Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail

In many places, the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail runs through very narrow stretches of public land--passing through state forests, state game lands, and state parks, as well as a few short jogs across private land.  It's a backpacking trail that runs a full 70 miles along the crest of the Laurel Ridge from Ohiopyle to an area near Johnstown.  

I just chose the wrong neck of the woods.  I picked a trailhead that was within an hour and a half of my house, but the woods there really was just "a neck."  It was a narrow little north-south finger of woodlands, encroached upon by an enormous coal operation to the east and to the west.  The noise was overwhelming, the conveyor belts, the indeterminate grinding sounds, the huge trucks bearing rocks, the beeping of heavy machinery running in reverse.  I'm sure the LHHT runs through some much more pleasant areas than the one I picked.  The road to the trailhead was being guarded by a coal miner.  He told me I wasn't permitted to use the road--despite the fact that it's a public thoroughfare leading to public lands!  But he was a nice guy.  He called his supervisor, and they decided to permit me access as far as the trailhead.  Who are they, a private industry, to give or deny permission to a citizen wishing to travel on public lands?

I hope to report on the LHHT at greater length in some future post.  I only hiked a short distance along the trail before all the racket sent me to seek mountain silence elsewhere.  I'm sure I'll be coming back here someday to do a backpacking trip along the ridgeline.  The LHHT is kind of like the Appalachian Trail for backpackers who only want to spend a few days in the woods.  I did come across one of the shelter areas, which was a pleasant little ghost town of really nice Adirondack shelters with fireplaces--pleasant except for all the industrial noise.    

As I was coming up on the LHHT from a connector trail, I saw a band of about fifteen backpackers passing in the forest in front of me--about 100 feet away.  None saw me.  They were silent as a Seneca war party, slipping like phantoms through the dark and noisome forest of withering leaves.  Fall comes early up here in the highlands.  By mid-August, the leaves are already beginning to give up the ghost.