Section 17 - PA 414 @ Blackwell to PA 287 near Antrim

Alerts:
Relocation to Johnson Cliff now open. NB coming out of Blackwell on the rail trail, pass a gate, then look right for the flight of 96 steps that starts taking you up the ridgeline. SB from Clay Mine Road, now continue straight at Stone Quarry Run. Distance 0.64 km longer, leading to a viewpoint higher than Gillespie Point. The Stone Quarry trail is now yellow blazed from MST west to Pine Creek Rail Trail. (7/20)

Clay Mine Rd - DCNR has established a small stone surfaced hiker parking area, marked by a routed sign, 95 m trail-west compass-north of (around a curve from) the actual spot where MST crosses this gravel Forestry road. A routed arrow sign now points the way from the parking lot to the invisible trail. There is also now a two-car stone surfaced parking spot, in what was a muddy mess at the south end of the Beer Can trail, close to the Clay Mine Road ford crossing of Stony Fork. (8/14, 7/15; 6/17) These parking spots are described in the 13th edition Guide.

NB km 20.97: Another yellow blazed trail splits off the rock bypass trail 300 m E, descending to Haunted Mine Trail. See Morris-Antrim area inset map above for more detail of this area. (6/21)

NB km 22.07: New Haunted Mine Trail yellow blazed to E, downhill by stages following old logging paths, to relatively large dirt parking lot along PA Route 287 in 1.3 km. That spot is a better area to begin or end a hike over this section than following the roads to limited shoulder parking at the Section 17/18 split. See Morris-Antrim area inset map above for more detail of this area. (6/21)

Notes on water sources (in part superseding 13th edition Guide)

• Blackwell - Robert McCullough Jr. Canoe access parking lot, with water pump (not guaranteed), vault toilet, and trash barrels. In many seasons on weekends, this parking lot is too small. Additional, long-term, or trout/float season hiker parking at Rattlesnake Rock, 2.5 km W on PA 414 over concrete road bridge, or south on Pine Creek Rail Trail over steel bridge.

• Upper Stone Quarry Run - Water quality excellent here, flows only from the Natural Area and headwaters swamp keeps it going all year.

• S br Water Tank Run - Water here only comes from the Natural Area.

• N br Water Tank Run - Water here only comes from the Natural Area.

• Mossy Run - several waterfalls, water quality likely better than from Stony Fork. Water here came only from State Forest but can dry up in a dry summer.

• Stony Fork - camping prohibited here, swimming holes, water affected by farms/septic upstream.

• Bottom of Roland Run - spring just above and other side of the trail from the leased camp, sign on MST points to the spring trail.

• Roland Run - stream just above plateau edge. Water here only from forest. A marsh upstream keeps it flowing thru the year.

• Slide Hollow - seasonal, below un-mined coal outcrop in forested watershed.

• Rattler Run - flows from old strip mined area, beside dirt road with fracking well traffic.

• Basswood Run (main stem, north branch) - These natural streams in a legal camping area were historically, and might again be, affected by acid mine drainage, despite diversions upstream into the Anna S treatment system. The main stem appears by organoleptic testing (metallic tangy taste) to be more affected than the north branch. 90 m south of the main stem stream crossing, right beside the trail, is an excavated spring which may be the freshest water the NB hiker will pass for 4.2 or 12.8 km. Not sure how reliable.

• Anna S Mine Area - on rocks, cross perennially flowing mine treatment runoff, looks weird. This HAS been treated. Might be ok to settle the white aluminum hydroxide precipitate for a bit and filter the top. Filtering directly from the stream might block up your filter.

• Wilson Creek (just south of Route 287) – farm, septic, road runoff from busy Route 287.