Pine creek gorge - Day Three

We got a solid night of sleep and woke up to another day of perfect weather. We cooked a meal next to the creek and filtered our last water for the trip out. Our hike for the day had by far the most vistas, although I wasn’t really expecting them because they weren’t marked on the map!

We started off on Thompson Hollow Road and quickly found the red paint marker to return back to the trail. We immediately started climbing a hill through the forest which helped wake me up! On the other side going back down, the trail was covered with fallen leaves which made for some near ankle-breaking steps! After that the trail wove across several roads through the forest, perfect for more leaf peeping.

I was surprised when we emerged back at the rim of the gorge with vistas at every turn. Our trail merged with the Barbour Rock Trail where we ran into lots of day hikers interested to hear about our thru hike. The day use trail culminates at an exposed rock jutting out from the rim giving hikers full panoramic views of the gorge if they aren’t afraid!

After passing one final creek run the trail came up alongside Colton Road and paralleled it all the way downhill to the Northern Terminus parking lot. I was happy to see the car knowing that we hiked the entire trail, especially given my concerns that we wouldn’t have enough water! We drove back to the Southern Terminus to pick up the second car and made sure to stop for celebratory ice cream on our drive out of Pennsylvania.

Overall I was blown away by my first hiking trip in Pennsylvania and highly recommend the West Rim Trail through-hike for both new and experienced backpackers. The terrain was fairly easy with some rolling hills and the path was very well marked. The trail offered a much needed change of scenery from my normal hikes and autumn was the perfect time to view the changing leaves.