I run away to the wilderness sometimes and you should too!
“I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature’s loveliness.”
— John Muir
Hi my name is Bridgit, I am an engineering student trying to survive in the frozen tundra that is Upstate New York. I have been running away to the wilderness since I was ten years old (just ask my terrified mother) and I never plan to stop. The outdoors is where we go to find peace to recenter ourselves and to reconnect with each other.
Last year I started having seizures and was told by the doctors that I was putting myself under too much stress. A few months later my boyfriend and I camped all over the northeast living out of his car for 10 days and my seizures stopped. Sometimes all we really need is some fresh air not a cell phone tower in sight.
With this blog I hope to encourage people to stop, hug a tree, look at some dirt, take a picture of a pretty cloud. Nature is all around you even in the most concrete of jungles, so take a second to appreciate the grass sprouting in the cracks of the sidewalk and you might just find that the world is so much bigger than your anxiety.
Processing…
Success! You're on the list.
Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.
As much as I love pushing myself to hike long distance and climb large cliffs there is something to be said for just spending time in the woods, especially in a New England fall. Coming to Pennsylvania has continued to surprise me with the natural beauty of the state and Allegheny was absolutely no exception. Most of the time we spent in the woods unplugged from technology, responsibility and most of the outside world. My kind of vacation.
We stayed at the Tracy Ridge campground which was relatively secluded despite the surrounding campsites being occupied. According to my research on the various campgrounds in the forest, Tracy Ridge is mostly empty during the week, especially in the fall.
Before going on this trip I had researched a few different hikes, and there is really no shortage of beautiful views at Allegheny, but once we got there we had very little motivation to do much more than just sit in the campground and make a few trips in to town for supplies. We did however visit the Kinzua bridge which used to be a railway bridge until it was hit by a F1 tornado 2003. It was converted into a sky walk in 2011 where you can walk out about a third of the length of the bridge and look out at the rest of the destroyed bridge in the valley.
The wreckage from Kinzau Bridge main platform
I would also recommend hiking down into the valley and getting a closer look. It is really an awesome experience and I am glad that we peeled ourselves away from the campground for this hike.
As for supplies we were sorely lacking for a fall camping excursion. At night the temperature got down to nearly freezing which none of us expected given the warm nature of this fall. We ended up having to run in to town to get more blankets which was a little tough since there aren’t a lot of large towns in the northern part of the park. The closest to Tracy Ridge is a small town called Bradford which did have a Walmart but it was a challenge to find a place for lunch there, so I would plan on bringing all of your own meals in to the park. A little bit further south there were some bigger towns but they are few and far between and the forest is so beautiful you won’t want to leave.
Last weekend was my birthday, so I
decided the best way to celebrate would be to climb some big rocks. I recently
discovered that central Pennsylvania is full of places to climb which seems to
make up for the lack of gyms around here. I always prefer climbing outside to
in a gym because it gives you a chance to be more free form with your climbs and
push your limits more than you would normally in the gym. Not to mention the
outdoors is a lot prettier and smells less like feet.
On this trip we went to donation
rocks which is only 40 minutes outside of state college and very easily accessible.
The roads to the climb are paved and while there is no paved parking there is
plenty of space to pull off and you can see the rocks from the road. The rocks
on the left side are private property and not open for climbing but the right
side has plenty of great climbs and even on a beautiful Saturday there were
only a few other groups of climbers and plenty of space for everybody.
The top of the cliff has bolted anchors which makes setting up a top rope so much easier and makes me feel less bad about hurting the trees with slings. However, I am in no way qualified to teach anyone how to set up a proper top rope and half the time I am just praying that I don’t fall and die. If you want to learn how though this is the YouTube video I used to learn.
Climb #1
We set up on two different climbs
one below the parking lot and one above. I am not quite sure which climbs that
we did since our phones didn’t have a whole lot of service and we generally prefer
to just wing it rather than climbing something specific since we likely won’t
be returning to project anything it doesn’t matter all that much what exactly
we climbed.
climb #1
The first climb below the parking lot was around a 5’7 and had some nice cracks and some very comfortable shelves that I was able to sit down on and take a break to warm my hands on my way up. It becomes a lot harder to feel around for a good grip when you can’t even feel your own fingers.
The second climb was probably around a 5’8 maybe a 5’9 and is probably one of the coolest outdoor climbs I’ve done. This climb was less of a slab than the first one but had some amazing cracks. You have to be a little careful though my boyfriend split open two of his fingers on the rock. Overall it was an awesome challenge that I wasn’t expecting from Donation.
climb #2
After we left donation with my boyfriend nursing his bleeding fingers we stopped for pizza at Snap in downtown State College and meet up with someone who told us about a building on campus that had rock walls you could traverse on and since we had our shoes with us we decided to go check it out. This was such an amazing spot leaving us all wishing that there was something like it up in Rochester. Making it an excellent end to a day of climbing.
My sister and I have this saying, “that’s not a trail that’s just a big pile of rocks” and while we thought this was an extremely apt saying while hiking along large slabs of rocks on the Vermont long trail, but it was never more appropriate than on this hike up Mt. Nittany in State College PA.
I would like to start of by saying that I normally try to stay as far away from tourist trap hike as I can. I like to go into the woods to clear my head and recharge my introvert battery. While some parts of the mountain are packed with people there are definitely some great views and some quiet places.
The first few hundred feet up the trail it branches off in two directions. If you head to the right the trail (white blazes) is a series of switchbacks with some steps added in to make it easier to climb. The trail is still incredibly rocky and I would make sure you watch your feet. The climb is also still not super easy, this is a family friendly trail but you should know your limits and take lots of breaks if you don’t hike regularly. When you reach the top you will be able to see about 0.1 miles to your right a big lookout. This is by far the most crowded place on the mountain as it looks out over the Penn State campus. Despite how crowded it is it’s still worth checking out, but if you’re planning on doing lunch at the top of the mountain I wouldn’t do it here.
It’s a great view at the top but there are quite a few people to share it with
The left branch of the trail (blue blazes) is a little longer than the right branch but that doesn’t mean it’s less steep. This trail is flat for the first 0.2 miles or so but then it climbs up steeply on, you guessed it, a big pile of rocks. We made the mistake of going down this way and I think I nearly killed my mother. If you are going to go this way I would recommend going up this way and then down on the more well traveled route. Because of the challenges that this trail poses it was a lot less crowded than the white blazed trail on the other side. This trail brings you to the big pile of slate on top of the mountain. If you want you can throw another rock on top and make the mountain just a little bit taller. This area also has another great lookout that I personally preferred to the more popular lookout. This area looks out over Nittany mall and you can look out at all of the cars and the people from a little secluded area at the top.
This lookout connects to the white trail and the lookout over the State College campus via a blue blazed trail and it is definitely a short enough hike that it is probably worth it to walk along the ridge and see all of the different lookouts this beautiful mountain has to offer.
At my high school graduation the most pretentious high school English teacher I know said, “any day could be the first day of your new life”. It doesn’t have to be the first day of a month, the beginning of a new job or even the first day of school. You can just wake up one day and decide to start something new. That is why on a rainy Thursday afternoon having given it absolutely zero thought whatsoever I decided to create a blog.
Now, I am a skip-the-post-and-get-straight-to-the-recipe gal, so starting a blog seems a like a weird choice, but I don’t have a face for You Tube and I wanted a place where my mom could come and see the crazy things I do, without having to actually answer for my actions. Hi mom!
So I plan on posting a little bit about the adventures that I go on, from day hikes to backpacking trips and everything in between. I’ll also do my best to include the trail heads, campgrounds and climbing routes I use, because there is nothing I hate more than seeing an amazing adventure on the interwebs and having no way to try and do it myself. My next adventure should be next weekend and that will be my first official adventuring post!
In the mean time check out the pictures I have uploaded in the gallery on my home page for a look in to some of my past adventures.
Processing…
Success! You're on the list.
Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.
Mischief Managed 