Bikepacking in the Allegheny National Forest?

[JohnV]

Hello,

I'm new to the forums and new to bikepacking in general, although I've been mountain biking for years. I am interested in planning a bikepacking trip in the Allegheny National Forest, preferably either a 2 or 3 night trip since it would be my first bikepacking trip. Depending on who goes with me, I might not be able to cover more than 20 or 25 miles per day, but if I did it by myself, I'm sure I could do at least 50 to 60 miles in a day, probably more. Does anyone know of any good bikepacking trips in the Allegheny National Forest? Anything from 50 miles to 200 miles would interest me. If you don't know of any good routes in the ANF, do you know of any good routes within 2 or 3 hours driving of Pittsburgh, Pa? I've heard good things about Canaan Valley in WV.

I look forward to starting bikepacking, and from what I've read, this forum seems like a good place to learn.

Thanks,

John

[jhl99]

Lots of choices.  I'm going to assume that you want to do a mixed surface type of tour, because that is what most easily accomplished.  This  would entail mostly dirt/gravel roads, maybe rail trail and some paved and single track sprinkled in.  I would rate the bikepacking areas for level of difficulty near Pgh: 

ANF - Easiest (least amount of climbing)
Central PA (Sproul, Rothrock, Bald Eagle and Tioga State forests ) more difficult
WV - Canaan/ Mon. NF most difficult...
OH - Wayne NF.... not worth it in my opinion, not enough contiguous public land.

The ANF is a good place to start.  First, the ANF has some nice spots, but since the the bulk of subsurface rights are not owned by Forest Service, there is a lot of oil and gas activity.  There are mazes of access roads is some of the active well areas.... there are pipelines and old wells all over the place.  There are some good points of interest to include on any tour... Cooks Forest and River road along the Clarion river are scenic stopping in checking out the virgin stand at Heart's Content is neat.  Kinzu Dam is a big landmark, as is the overlooks that overlook the reservoir.  If you make it over to Bradford, there is the Zippo lighter/case knife factory and museum.

The forest road network is good and well marked.  There is 100 mile snowmobile loop that circles the forest, ( I did it years ago, and really wouldn't recommend that route).  There are atv/motorcycle trails that can be utilized by bikes, but probably best when the trails are closed to atvs and MXes.  There is the Little Toby rail trail that goes from Ridgeway to Brockway.  Ridgeway, Kane, and Warren all have full line grocery stores for resupply.  There are a lot of options for camping... developed campgrounds, established formal sites not part of a campground, 'dispersed camping' (primarily used by vehicle camping) and finally, primitive, backcountry camping.

[JohnV]

Thanks for your reply. I've been doing single track for years and I really enjoy it, so I was hoping to do a bikepacking loop that's mostly singeltrack. At the very least, as much single track as possible. I read up on the trails out at State College (Rothrock, etc) and they look nice. I hope there's a way to do maybe a 150-200 mile loop with at least half of it being singletrack or even more.

Canaan also looks good - but I'm just not sure if I could get enough singletrack in to have a fun and long ride.

[jhl99]

Given that info, a quick and dirty route is do the Wilderness 101 race course as an overnight trip, the 101 is a loop of 100 miles in the Rothrock/Bald Eagle state forests.  I did this once, years ago... I think that over nighting the course was harder than racing it in a single day.  This is good loop to shake down (literally) your method of carrying your gear, and possibly calibrate the types of trails you would want to bike pack and what you would want to day ride.

In my opinion, some of the trails in Rothrock/Bald Eagle are best day ridden with a capable bike (at least a hard tail).

As much singletrack as possible' is a tough criteria....  that is difficult to achieve in a point to point manner because our trail networks are in isolated patches. 

[gmcampy]

Check out the AML 400 Route.  Its out and back starting In Blacksburg VA can be ridden any time bout the GD is the last Friday in April 2018

[MikPat]

I live in the middle of Bald Eagle SF (3 miles from the start/finish of the Wilderness 101).  I've ridden most of the of the state forests in central PA.  If you decide to do trip around here get in touch and I'll give you some great places to go.

Get copies of the Purple Lizard Maps:  https://www.purplelizard.com/

[Couloirman]

Im moving to Pittsburgh in June so going to follow along this thread.......

[fotooutdoors]

A bit further afield, but you could check out the Virginia mountain bike trail. I wasn't into mountain biking when I lived in Harrisonburg, but I have hiked some of the northern portions of the route, and can attest that it is pretty country. http://www.bikepacking.com/routes/virginia-mountain-bike-trail/