Join me for 3 days of Hammock Camping & Ultralight Backpacking on the Old Loggers Path in Pennsylvania’s Loyalsock State Forest.
For this 3 day, 2 night spring backpacking trip, I’ll be hiking a roughly 28 mile backpacking loop along babbling brooks, waterfalls, hardwoods and hemlocks. Being shoulder season in north central Pennsylvania, my weather ranged from highs in the 70’s down to just below freezing at night, with a little bit of rain sprinkled in for good measure.
Due to the weather, I packed some extra layers and a full set of rain gear. This increased my pack weight a bit, but I still managed to come in with a base weight of around 10.5 lbs or so. Water on the Old Loggers Path is fairly plentiful, so I got by with only carrying around 1 liter of water at a time.
Trail conditions on the OLP are a mix of nice flat dirt sections, punctuated by spurts of steep sections littered with Pennsylvania’s infamous rocks to keep you on your toes ; literally. Despite the occasional rough sections, the average daily gross elevation gain was only around 1,500 feet per day. I chose to do the loop in a counterclockwise direction, as this allowed me to camp in the Rock Run area after only about 7 miles after my mid-day start on day one.
Old Loggers Path – Route Overview – Sintax77
No permit is required for dispersed camping in the Loyalsock State Forest, so long as you are only camping one night at each campsite. You can find more information on the Loyalsock State Forest website here.
Full GPS track data, including campsites, water sources, etc, for this trip and many others can be downloaded on my Trip Data Page.