2022 52-Hike Trail Challenge: #24 Mountain View, Three Springs, and Pavia Lookout Trails 5.5mi (interlinked loop)
So after Amos spent three long (but sleeping) hours in the truck while I had my meeting in Loretto, PA, I owed it to him to finish our camping trip with a long hike and a summit topper. We got up extra early and parked in the Tower Road parking area on the Ski Access Road and hiked the Mountain View Trail to the Three Springs Trail around the southern summit, then on to the Pavia Lookout Trail with a view. All the trails were well marked and having intersection posts was helpful since trails interlaced all over the south summit. We made the Pavia Overlook around 8am and all was well with the world. Amos bagged his second peak for 2022, the first being Hawksbill in SNP back in June.
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| Stunted forest and frost shattered sandstone. |
Not far from these trails is the highest point on Blue Knob on a knoll atop the ski resort. This area was used by the USAF during the Cold War as listening post, operated by the 772d Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron with many men who had been transferred here from Alaska. The weather on Blue Knob is so cold and sometimes so severe that those Arctic boys claimed it was worse than their base in Alaska. Not far down the mountain is the small village of Frigid, PA, and that should be a clue as to how bad it gets up here in winter. The natural clues of long, cold winters with high winds were frost shattered blue sandstone and the stunted forest. The way the mountain is positioned at the foot of the Allegheny Front makes it a target for fierce winter weather that comes racing over the wall of the Allegheny, funneled directly down the valley and up and over Blue Knob.
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| Blue sandstone |
I loved checking out the blue sandstone as we hiked along. It ran in horizontal shelves with great blocks stacked one atop another, impressed with ripple marks and other sedimentary features from a long ago shallow sea. This rock type is one of many that represent the Burgoon Sandstone formation that underlies the Allegheny Plateau - which is really not a plateau in this area but a deeply incised erosional landscape of low mountains and deep ravines.
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| Weather sign |
At times the trail was old road, wide and gently rising. Other times it was a rocky path paved with blocks of blue sandstone. Either way, there was much for a coonhound to sniff and he was particularly interested in coyote and bear scat. I spotted old sections of chain-link fence posts that snaked up the hill towards the old military base and I wondered if some of the woods road we were following on the Three Springs Trail was a remnant of the military perimeter road.
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| Pavia Lookout |
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| Amos makes his second summit of the year! |
As we circled around the Pavia Lookout Trail through the forest I heard what I thought was a small motor, maybe a drone? The mystery was solved when a lady attempting to ride an e-bike down the rocky footpath and clearly not in control came bumping and tumbling by. I have no problem with e-bikes on appropriate trails but this trail was certainly not a good choice. We jumped off the trail just as she yelled "WHOA!" and hit a rock and tree root that sent her spilling over into the trail. I helped her right her heavy bike and offered to help her push it back to the woods road. She was a little banged up and I worried she might have really hurt herself. She declined help and said she would rest on the bench at the overlook and promised she wouldn't try to ride it back. Lesson learned?
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| Perimeter fencing near the old base boundary |
After our hike, I decided to drive the short distance back up to the summit at the ski lifts and take another look around. I tried to imagine the three great radar domes that sat up here, surrounded by barracks, officer housing, workshops, and an array of antennas. There are only a few clues of the mountain summit's former life: a large cement pad, a few 1960s-era buildings repurposed for the ski resort, and a collection of cement cable anchors that held the towers to the mountain. It was a beautiful place to sit and enjoy a rest from our final hike at Blue Knob.
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| Summit of Blue Knob for a rest |
Notes:
A nice history of the Claysburg Air Force Station atop Blue Knob. https://www.claysburg.us/blue-knob-air-force-base.html
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