I was looking for a place to explore and have never been up to the area along Pine Creek in north central PA. This area is sometimes called the “Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania”. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t quite as prepared for the trip as I usually am and didn’t do a whole lot of pre-planning. My decision to head up there was kind of last minute. The old 4Runner was prepared and ready, but I didn’t preplan my route, as I usually do. I had my Purple Lizard map of Pine Creek, my Gaia GPS app on my tablet, and Google maps. What could go wrong? What I didn’t take into account is that cell service is pretty much non-existent unless I was at the high elevations, so the high-tech navigation options were pretty much useless.
I started my adventure just south of Little Pine Creek State Park. I found some nearby off-road trails on my Purple Lizard map and began looking for Limbaugh Rd. After a couple of trips back and forth on Little Pine Creek Road, I finally figured out that I needed to drive through Happy Acres Resort Campgrounds to actually get to Limbaugh Rd. I weaved my way through the campers and headed east on Limbaugh Rd., which was a well maintained gravel road (which is going to be a common theme for this trip, unfortunately).
I reached a fork in the road after a few miles. The first opportunity for a left turn was McKees Road, which dead-ended overlooking an incredible view of the Pine Creek Gorge. I got out to take in the scenery and witnessed a bald eagle flying over the open expanse, but was too slow with my camera. I stuck around for a while hoping to get another glimpse, but no luck.
I headed back east down McKees Road, back to the fork off of Limbaugh Road. I continued down Limbaugh, going south now, and happened upon an area that looked like something by the Dharma Initiative. There was a large antennae, several holding tanks, a mix of steel and flexible piping everywhere. It was then I realized why the roads were so well maintained. I was in the heart of fracking-central. I saw evidence of the fracking industry time and again while driving down Limbaugh Rd. I happened upon large open areas (couple of acres or so) cut out of the forest that were just covered with crushed stone. Some of the other sites along the road there were huge steel walls constructed in the shape of an oval about the size of a football stadium, which I assume were water holding tanks. The weird thing was that there was no sign of life anywhere. Just these strange areas in the forest with all this infrastructure, weird signs and well maintained gravel roads.
I took Limbaugh Rd to Dam Run Road, where I took a hard right. This, again, was another well maintained gravel road but at least it ran along a nice stream. I stopped about 1/2 way down to lower elevation on Dam Run Road to eat my lunch along the bubbling brook.
Dam Run Road was taking me out to the highway. Before it dumped me out to state route 44 I saw some non-descript trails. They wound up the hill on some switchbacks for about a mile and ended up taking me to a couple of houses built into the hill. I turned around and headed out.
Once back on SR44, I took a right and headed north. I took a left onto Lower Pine Bottom Road after about a mile, just right before the road that takes you in to the state forest park offices. I headed southwest down Lower Pine Bottom Road for the second half of my adventure.
After a few miles, Lower Pine Bottom Road intersects with Bull Run Road. The sign said that Bull Run Road dead-ends after 5 miles or so and that there were vistas overlooking the gorge. Along Bull Run road, which headed east, there were several opportunities to take different roads toward the gorge, each promising a gorge vista. I would say the first one, down Bull Run Vista Road, was the best one. That didn’t stop me from continuing back down Bull Run Road and trying out the other vista views.
Just like my morning drive, this area was chock full of fracking operations. It really took away from the beauty of the area. After I got my fill of the back and forth down the different branch roads promising vista views, I back-tracked down Bull Run Road and out to civilization.
So what did I think of my unplanned route for this trip? This route didn’t offer any real off-roading challenges. Ninety percent of the time I was on well-maintained gravel roads. The vista opportunities were awesome, and because of the gravel roads, are accessible to most any vehicle. I wanted to explore someplace with great views and I found it. However, I was also hoping for more of an off-road challenge. That was definitely lacking in the routes I took. All in all, not a bad day to spend a Sunday!
is is super cool
I’m glad I found your blog. I’m camping up Little Pine SP this weekend (it’s supposed to be a little wet because of Hurricane Ian). These are great vistas to visit before I leave to come home on Sunday.
Thank you.