The Great Allegheny Passage Trail

The Great Allegheny Passage Trail - A bikepacking adventure

The journey began with an Amtrak ride to Pittsburgh on Thursday night which somehow arrived in about 20 minutes early. This was excellent since it gave me time to eat food, get ready for bed, and get a good night's rest for the adventure ahead. Day one of the ride was about 53 miles of riding including a few miles in town to sightsee. It was a far easier ride than expected though as I averaged around 13mph and made it to camp around 215pm. Photos will be frequent in this post so I'll share those for the day.

I stayed overnight at a free campground right along the trail just north of Connelsville, PA. This was an absolutely glorious campsite! While there were only a pit toilet and no potable water, I loved the seclusion, the beauty, and even the constant trains rolling by across the river. It was awesome. Didn't even need my tent.

After retiring to my sleeping bag at a late hour of 7pm, I forced myself to stay awake until 8pm just to not wake up so damn early. I still was up at 5am but hey I slept pretty well so I'm all about it. It was miserably cold in the morning so getting out of my sleeping bag was tough. I did breakfast and most of my packing while still in the bag. Day 2 was then another 55 miles of riding to my hostel in Rockwood, PA. This day featured more stopping including breakfast part 2 in Ohiopyle, bike repair (tubeless sealant refill) in Ohiopyle, lunch in Confluence, and some trailside karma to help out a stranded biker with a flat. I spent a ton of time off the bike but it was easy climbing again so I still made it to the end around 4pm. Nice to be able to grab a shower, have wifi, and not freeze my ass off after the sunset.

Way too fun of a day! I was certainly feeling the fact that I had now ridden over 100 miles on a mountain bike the last couple of days. But after a good night's rest I was ready to go to tackle the final day. I got on the trail early again, around 0730 to try to beat the weather. I still did get rained on a bit but nothing my regular riding gear couldn't handle. It was only 20 miles of the same ~0.75 degree uphill climb the rest of the ride had been so far to reach the 2400 foot summit. This was then followed by a steady 23 mile, 1.75 degree descent down to the car in Cumberland at ~500 feet. A wonderful ride that I finished just after 11am.

What a fucking trip!! I love that this ride was pretty chill versus the sort of riding that I usually do. So I got to just take in the scenery, enjoy some decent speed throughout, and also enjoy the wonderful late fall weather. Food was cheap, excellent, and plentiful across the trail too. So this was my version of "glamping" as far as a bikepacking trip goes! Speaking of food, here are all the food pics as well.

Even the water is rusty here! Note that this was after filtering it and it tasted fine. So I probably won't die. Most of it I used for cooking anyways so it was also boiled.

Alright, that's all I got for this trip. Very glad I made the time to do it and I couldn't have timed the weather better. I'll have to do it again in summer with a bit of the C&O added in to extend it too. But the logistics and day length of this was just about perfect.

Enjoy the weather while you can before winter arrives hard like it has in CO/NM recently!