Hiking time has been very hard to come by this fall, but I carved out a little time a few Sundays ago. I was out in the morning near Valley Forge, and I decided to do a short hike before returning home. The forecast mentioned the possibility of a few inches of snow in the afternoon, but wouldn't impact a late-morning hike.
I parked at the Mt. Misery parking area on Rt. 23, just up the road from the covered bridge. It was cold (a few degrees above freezing) and cloudy and felt like snow. I only recently became aware of this parking lot, and it provides a great option for a short and scenic loop - up the mountain (really more a hill than a mountain), down the other side, then back around on a wide packed-gravel path following Valley Creek. I was thinking it's probably a 3-mile/1-hour hike.
A few snowflakes were falling as I started up the trail. The climb is steady - so much so that I was breathing heavily and shedding my topmost layer by the time I was nearing the top. There's a junction with the Horseshoe Trail at the top - with the yellow-blazed HT going left. By this point the snow was falling fairly heavily. I followed the Mt. misery trail straight, then down the other side in a couple of big switchbacks.
The walk along Valley Creek was very pretty, and made even more so by .the hard-falling snow. I completed the clockwise loop, and found my car covered with snow. I cleared it off and got home with no problems, though the going was a bit slow. And I was happy to be home - the predicted 1-3 inches turned out to be a surprise 8.
My GPS track showed this to be a little short of 2.5 miles - a little less than I'd guessed. But no matter, this is a great loop when looking for a short hike.
Total Distance: 2.46 miles
Elapsed Time: 45 minutes
