Bike Trails PA. Pine Creek Rail Trail
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Raw file: Pine Creek Trail.gpx (377.8 KB)
My wife, brother and I are bicycle enthusiasts who enjoy riding the ever increasing number of rail / canal trails mostly in the Northeastern US. We also do volunteer work for NOAA by recovering US Coast & Geodetic Survey Benchmarks. We often combine these hobbies while trail riding.
Unlike geocaching, benchmark hunting serves a valuable purpose by providing NOAA with updates on the condition of their 700,000+ benchmarks across the Unites States. Information on Benchmarks is available here: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/.
We have been riding these trails for over 10 years now and I decided to share some of the .GPX files I’ve created. Of the hundreds of trails available in this part of the country, I selected these for their quality, scenic beauty, lack of excessive grades or hazardous terrain and overall riding or hiking enjoyment. These files contain tracks for trails and waypoints for significant features such as road crossings, bike shops, campgrounds and USCGS benchmarks along or near the trail. These files were compiled using a variety of resources including:
NOAA - http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/
Garmin’s Mapsource & Basecamp software
USCGS Topographic GPS Map Files. Available Legally at no cost for many States here: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/
Google Earth & Google Maps
Garmin’s Birds Eye Imagery
Camping Rivopom’s COMBINED US Campground POI file
Personal Knowledge
Various Internet & Print resources including:
Tioga County Visitors Bureau website: http://visittiogapa.com/railtrail.html
Pine Creek Valley website: http://www.pinecreekvalley.com/Pine_Creek_Rail_Trail_About.a...
PA Canyon website: http://pacanyon.com/articles/Rail-to-Trail-in-the-PA-Grand-C...
This file is North Central Pennsylvania’s beautiful Pine Creek Rail Trail. It is billed as the oldest rail trail in the Eastern US and arguably the most scenic. It begins near Wellsboro and runs south for 62 miles along Pine Creek to Jersey Shore. Along the way, it passes through the Pine Creek Gorge, also known as “The Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania”. The well maintained crushed limestone trail surface makes it suitable for all types of bicycles.
Anyone interested in Benchmark hunting can obtain detailed data sheets for each mark by going here: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_pid.prl The PID is the waypoint name symbolized by the color coded cube icons. Green= Recovered within the last 10 years. Blue= No recent recovery but set in a massive structure which still exists. Red= Likely missing or reported destroyed.
Be aware that the GPS coordinates provided in this file for benchmarks are approximate and can be off by as much as 600 feet. In most cases, the specific detailed information provided on the data sheets is necessary to locate the benchmark. The on line data sheets are easily converted into .PDF files and can be stored on most smartphones.
Free, legal, 24K and 100K topo map downloads for the states with these trails are available here: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/ Segments of these maps covering the above trails can be loaded into many older handheld GPS receivers with limited memory by using Garmin’s Mapinstall program available here: http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=3291
I’ll post more trail files as I update and clean them up.
I always enjoy conversing with fellow bike trail enthusiasts so please feel free to contact me with comments, questions, inclusions or revisions. – Enjoy!
POI Packages
Change History
bdhsfz6 - Oct 13, 2014
Update 10/13/14 Changed title page Added waypoints for new rest areas Added waypoints for trail turnout and bench locations Upda