Hickory Creek, Allegheny National Forest, PA

Mike Jehn, Kevin Qi, Josephine Palencia, Mahin Mahmoodi, Ivan Jager, Glen Williams, and I ended up going to the Hickory Creek wilderness in Northern Pennsylvania in the Allegheny National Forest. The weather was a bit chillier than back in Pittsburgh, with the temperature getting into the low 20s over the night we stayed there. In some places that were well shaded, there was still almost 2 feet of snow! The snow made hiking a bit difficult, but the scenery was absolutely gorgeous because of it.

We also found the trail difficult to hike because often there was not a trail to follow. The park organization has been allowing the trail blazes there to fade, so we invented a game (out of necessity) to find the next blaze to continue the trail. Fun!

We had a nifty campground next to a small river and kept a blazing fire up all night to keep warm and play with while "BSing" for hours.

Some of us returned home earlier the next day while a small group of 3 went to the Kinzua Bridge in the Allegheny National forest which had been literally knocked down over an enormous valley by a past tornado. A previous group from the Explorers club had actually been to this bridge as well.

-D. Stone