[TR] Chuck Keiper Trail - Pennsylvania

“I always look forward to overnight backpacking trips. I enjoy the sleeping outdoors and the time spent with fellow hikers around the camp fire at night. I especially enjoy the first overnighter of the season. You look forward to trying out all that new gear that you purchased over the winter. The excitement builds and expectations are high as the first day of hiking approaches. I'm happy to say that our hike on the east loop of the Chuck Keiper Trail, the first overnighter of the season, met all of my expectations.

This hike was done the last weekend of April, and with it being in the north central part of the state, there were mostly just buds on the trees with some leaves found in the hollows and valleys. Mark, Richard, Ken, Dude, and of course Storm, all participated in this hike of over 22 miles. It was nice to have a group of five of us hiking and camping on the trail.

Day 1

We all arrived at the trailhead at about 11:00AM on Saturday morning. We weren't in a big hurry to get on the trail since Spring Gobbler season started today. The hunters are only allowed in the woods until noon, so the later we got started on our hike the less we had to worry about hunters. Mark and I drove in my car and Richard had met us at my place and followed us to the trailhead. Richard was only going to be hiking until Sunday as he couldn't get off of work on Monday. We dropped Mark and Storm off at the trailhead, along with all of our gear, and headed down Pete's Run Road. We parked Richard's car along the road where the CKT crosses, about 16 miles from the trailhead.

Ken and Dude arrived shortly after us and soon everyone was all packed up and ready to start our hike on the east loop of the Chuck Keiper Trail. We were hiking in a counter clockwise direction (which I highly recommend if you do this hike) so we crossed PA144 and turned left onto a new reroute of the trail. The CKT use to walk along the road for about 0.8miles, but a recent reroute put the trail just south of the PA144 eliminating the road walking.

The reroute met up with East Branch Trail at the intersection with PA144 and we made a sharp right and walked for a few hundred feet on a grassy forest road that lead to a leased cabin. About 1.5 miles into our hike we paused for a moment along a swampy area. After a 5 minute break we were soon on our way again and met up with Coon Run Road at 1.8 miles.

We were only on this forest road for about 500 feet, as we crossed East Branch Big Run. We followed this stream for the next 1.25 miles, crossing over it about three times. At one of the crossings there was a nice bridge but the other crossings lacked these nice bridges and we had to cross on rocks or single logs. At the second crossing we took another break, this time taking off our packs and enjoying a small lunch.

We met up with the main trail about 3.2 miles from the trailhead and beared left, heading around the CKT loop in a counter clockwise fashion. For the next 2.5 miles our hiking was relatively flat. We had some small inclines and hills to traverse but they were barely noticeable. We passed some forest meadows and an area that looked as if it had been clear cut. We also passed a few camps along the way.

Our first climb began at 5.4 miles. We paused to rest and take drink before we started going up this small uphill. Again, this climb wasn't all that bad, but we encountered out first "switch-back-less" descent once we reached the top. The trek down to Clendenin Branch was very steep, descending over 100 feet in less than 0.05 miles. At the bottom of the descent there was a nice campsite, just a few feet shy of the stream. The stream here flowed through a hollow that was dense with pines and rhododendrons. There wasn't any easy way to cross the stream either and Dude, the first to attempt the crossing, lost his footing on a slipper rock and ended up getting his one foot soaked.

We now began our first real climb of the hike. Luckily it wasn't straight up, but instead traversed across the side of the mountain. The climb to the ridge top was about 0.5 miles long and we ascended about 350 feet. Once at the top we walked across the ridge top which was once burnt during a forest fire. Since there weren't many trees present on the ridge top we were able to take in some nice views. However, the spring sun was directly over head and we were all anxious to make it back into the tree filled hollows where we could get a little bit of a break from the heat. Exactly seven miles from the trailhead we reached the other side of the ridge and began another "switch-back-less" descent.

After making our way down off the ridge we were nearing our destination for the first day. We approached Cranberry Run and followed the trail to the left as it followed the stream a short distance to a bridge. At the bridge we encountered two other hikers, our first on this hike. They had spent the night before along Boggs Run (where we would be spending our second night) and inquired about campsites that we may have passed. I referred them to the campsite along Clendenin Run, only 1.5 miles back. We snapped a picture of the both of them with their camera and wished them luck. We crossed the bridge, immediately turned right on an old rail road grade, and hiked another 400 feet to our campsite.

The campsite was situated in amongst some pines right along Cranberry Run. There was a fire ring present along with a decent supply of wood. We soon had our tents set up and began to relax around the fire. Of course Dude was the last to join us around the fire as he had about two dozen new toys that he had to unpack and try out. We gathered some more fire wood, filtered some water, and made our evening meal. Supper consisted of instant mashed potatoes and ham steaks. Dude had a variety of spices that he brought along and we experimented with them on our ham slices. After 7.5 miles of hiking the potatoes and ham tasted awesome.

That night passed by rather uneventful. We did here a few owls with their mating calls early on in the evening. Dude made a pretty good impersonation of an owl and I wouldn't have been surprised to see one trying to get into his tent with him. It did get very cold that night with the temperatures pushing my 35 degree sleeping bag to it's limits. At about 6:00AM with my mummy bag pulled tight around my face, my nose and my feet were feeling pretty cold. Soon the sun was out and things started to warm back up.

You can read all about the second and third day of hiking, as well as view pictures, hike statistics and topo maps at:

http://www.pahikes.com/trails/chuckkeiper01.asp”

“Nice trip report and pictures on your website. I'm hoping to get out there this year and hike that section.”

“Great report and pictures.”

“Did the West Loop last October. By the elevation profile it looks easier than the East Loop. It's a nice bit of trail.”

“thanx for the report and pictures, it looks like a good place to hike.”

“Looking to do the West Loop later on in the season. Any good suggestions for campsites?”

“awesome trip report. I'd like to do part or all of the CKT sometime this summer.”

“I haven't got a map so I can't really recommend campsites, but there were plenty of good spots. Shoot for any area where the trail crosses or follows a stream and you'll be fine.”

“Wouldn't it have been funny if Dude saw an Owl's peck.. errr beak comimg into his tent?”

“the elevation profile on the eastern half looks insane.”

“Nogranola, my plan was to just wing it and figure on a campsite by a creek or in a hollow. But I must admit that when we were hiking up Boggs Run, and we went past the first campsite, we didn't come across the second one (where we ended up camping) until we were just about ready to climb out of the hollow. We were just about ready to make our own campsite.”

“Yost Run and Elk Lick Run have some nice campsites on the West Loop.”

“great report and pics.”