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Post by GaliWalker on Sept 2, 2023 20:17:46 GMT -5
I'd long wanted to get up to the Lion's Head vista by sunrise. A 2am start from Pittsburgh had me at the trailhead 3hrs later, and on the Red Creek Trail by 5:20am. In 0.5mi I headed left onto the Little Stonecoal Trail, which starts off by crossing Red Creek. I was a little worried about this crossing in the dark, because the light from a headlamp can reflect and not show much. Thankfully Red Creek was running really low, this late in the summer, so the crossing was a trivial rock-hop. I didn't even have to switch to my watershoes, and just kept the boots on. As I transitioned over to the Dunkenbarger Trail, I realized that I'd made a route choice mistake: I should have taken the Big Stonecoal Trail up instead. That would have cut 1.7mi off the distance to Lion's Head. I was going to miss the sunrise...which I duly managed to do by ~45min. Oh well, the light was nice, and I still had a lot of fun up top. For my way down, I took the Big Stonecoal Trail down to Red Creek, making for a quick 9.1mi (1,600ft elevation gain) loop. Here are some long-range selfies from the day. PS. You might need to squint to see me for a few of these 'selfies'. It took quite a bit of effort get in position for this oneAnd here's a non-selfie; the only one I took: Red Creek
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vdeal
Forum Elder
Posts: 616
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Post by vdeal on Sept 3, 2023 17:05:09 GMT -5
The moment you said you took a Little Stonecoal I was like, that’s not the best route. Big Stonecoal would’ve been better, but even better would’ve been to go up FS 80 and catch the top end of Big Stonecoal and go straight down to Lions head. That’s a fairly trivial walk coming in that way.
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vdeal
Forum Elder
Posts: 616
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Post by vdeal on Sept 3, 2023 17:06:44 GMT -5
Looks like I see a few leaves starting to just turn also.
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Post by GaliWalker on Sept 3, 2023 18:45:43 GMT -5
On the plus side, I think may have never hiked up or down the Dunkenbarger and Little Stonecoal trails. I can’t be sure, because it was dark (and I thought I’d hiked all the trails in Dolly Sods), but the eroded sidehilling on the Little Stonecoal Trail seemed unfamiliar. And, I think I would have remembered that; it was so unlike any of the other trails in Dolly Sods. And, regarding the option of coming down Big Stonecoal from the north…I’ve hiked that way too many times and didn’t want to do it again.
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