Local and within reach, we decided to visit French Creek State Park (Pennsylvania) on July 4, 2017.

My first impressions upon reaching the trailhead, located just opposite the creek bed, were a lot of confusion.  The trails are not marked in any orderly way, rather you walked across the bridge and were greeted with three unmarked paths moving to the 10, 12 and 2 o’clock.  No real way of knowing what trail you’re getting on.  We decided to go left (most likely because of karate).

We meandered up the hillside for about 30 minutes before becoming somewhat frustrated with not knowing exactly where we were.  With minimal cellular access, Heather was able to ascertain that we were off the trail (using the AllTrails iPhone App).  We started back down the hillside until we landed upon a yellow blaze, which finally marked a general direction to proceed.

My #1 complaint about these trails is that the outcrops along the hillside, and throughout the trail have all been viciously tagged by ‘artists’ wishing to distribute their beliefs in either ‘gods’ or ‘demons’.  One trying to take your soul, the other wishing to save it.  I wish they would all save their breath, or spend their time huffing that very paint – passing out instead of spraying it on rocks – I DIGRESS.

The remainder of the trail was very well blazed, but continued to be somewhat confusing as to the directions to take.  Had it not been for the map provided by AllTrails, we would have been truly on a much longer hike than we intended.

The best experience I had for the short walk was near the end of the trail, where we spent some time jumping around on the rocky bed of the creek adjacent to the trail.  There were some nice images to take looking upstream.

The hike ended back at creekside, near the parking lot where we spent a few minutes cooling in the shade, before departing for the day.