Great winter hiking trails across Pennsylvania
Updated Feb 12, 2021;
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Here are 30 great spots for some cold-weather trekking.
Pennsylvania’s Trail of the Year for 2021, the 38-mile Delaware & Hudson Trail in Lackawanna, Susquehanna and Wayne counties, will appear on many lists of prime trails this year. Tracing the former corridor of the Delaware & Hudson Railway, which primarily carried anthracite coal out of the Lackawanna Valley during the second half of the 19th century, the D&H Trail is open to motorized and non-motorized users, including walkers, bikers, equestrians as well as snowmobilers.
And, in that same vein, the Trail of the Year in 2020 was the 46-mile Ghost Town Trail in Cambria and Indiana counties as Pennsylvania’s Trail of the Year. Launched in 1994 as a 12-mile segment, Ghost Town Trail was the first trail in the state constructed with transportation enhancement funding. An estimated 80,000 users each year enjoy the trail, which was designate
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Governor Andrew M. Cuomo has encouraged New Yorkers to celebrate the New Year safely by spending time outdoors this holiday season at state parks, historic sites, wildlife areas, trails, and public lands across the state . Families across the state are invited to participate in one of the many walks and hikes being held across the state as part of the 10th Annual First Day Hikes program, a partnership between the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and the Department of Environmental Conservation. “In these challenging times, getting out into nature has been a major outlet for safe and healthy recreation for New Yorkers,” Governor Cuomo said. “Whether you’re taking a self-guided hike at a favorite park or discovering a new local trail this holiday season, New Yorkers have unparalleled options and destinations to embrace the outdoors this winter and bring in the New Year while remaining COVID safe and COVI
Several new scientific discoveries give hope that eastern hemlocks will not go the way of chestnut, elm and ash trees and largely disappear from forests in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Hemlocks are one of the most prevalent, longest-living, beautiful and ecologically vital trees in Appalachian forests. Sometimes called the redwoods of the East, they can take 250â300 years to mature and live more than 800 years.
They also have a long history with humans. Native Americans used hemlocks for medicines. Settlers used the tips of branches for tea and as a dye for wool and cotton. The mountains of Pennsylvania have ghost towns where leather factories sprung up to receive the tannin from hemlock bark to turn animal skins into leather. The treesâ intense shade cools streams and supports fish habitat. And many homeowners still want hemlocks in their landscaping tableaux.
Editor s note: Today s feature is the second spotlighting the eastern hemlock, which is threatened by an invasive insect.
Hemlock trees in Pennsylvania were used by Native Americans for medicinal purposes and later, loggers relied on the massive trees for lumber. The trees unique bark hue was also used for tanning of leather.Â
Given that, it s no wonder the hemlock is Pennsylvania s state tree. Today, the hemlock is threatened by an invasive species â the woolly adelgid â which has decimated populations of eastern hemlocks in more southern states, and is threatening to do the same here.
Officials with the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) are working to fend off the woolly adelgid and are utilizing insecticides, biological sources and Mother Nature herself.