Pinchot Trail March 2012

The Pinchot Trail (PT) is a 23 mile circuit trail in the Lackawanna State Forest. Andrew and I wanted to make this our first hike of the year because it offered a little bit of everything. There were natural swamps, beautiful pine forests, hardwoods, and even a bit of open prairie. I was able to get off work early on Friday by going in early and working straight through lunch; the timing for backpacking trail was perfect. Andrew had everything packed up and was at my office to pick me up by 200. We made the drive up to the Poconos in only a little over two hours. It was so odd driving past Jack Frost ski resort in mid march and seeing no snow on the slopes. The skies were clear and the sun was hot (surprisingly). We made it to the parking lot and were on the trail by 5. We were excited to see that the blazes were bright and the trails were well marked. We had been wondering how well it would be marked because the PT is made up of about 13 smaller trails. We were happy to see that each trail was well marked which kept us confident we were on the right trail. The trail was more beautiful than we expected, there were several sections throughout the first evening of hiking that were wide and carpeted with pine needles and thick grasses. The entire trail only had an elevation change of 300 feet so it was easy to really relax mentally since we didn’t have to psyche ourselves up for any steep climbs. As the sun was setting and we realized we only had about another 1 or so of daylight, we started looking for an appropriate campsite. We had gone a little over 3 miles when we decided against continuing to look for a site and just made one. It was perfect! We had a nice fire and enjoyed a hot meal over our time tested pocket rocket. For Christmas was had both invested in some new gear, so we were looking forward to trying out our new inflating sleeping pads and new sleeping bag. They proved to be worth what we paid for them because we woke up without stiffness in our backs and stayed warm throughout the night. When the sun rays woke us up, we realized it had showered a little during the night and made a point to dry out our gear before packing it up. Breakfast was longer than usual as we enjoyed waking up slow in a travel hammock while the rays dried the condensation and dew. On the trail by 10, we knew we had at least a 10 mile day ahead of us. Andrew’s knee had been acting up and so was my hip, so we kept our pain at bay with Advil. We hiked along the rolling hills of the forest and through beautiful hemlocks and pines. We heard owls several times t/o the day but they escaped our sight. The second parking lot (you can access the loop via two lots) was a welcoming site because we had designated this as the lunch destination. We had done about 8 miles so far. Pepperoni and cheddar cheese on bagel thins never tasted so well. After our half hour lunch break we kept moving. Choke creek proved to be a great campsite for the second night. We cooled off our feet (still surprised to be working up quite a sweat in mid march) in the water and took our time setting up camp and ended up catching an afternoon nap on the hammock. We made another fire as the sun was setting and had some curry rice and black beans. It so surprising how much better food tastes after an exerting day of hiking. We retired for the evening soon after dark. We woke up on Sunday not to the sun rays bet to calls of various types of birds. It was really overcast and even spitting rain a little. We stayed in the tent until about 830 then cleaned up our gear quickly. As we were stashing our tent, we finally decided that this would probably be the last trip we took it on. It had served us well, but with our upcoming 3 week trip out west, an updated one was in order. We were on the trail and hiking by 9. We had another 10 + mile day ahead of us. Today we passed through more swamps and were thankful that although the weather was abnormally warm, the bugs were not out yet. A couple miles in we hit an incredible site to camp when we do the trail again (we figured we would because it is a great starter trail but still fun for more experienced backpackers.) We made a mental note to camp there next time. We hit the 7 mile mark and sat down for those delicious sandwiches again then made it to our car by 2. It was a perfect starter to a sure to be great backpacking season.