Morrison-Rimrock Trail: Allegheny National Forest

By now it’s no secret that I love to camp. Camping is the perfect opportunity to be in the location you want to be and makes exploring easier in that I don’t have to get up at 4am unless I want to get a jump start on that morning back country coffee. Mid summer camping trip provided the perfect occasion for to catch up with old friends. The destination as usual was Allegheny National Forest. On the second day of of trip we decided to pick a trail and go on a hike. I wanted to hike a trail that I’ve never been on before. I made a few suggestions and off we went to find a trailhead. Problem was our usual guide book was left at home. There were no maps at the trailhead. It was 2:00pm, we only saw mileage signs. 8.8 miles or 5.2 miles…What did we do? Yeah, picked the longer trail. It was the Morrison-Rimrock trail. So off we went. The trail started easy enough and if it kept up we were thinking we’d be back early. We came to a fork in the trail and decided to go down…nobody wanted to climb that early in the hike, though we probably should have. We heard water below and the trail followed a nice mountain stream. A short time later we found some pretty waterfalls and decided that would be a perfect time to stop. I got out my gear, took off my boots and waded in the water as close as I could get to the falls. The falls weren’t big or anything, but the way the water was jumping off the rocks I was just suckered in. It was probably around 2:30-3:00pm the light was dancing through the treetops and the reflections and glare on the water were really tough to deal with. I went with a polarizing filter to handle the glare and reflections and my Lee Little Stopper (Yes, it’s really called that!) to slow down the shot and capture the movement of the jumping water. We spent about an hour at the falls, I was trying to be conscious of the time. I wanted to take more photo’s, but knew that we still had a long way back. I packed it in, dried off, and up we went, literally. From here the trail ascended and descended to the forest floor. This area was extremely peaceful there were small groves of Hemlock and White Pines that weaved between the small streams. The birds were chirping, water rushing. We came upon another hiker that was sitting in camp over a cup of coffee. We waved and kept our pace. I really liked this area and really wanted to stop and take more photos. But I knew it was late and we didn’t know what was ahead of us. So I’ll have to make a return trip for this purpose. From here the trail ascended and got more and more rugged as we went along. We saw large boulder outcrops on this section of the trail. The trail winded through the hillside surrounding the Allegheny Reservoir. The area near the reservoir has a campsite that can only be accessed by boat or the trail, there is a little side trail off the main trail to access it. We kept chugging along up and up. We reached a section of the trail that ascended at least least a mile or more around a range of 500ft. straight up. We thought it would never end. It did end and finally things flattened out. At this point I think we estimate we had about 3 miles or so back to the trailhead. From here on out the trail was flat and covered with rhododendron and ferns as is the entire trail except for the steep and rocky parts. All and all I think we were out there around 6.5 hours. It was a challenging hike, especially if you’re not sure what you’re in for. Next time…I’ll bring a map.