Hamburg Reservoir Hike, March 6th

What a beautiful day for a hike. It was the beginnings of Spring here in Eastern PA, and temps were hitting mid-upper 40's. Finally! Still plenty of snow on the ground from the massive storms this year, but a gorgeous day none-the-less. My dad and I decided to head up to Hamburg, PA, to the Reservoir.

The trip began with a hike up Reservoir Road. The first part of this hike is relatively boring compared to the rest of the area...mainly because no matter where you branch off to up in the hills, you have to walk this section every time. It gets old.

Anyway, we hiked up to the bridge at Furnace Creek, which comes down from the Hamburg Reservoir. Beautiful little creek it is, too.

From there, we headed onto the Appalaichan Trail and tried to locate some property that my family owns directly off the trail. It would be pretty cool to have free reign on an area like that...if only we could actually figure out exactly where it was. I took a bunch of GPS coordinates down, for use later to compare to tax maps and such.

Afterward, we headed back out onto Reservoir Road. At this point of the hike it feels less like a road and more like a wide trail. And, unlike one might assume, it doesn't go to the Reservoir, but to observatories on the top of a hill. A known lookout, Pulpit Rock, is also located at the top of the hill.

As we headed up the road, I noticed some red blazing off to the side of the trail. I was unsure what this path was, having not been up this part of the mountain in over 15 years.

We got about 200 feet up the path, but the snow was getting to be a bit much as we ascended. Obviously far fewer people traveled this way. While we were up there, however, I spotted quite a bit of PA's state flower, the Mountain Laurel, and stone ring most likely for fires, and a nice view that unfortunately didn't translate quite as well in photography as it did in person. It does give a bit of a sense of elevation, though.

After that, we headed back down to Reservoir Road and continued on. For those interested, later google maps research showed that the red blazed trail would have met back up with Reservoir Road as it wound up the mountain. It was a shortcut!

After a little while more of hiking, we spotted a piliated woodpecker. Quite a gorgeous bird, and quite loud when we spotted it. Unfortunately I was much too slow with the camera, and it was gone before a picture could be taken. I did however find some of its work!

From there, we decided to head back down Reservoir Road, and get on the path that leads to the Reservoir itself. It was worth the extra little walk, as I was surprised to find the entire thing frozen over. I personally found it quite beautiful.

And thus ended a fun day of hiking around the Hamburg Reservoir. All in all, we probably covered around 4 miles. Not that much, but with the various trail options in that small of an area, it was still enjoyable.