Horseshoe Trail Thru Hikers

Sun, May 15. Horse-Shoe Trail Finale (Section 13 - Stony Creek Road to end on the Appalachian Trail to the parking lot). 2D11.7

Tom and Dale were on the final leg of their Horse-Shoe trail hike. Along with five (5) more Appalachian Mountain Club -AMC members (or I fondly called us AM-Seers), we started our hike along the Stony Creek on Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.

We had a gradual ascent on our first hill, seeing a snake on one of our stops, then we made a detour to the Fire Tower which provided us nice vistas of the Appalachian Trail, a Lake and a dam, and of course the Horse-Shoe Trail. We had lunch at the foot of the tower and head to the 'Boulder City' -- a section of the trail where you will be traversing a field of large boulders. At end of this rocky walk is the start of the second ascent on a rocky trail up to the very end of the Horsh-Shoe Trail.

We ended our hike with a little more than 3-mile hike on the Appalachian Trail (of course, rocky trails too). I actually joked that maybe they should call the Pennsylvania section of the AT to be 'Rocky Pennsylvania' :)

Side Trip: Back to the Udder Restaurant in Lancaster County for ice cream

French Creek State Park

Sun., May 1, 3C10 , 10 miles, brisk pace, some hills. Meet at Hopewell Lake parking lot at 10 am. Bring snacks and/or lunch. Especially bring water. Dale B. Incommunicado after Saturday 5pm. Hopewell Lake is close to Park Office, off of PA 345, south of Birdsboro, Pennsylvania, and north of PA 23.

A Large group of AM-Seers showed up for this hike. We started walking along the Hopewell Lake, passing through the Hopewell Furnace farm, onto the White/Red Trail to an overlook called Miller's Pt. The group decided to have lunch there (complete with insects hovering our heads :)

We looped back via the Lenape and Boone Trail to the Hopewell Lake Parking Lot.