BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Sara,

You are probably better off on Hobart rather than Beacon, but either works.

When you take the trail, right (and DOWN) from the stop light, you go into the woods, make a right (down) curve around and go down about a mile, then make a left over a bridge (steep, but short down).

You will curve past the lake. There is a mowed lawn between the lake and the tracks. Go towards the far left corner of this (past a pretty tree covered in poison ivy on the lawn). There is a pretty clear, DIY trail with a little bridge accross a drainage ditch and accross the tracks to the Junction Hollow bike path.

You'll have no problem, when you see it.

When in doubt, go downhill, you will get to the river.

Mick

I'm sure there are many options; one low-traffic one I like is to head down to CMU campus via the park, then cut down to Boundary St via the super-secret maintenance road and parking garage (Watch the RR tracks when turning left out of the garage!).

Not zero-traffic, but should be a decent option.

See this for details.

Thanks for the great tips. I'll give this a try.

I concur with Reddan's suggestion. That's a great low traffic route.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2817009

that's a map of the route i made for someone else a while back... i think its same thing as Mick but its nice to see on the satelite (if you look on that map way zoomed in just past the lake south of the two mile mark you can see where the trail is cut out, the route is a bit too north)

dan that route is awesome, i've never done that before.

The Bridle Run trail is nice but it's not what you want.

Here is a map from the Parks Conservancy which has the trails with names. Take Micks's advice. You want to drop down from the Bartlett Playground, turn right and wing around to descend on the north side of the stream. Then, aways along, take the little jog left (short, steep) labeled Hollow Run Trail (who knew?) to get to PH and cross the RR tracks &c.

So I did follow Mick's route and it worked perfectly. I've now had to bike down to the SS and/or downtown almost everyday due to bad planning on my part:) but the route works, thanks a lot.