Ricketts Glen S.P., 4/28/2014

Hiking report in diary format.

6:45am
Rise and shine, Comfort Inn, Mifflinville, PA. Eric, John, and I arrived here last night in preparation for what we expect to be an excellent day hike today - the Falls Trail in Ricketts Glen State Park. This has been on all of our lists for a while, and we're excited to finally be here. Eric's Falcon Guide starts its description of this trail as follows:

Here's the bottom line: Ricketts Glen is the best hike in Pennsylvania. It may also be one of the top hikes in the East.

I slept a little restlessly, but well enough. I've been awake and laying here since around 6:00, and we're all now up. The forecast for today is sunny with a high of 64, which sounds about perfect. It looks like a bright sunny day out the window.

8:20am
We've had breakfast (standard hotel fare of eggs, sausage, bagels, juice, coffee), packed, checked out, and we're ready to hit the road. It's a 40-minute drive to the park and the trailhead. The day is bright and sunny, but still quite cool.

9:14am
Arrived at the trailhead parking lot and getting ready to hike. It's still cool, so we're all starting with an outer layer that we expect to shed pretty quickly. Surprisingly, we're the only car in the lot. I would have thought that a late-April Monday with a perfect weather forecast would get more people out. But we're not complaining.

9:25am
Starting our hike. The guidebook says it's a 7.1 mile hike, shaped like a lollipop. You can do the loop in either direction, and the guidebook recommends counterclockwise, so that's what we'll do. The hike has about 1,000 feet of vertical elevation gain - which isn't that much over 3.5 miles, but if it's all in one section, that could be strenuous. The highlight, of course, is the waterfalls - 21 named waterfalls, many in the 30-40 feet high range, with the tallest being 94 feet. We're not really worried about mileage or vertical gain, because we know there will be frequent stops to look at the waterfalls. As Eric phrased it, this is almost sightseeing rather than hiking.

10:24am
We're at Waters Meet, where the two streams coming down the mountain join together into one stream (Kitchen Creek). The trail started out flat, following the stream. Then we came upon three waterfalls, each very pretty and very impressive. The day is starting to warm up, and we've shed our outer layers. It's just about perfect hiking weather - bright sun, blue sky, not too warm with a gentle breeze.

One amusing note: very early in the hike, I squatted down to tie a shoelace, and heard a big rip. Yes, I split the seam of my pants from stem to stern. So I'll have plenty of ventilation today....

10:45am

John, who was in the lead, stopped and said, "There's something you don't see every day." It took me a second to see what he was referring to - and then I realized there was a porcupine just off the trail, so close that John could have reached out and touched him. He couldn't have been less fazed by us - he just shuffled slowly along, going about his business. Seeing him was very cool - I've seen roadkill porcupines, but never a live one, and certainly not from a distance of 4 feet.

11:19am
We're at the bridge at the top of the left side of the loop, after ascending Glen Leigh. The waterfalls were one after the other, and they were all spectacular. I'm out of superlatives...amazing, spectacular, beautiful, gorgeous. We're taking plenty of pictures at each falls, though I'm sure they won't do them justice. From here, we'll take the Highland Trail across the top of the ridge, where it will meet Ganoga Glen and descend that stream.

The trail, as mentioned in the guidebooks, is very well maintained. There are rock steps in a number of places. The books are also full of safety warnings, and it's easy to see why - the trail goes very close to the falls as it climbs the gorge, and there are spots where it's potentially treacherous, especially if it's wet/slippery.

11:59am
We've finished the Highland Trail and will now descend the Falls Trail through Ganoga Glen.

12:32pm
We've stopped for lunch at the base of Ganoga Falls, the highest falls in the park, at 94 feet. The trail comes down right past the top of the falls, and the view from there is dizzying. We declared a lunch break when we got to the base - PB&J sandwiches for all of us. Again, I'm out of superlatives - it's just spectacular. It's continuing to be a perfect sunny day.

12:44pm
We're finishing our lunch break and getting ready to continue hiking.

1:12pm
We're back at Waters Meet, having completed the loop. The falls coming down were literally one after the other. You almost became jaded after having seen so many. ("Okay, yeah, that's another nice one.") I feel like if one or two of these falls was in its own park, you'd travel to hike and see it. But here, it's just one of 21.

2:19pm
We're back at the parking lot, having completed the hike, and we're all very happy. John described the day as a home run, and I completely agree - this was an incredible trail, and the weather and conditions couldn't have been better. Also, it's been a wet spring, so there's plenty of water in the streams and coming over the falls - apparently the falls can be a trickle during a dry August. I'll admit that my feet were a little sore for the couple of miles - I'm just not used to doing this kind of mileage yet this spring (and also after an intensive aikido weekend), but that didn't subtract anything. The day was perfect in every way.

Postscript
I hesitate to compare trails or hikes...but this is absolutely among the very best. I can't believe it took me so long to get here - but I will definitely be back. I want to see this trail in different conditions, different weather, different seasons. John says the trail is closed for the winter, and this year didn't open until April - which makes sense, ice on the trail would make it dangerous.

We did this as an overnighter, but it could also be done in one day - it's probably 2:30-2:45 from my house to the trailhead. Giving 5 hours for the hike, that's an 11-hour day - a long day, but doable.

I will *definitely* be back.


Note: Brother Eric's take on the trip is here and here.