We like to hike as a family. Well, my husband and I like to hike so by virtue of the “I am your parent, obey me” property, we hike as a family. I am not going to romanticize this, there is an undercurrent of whining and eye rolling when I announce we are going for a hike. I tend to do things on the spur of the moment, throw a “picnic” lunch into a bag and hit the road. Before we had the beloved shed-cabin documented here, here and here.
I love this little table, it’s from IKEA and came with 4 chairs. It is made from real wood and matches our unfinished cabin! You can’t beat the price and the small foot print works well for us.
We have hiked many trails, for years I have wanted to blog about our various hikes but never got around to it. I will attempt to pick one trail and see how it goes from there. I have so many favorites but I will try to stay on topic and focus on ONE hike!
Recently we hiked to Hanging Rock Raptor Observatory. I will admit, I had images of vultures and condors soaring overhead with a dark bell-tower looming atop the mountain. It wasn’t like that. This was for us, an easy and short hike, it should be doable for most people and families. There is an elevation gain but the trail is clear and it is a steady rise to the top. Once at the top there is an observatory (not a dark tower) with several steep flights of steps. It was under construction when we went which was eavn more terrifying. There were many brave volunteers replacing the decking around the observatory.
One of the volunteers showed us the “peaks” of interest. From this observatory you can see Flat Top/Sharp Top as well as Buffalo Mountain (all of which we have hiked and are fantastic!).
Getting there:
The road in is windy, like most mountain roads. There was a Mennonite bakery with delicious hand pies (think hostess but much better) on the main road just before you turn on to . The road is paved all of the way to the parking lot ( if you hike many trails you know that sometimes the roads are very rough.) The lot is small so plan accordingly and on weekends, it fills early. There were no open spots when we arrived, we drove further down the road to turn around when we saw a group walking up what was labeled “Fire Tower Road”. We pulled over onto the very wide shoulder and checked the map.
We hiked this fire road to where I thought there was a trail which would intersect with the Allegheny trail. It did not, we turned around and drove back to the trail head lot.
The hike up is an incline, but not very steep, the trail is well cleared and not a rock scramble. The elevation at the top is over 3500 ft and it was quite cool, be prepared for the lower temps in cooler weather. It would be a nice hike in summer to get away from the heat!
It’s about a mile to the top, there was a port-a-potty just past the building but the sign on it said it was closed due to Covid. One of my troop used it and said it was particulary nasty, closed apparently meant no cleaning or emptying.
Once you reach the top, or use the port-a-potty, you can climb on the rocks and peer over. There is a very steep drop off and no barrier so I would be very careful! Here are some views from the top and a picture of me slinking towards the top of the rock!
This is a great family hike, it is about a mile each direction, here is a longer description of the hike.