

The rail lines beneath served a power plant owned by West Penn Power that is now long gone, but the electric substations remain in place and in view from the bridge. 

We continued along the rail grade to the west, on a high shelf with a steep cliff to the left. It was almost like we weren't in close proximity to the town above because it was not visible.

In this odd cliffside section, we came upon a very nice Mayhaw tree with big fruit on it. I didn't realize they were really all over the place and I had seen them before, but Jillane spotted this one and we decided to try one. They were quite good actually.

The Mayhaw bears a fruit in Spring that resembles a cherry or Cranberry, but tastes like a tart apple.
It is rare to find such a tree so far north as the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania, as their regular habitat is southern United States. The only places we'd have found them would otherwise have been where they were planted, and there are definitely examples of it I would notice more in the future.
The species is in the Hawthorn family, and is known for making good jams, jellies, and wines.

As we got closer to downtown Connellsville, the trail became paved and turned off of the railroad bed to the right, and one would not have noticed the transition because it was still level. We stayed close to the Youghiogheny and skirted a chain link fence, while the Western Maryland went into town through where the chain link fence was, and then was just barely to the west of 7th Street as it continued north. The railroad passed over Connellsville on a high trestle that has almost been completely obliterated, some for some of the piers. Some of them actually serve as storefronts.

There was a lot of art work on towers and structures and stuff of the industrial areas to the left as we walked into downtown Connellsville.

The trail took us out to and across 1st Street, and then had a walkway established along 3rd Street heading north. 
There was a lot more art through the town as we passed through. The sectioned off trail at the south side of 3rd Street kind of ended, and the trail continued to follow along the street as we headed to the north. This took us directly to the Comfort Inn where we finished. 

I still hadn't' walked the tiny little bit of the Great Allegheny Passage between this point and where we had come into town the last time here, and I would have walked it at this moment, but we already established that we would be hiking it the next day. We shuttled cars and the others went out to dinner while Jillane and I stayed in at the hotel.

Across from the hotel we stayed in, the last time time we had been out there, there was a handsome old brick building across the street that looked to have been abandoned for some time.

It was so sad to see that the very unique and beautiful building was reduced to a pole of rubble as we looked at the site. I did a then and now compilation of this, and despite it only being a year apart, it looks just so much different.
I could picture this old place turning into a bed and breakfast, even if the hotel owned it to use for higher end customers. It's just such a shame that this piece of nice ambiance is gone.

The next morning, we woke up and had shuttled John's car out to the Laurel Mall to the south. Jillane had wanted to go shopping there, and so I would hike with the others to that point where they could just go, and Jillane could pick the baby and I up later. It worked out perfectly.

We turned from the hotel the next morning under the Rt 119 bridge, and past a spot where there was a bridge pier in the Youghiogheny. I assume that this was the pier that carried the bridge of the Pennsylvania Railroad when it used to cross the river in this vicinity.

We continued here on paved path through Yough River Park, and came to a mockup of an old cabin. This was on or close to the site of Braddock's twelfth camp on the Youghiogheny River.
British Major General Edward Braddock camped here in June 1755 enroute to Fort Duquesne (today's Pittsburgh), accompanied by militia and his then aide, George Washington.
They were defeated and Braddock was mortally wounded.

Just ahead, we passed beneath the former Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway bridge over the Youghiogheny. The bridge is abandoned, and looked quite impressive. I had to see it.
John and I were the only ones that climbed up to the one side to have a good look while Jenny stayed with Everen with the stroller below.

John and I walked all the way across the bridge and back, then climbed back down to continue walking the passage to the west a bit further. 

The trail made its way gradually up to the old Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad bed, at the shelters for trail users where we had come out on the previous trip out there.

From here, my goal was try to follow the former route of the P&LE to the south and through town where it used to go. I knew there was a handsome old station still standing there, and I didn't at the time full understand why the Great Allegheny Passage didn't use the railroad. I hadn't heard about the elevated line yet. 
I was surprised to see that there was an old caboose parked up on the upper railroad bed. I think I heard somewhere that it was a trail center or something that was set up earlier before the trail was completed through the area it is now. It's just kind of a sad thing out in the weeds now, all out of the way.

The level that the Pittsburgh and West Virginia joined with the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie was the same. We walked beyond the camping area and onto a fill parallel with the Martin's supermarket and parking lot. I had to push the stroller down an odd slope after a while from it, and then carefully let it down over a steeper spot because it was getting just a little too steep. It was then that I realized that this was once a very long and serious trestle. 
This is the one that a couple of the piers still remain (bottom sections of metal stanchions are also still in place as of this trip, because I noted those as well), and the arches of the supports in at least one case is being used as a store front.

Abandonment in this area started around 1975, and the trestle was chiseled away piece by piece until the last upper section of it was removed in 2003-4.

We made our way down to the old train station, which really can throw a person off because it makes it look like the railroad was at the same level. The railroad was actually on the bridge adjacent to the upper level of the station building.

I set up a couple of then and now history compilations here, and then we walked a couple of blocks to the west to the Sheetz. We all went in and got whatever we wanted for the rest of the day; food and drinks, and then headed to the east. Crawford Street took us right back to the Great Allegheny Passage where we had gone before. We turned right on that and retraced our steps, past the buildings with the art on some of the infrastructure, along the paved segment, and below the cliffs by the Mayhaw tree again.

We then crossed back over the long bridge that crossed over the several other railroads and branches to the other side where we came to the end of the Sheepskin Trail. We turned right to follow it.

The trail was nice, shaded and secluded at first. It made its way gradually down slope to the Bowest yard area where the active track started up again.

This entire yard, which was served by Western Maryland, Baltmore and Ohio, and Pittsburgh and West Virginia rails, was completely dismantled, but had been rebuilt by current operator, Southwest Pennsylvania Railroad, although not to quite the huge scale it once was, because of the Marcellus shale fracking industry.

The trail went right along the rails for a while, and then turned slightly left to skirt around a water treatment facility. It then turned slightly to the left. We passed beneath bridge abutments that had been for a trolley line trestle over the Bowest yard, the West Penn Railway system.

The Sheepskin Trail crossed the Dunbar Creek, then weaved around a bit in the woods close to the Dunbar Creek. It wasn't former rail bed in this area as far as I could tell.
Then, we continued north and crossed the former Baltimore and Ohio line, and reached the former Pennsylvania Railroad. I think someone had said that this branch was referred to as the Sheepskin Line.

We continued on this right of way across Dunbar Creek again, on a decked rail bridge, and then the town of Dunbar came into view to the left. Soon, we entered the town itself where there was a car show event going on in the little local town park to the right of us.

They were selling hot dogs at a little concession off to the right, which i just had to have. Kids were going for "train rides" on the railroad bed, in a train of little cars made of empty white plastic barrels, pulled in tandem by an ATV. I'm sure nothing about any of this is OSHA regulated or anything, but it was just a nice sort of rednecky type of thing to see. All of the kids were having a blast, and obviously so were the adults. 

Kirk watched Ev in the stroller while I went down to get my hot dogs. Ev doesn't like it when we stand still, and we'd come to calling him our "fit bit" because he starts fussing when we don't move. 

I saw that happening, and Kirk started just pushing him around in wide circles up along the rail bed. Watching this from a distance really filled me with joy. Kirk looked kind of stressed about the discontent of my kid, and was making this adorable effort to appease him. My mind went back to how I imagined some of my friends might deal with my son when they meet him, and Kirk really stood out in my mind as "Uncle Kirk". This was the moment that really occurred to me that my sense about how these things would probably play out was accurate.
Both Jenny and John totally fit those expectations as well; John's calm and soothing voice has a comfort about it, perhaps from years of understanding not only English but so many other languages as a professor of that field. And Jenny, like John, already had adult kids, but was now a grandmother and is totally used to how to hold and care for a baby, and just obviously has a love for it.

I came back up and consumed my hot dogs, and the others each had their own food they got. 
We continued from here and reached Bridge Street where the trail seemed to end. Across, there was a little park area along the Dunbar Creek where there was a mockup of an old coke oven.

The entire area around Dunbar was part of the Connellsville Coke region, and coke ovens were literally everywhere. This structure was reportedly made from old stock stone to build for interpretive reasons.

We walked ahead and checked out the area downtown, which had all sorts of old buildings.
To my surprise, there were still tracks going along the creek on one of these lines, which might have been the Baltimore and Ohio of the two switched places, but I'm not really sure.
The rails led directly into a bus stop shelter, which I thought was rather funny. 
Perhaps the most prominent building we saw in Dunbar was the George H. Swearingen Building.

Swearingen was among the best known residents of Dunbar, and was a merchant here since 1870.

While attending the 1893 World's Fair, his original wooden store burned down. The handsome brick building that still stands today was erected in 1901 as the replacement.

We headed out of the downtown area on Connellsville Street, and then to the intersection with Furnace Hill Road. On the right side of the intersection was a little old stone school house, and another old stone home just across from it. In the yard to the school, to my surprise, were railroad rails still in place. These somehow followed on or parallel with Furnace Hill Road into I think State Game Lands 51 where it served either mining or lumber interests, or both.

The school building was the Harper Schoolhouse, in the little settlement of Pechin, which is ust outside of Dunbar. It was built in the late 1800s, and was known as the old stone school.
The school was replaced by a larger structure, and has been used and maintained by Boy Scout Troop 180 since 1929.

To the right was Church Hill Road, where we would turn away from these railroad lines initially. 

There was a grade that seemed to go along a driveway or side road known as School Road on maps, but looked more like a disturbance in grass. This might have been what was known as the Pennsylvania Railroad Dunbar Branch. I can't be sure though. 

The line is shown on the 1900 maps of Dunbar, and it makes connections to the Pennsylvania Railroad, but it does not specify the owner for certain on that map. It was gone by the time of the 1930 USGS maps, and history books say it was gone by 1955.

It has been suggested that this line might be a short one that was known as the New Haven and Dunbar Railroad. Note that "New Haven" in this application is a settlement that was known as New Haven west of Connellsville.

Some history shared to the Metrotrails page from James Falcsik reads as follows: "The New Haven & Dunbar Railroad Company, hereinafter called the carrier, owns no physical property. The railroad operated is owned by the Dunbar Corporation, a noncarrier, and consists of a standard-gage, steam-operated switching road, located in and around Dunbar, Pa. Due to the peculiar layout of tracks, there are two main lines. The mileage consists of 2.587 miles of first main track, 0.637 mile of second main track, and 2.915 miles of yard tracks and sidings. Its roads thus embraces[sic] 6.139 miles of all tracks used but not owned."

I wonder if the branch along the creek was part of that because some sources claim it had as much as 15 miles. Whatever the case was, it definitely paralleled what we were doing.

We walked uphill on the road and passed a handsome old stone house, then turned to the left to walk through some of the Saint Aloysius Cemetery. 
Beyond the cemetery we could see Pechin Road, and the railroad grade went right beside that. 
We came to the intersection with Pechin Road and Mt Auburn Cemetery was on the right.

The rail bed went off to the south of the road, and we walked west on Pechin Road to reach yet another cemetery on the left, which we walked through a bit. The railroad once skirted the edge of it on the far side, and crossed over Pechin Road at a point where there is an access road on the west side, and into an odd piece of propert with open fields directly across. This was apparently a runout for a switchback on the other side where trails descended down toward the Bowest yard.

The area on the north side of Pechin Road was fenced and probably adorned with more different kinds of no trespassing signs than I have ever seen anywhere in one place before.

We continued on Pechin Road a bit further, down a hill a bit over a stream, and then back up the other side to reach the east end of the Fayette County Fairgrounds. We turned to the right into the grounds on a gravel road and started following that to the west. I was way ahead of the rest of the group, and pushed the stroller to the height of the land where there was a rather splendid view.

There was some sort of event going on in the fairgrounds, and we walked gradually down hill toward it, but parallel with Pechin Road.

We turned to the left from the fairgrounds when we were almost across from a new road with nothing on it known as Sandstone Way. I could see via aerial images that it was like a development that never came to fruition. We walked down this and avoided any side road, to teh very end and a cul de sac. While the aerial images showed no buildings on the road at all, a couple of them were under construction and one might have been totally finished. What I was not expecting to find when I planned on doing this route was yet another trail.

The trail turned to the right side of the cul de sac, and had a sort of crushed stone surface. I felt very confident that this was in fact a pedestrian trail that had very recently been finished, or at least somewhat finished. We walked the trail to the right of the construction area, and then through open fields with yellow flowers like goldenrod or something. The trail skirted some of the rears of buildings and then paralleled the end of the cul de sac, and continued to the east a bit. I could see the Laurel Mall from where we got on the road, and pointed out our end point to the others. We couldn't be going out of our way only to come back to the other end of the cul de sac, which is likely what would have happened.

When I saw the proximity of where we were to what looked to be a clear farm field perimeter path, I bushwhacked the fields with the baby carried just a little bit to the south. Sure enough, that path was right where the aerial showed it should be, and it was clear.

We continued on the trail to the left, parallel with what we had just followed, and for only a short distance beyond the building that was mostly framed out but with no walls. Then, a side path led to the left, down over a small stream that could easily be forded with the stroller, and then steeply up the other side, into the parking lot at the back of the Laurel Mall. There was one building off to the right, and then some sort of super redneck version of Tractor Supply store called Rural King. Maybe it was just the day we went, but this store was loaded with absolutely enormous fat people. Not just plump people, morbidly obese folks, and straight out of the degenerate stereotype site "People of Walmart" website. It seemed kind of out of character for farmers known for their hard work to look so slovenly. Again, maybe we just caught them on a bad day.

We walked around the back of the mall at first I recall and somehow ended up in the front. We wandered down along the sidewalks and such, and then to the main mall entrance. Jillane was already inside and shopping around in the place, which is mostly set up as an odd flea market inside. Many malls have seen new life with that sort of use, and this one seemed to be doing okay.

This mall was built in the early 1970s, and was like most malls with anchors and smaller storefronts. Like other malls, these too began to disappear. Metzler left in the 80s, followed by Montgomery Ward in 2001, and Ames in 2002. Shop N Save took Ward's space until 2005 and also left.

The movie theater in the rear section was also closed.
The first flea market business to come in was at Metzlers, and today it seemed almost the entire walkable mall space, not just the stores, is flea market space, save for Rural King at the north end.
The retro environs clash with the car boot sale feel in the most strangely endearing way.
Jillane was nearby when I got there, and I went in to greet her while the others went to John's car first I guess.

A food concession straight through the front had excellent prices on hot dogs, snacks, and specials. I got some food there, although they were unfortunately out of the Italian sub special. The guy running it was really friendly, and I was nice to him.
When I went up to him, he thanked me for being so nice, and he said that I was the first person to say thank you to him all day. That left me feeling kind of sad, so I made sure he knew he was appreciated.

They all came back in to say goodbye before heading back out, and then I had a look around the very odd character of the mall before we too headed out on our way.
I believe we stayed for one more night out there, visited a drive in movie that was closed, and we took another little walk on the Great Allegheny Passage in search of the Mayhaw fruit. We then took a little trip out to the Layton Bridge further to the west where I had hiked before, to do some then and now photos of it before it gets torn down, or falls down. One or the other is inevitable.

I felt very happy to have done this couple of days. I thought it was excellent and relaxing, and was the kind of low key introduction I wanted my son to have to the group. I felt that everyone really had a pretty good time and it didn't have to be anything too crazy to be interesting.
My interest in finishing the Great Allegheny Passage only grew with this trip, to the point that I obsess over wanting to get it done.