Allegheny National Forest July 2015

We went camping in the Allegheny National Forest with Lydia. After several weeks of almost constant rain, it was very nice to have a sunny weekend. I had planned out several hikes and sights each day and picked a private campground with pool to keep Inga entertained when we were at the campsite. The private campground (Forest Ridge) was a big hit with the kids because there were so many other kids at the campground to play with in the evening. Inga made several friends and was very sad to leave on Sunday.The only downside to the campground was it wasn't centrally located to all the cool sights in the national forest. I would probably stay at the Heart's Content campground next time.

On the drive up, stopped by Milton Lake near Alliance, OH for a picnic lunch. It had a nice picnic area with playground and plenty of sticks to through into the water.

Milton Lake in Ohio where we ate lunch.

Our first day in PA, we hiked to Hector Falls. Hector Falls does not have a marked trail and isn't noted on any maps we found. I read about it in a few blogs and it actually seems pretty well visited so I was a little confused why the trailhead and trail weren't marked at all. It's a very easy hike down a service road most of the way and then turns into a footpath that follows the creek to the waterfall. Inga managed to hike the entire 2 miles herself!

I can't remember what she was crying about, but this is pretty common in the morning any day of the week.

Sam at the top of the falls with Malcolm looking a bit worried.

Hector Falls

Lydia was in mushroom Heaven. She collected all these to identify later. 

Me and Inga at the top of the falls

For lunch that day, we drove over to Heart's Content Recreation Area, which has a stand of old growth hemlock, white pine, and beech. Sam had been talking to a Wiley's Finest customer on Wednesday taking an order and they said we had to go here because it was beautiful. Well, that customer was definitely right. 

Old growth forest at Heart's Content

The next day we stopped by the national forest ranger station and saw pictures of this really cool railway bridge, the Kinzua viaduct. It's actually a state park so the ranger station didn't really have any information on the park, but we decided to head that way to check it out. Turns out the Kinzua viaduct was blown over in 2003 during a tornado. The state park has a skywalk on the remaining section of the viaduct and is in the process of building a new visitor center at the park. I thought this was really cool and wanted to hike down to the bottom of the gorge, but there was no way Inga was going to be able to hike back up that day.

On the skywalk with Inga running off somewhere

The broken bridge at the bottom of the gorge

View of the gorge and Kinzua creek

I was the only one brave enough to stand on the glass floor.

For lunch we headed over to the Allegheny Reservoir to the Rimrock Overlook. It was a lovely view of the reservoir and made Sam talk about buying a boat for the rest of the day. There are stairs carved into the rock wall that descend to the base of the rock wall. It was a little hairy coaxing a 3 year old down and then back up again, but we managed. We also found this amazing cleft in the rock wall that had a spring in it, which caused very cold air to blow out the cleft in the rock like an AC vent.

Pretty typical photo with the kids making weird faces

Inga got to go swimming, run wild with the other kids, and ride the campground barrel train the last night. Malcolm was a little disappointed he was too young for all those activities, but he got lots of special attention from the adults. He even warmed up to Lydia.

I really like this area of PA and now know of lots more hiking and sight seeing. I can see many more weekend trips to the Allegheny National Forest in the future.