2022-06-26 42 -78

Location

Allegany State Park, between the Patterson and Ridge Run trails

Participants

Pedalpusher
Simon the dog

Expedition

Never wanting to miss an adventure in Allegany, I planned to take the dogs out in the afternoon for a nice run and adventure. I also asked my girlfriend if she was interested, but she was unavailable in the middle of the day when we would be going.

After a somewhat lazy morning, I started to get ready to go. Checking the weather, there was a chance we would get rained on, but I thought we might be able to get done before the rain hit. The clouds were already starting to build around Hamburg, but heading south looked a lot clearer. I should note that I didn't want to bring Myka today as she is starting to slow down in her old age and has trouble with hikes over an hour and a half.

Getting to Allegany, we paid our entrance fee and parked at the top of the mountain by the Summit Cabin Area. There weren't too many cars and I figured we wouldn't see very many people on these trails. Heading down the Patterson trail, I turned on my GPS to give it time to warm up as it sometimes has trouble connecting to the satellites at first. Eventually, it did when I was about half a mile (1 km) away. As I approached 0.4 miles, it started to indicate I needed to head off the trail, but I could see the trail ahead curving in the right direction. Also, I didn't want to hike up the very steep (but short) hill towards where the GPS was pointing. I'm VERY glad I waited because when I turned the corner, the GPS straightened out and I was able to continue on the trail for almost the rest of the way to the hash. I would have been pretty annoyed to climb over that ridge only to find the trail again down below.

By the time the GPS said I needed to head off trail, I was within 0.15 miles (250 meters). I still had to go up a steep hill, but we trudged up and eventually worked our way to the hash. Doing a short GPS dance, I was able to get some pictures and then we continued in the same direction to find the Ridge Run trail. Had we gone all the way to the bottom and around, it would have been about a 10 mile (16 KM) loop, and with the rain looming, I thought it best to cut it short.

Finding the trail, we headed back toward the trailhead, but in this section, there are a couple loop trails that pop off and back to this trail. I decided to extend our hike a bit on the way back by detouring on the closest loop to the trailhead (Sweetwater). It was only here that I started seeing people, and one family was even pushing a stroller (these trails are very wide and mostly smooth, so it was working for them). I did accidentally scare two young ladies as we were coming around a curve; Simon was ahead of me and I heard someone say something ahead on the trail so I called him back and put him on the leash. After we passed them, one of them remarked to the other that 'he really did look like a little bear from a distance'.

Getting back to the car, we headed for home, successfully avoiding getting rained on.

Photos

Paid our Day Use fee to get into Allegany.
Made it.
Accuracy.
Simon at the hash.
The forest around the hash was pretty uniform so I just took this shot facing North.
Standard Stupid Grin.
Hiking back, a view of the Ridge Run trail.
We drove down to the lake so Simon could cool off and get cleaned off before we headed for home.