Yost Run Trail Loop - Chuck Keiper Trail

This trail is not for the faint of heart. It is extremely technical.

This trail was relocated from the valley floor with multiple stream crossings to "side hill construction" in 2014. While your boots may stay drier, there are still a couple stream crossings to navigate mostly just rock hops during low water.

Side hill construction. .. so imagine a path about 6 inches wide, 30 to 50 feet above Yost Run.  The drop is fairly sheer in most places. As this is Pennsylvania the path is composed of rocks at varying orientations to horizontal and with varying levels of stability.  Now add 2 to 12 inches of loose leaf litter, so you can't tell when you're foot will hit solid (or not) ground.

"Don't look down" was my mantra for about 4 miles. As I inched my way along I was moving so slowly that my GPS recorded no movement.

This is a wild and beautiful trail in Sproul State forest. Definitely remote, most of the trail is also part of the Chuck Keiper Trail.

I noticed 2 established campsites. They are very remote, with good access to water. However, there is only room for one or two tents in the immediate area.

As you can see from the picture there was still snow on the ground when I did this hike. This led to an interesting phenomenon. Starting at about 3.5 miles, I saw "tracks" across the trail, like something slid down the hill. Shortly afterwards I started seeing balls of snow about as big as my head on the trail. The tracks ended in these balls of snow. Apparently, the snow was rolling off the rock ledges above me and gathering more snow at it rolled downhill, (think of how you make a snowman). I had never seen that in nature before. 

Others have written about the trail being overgrown in places. While that wasn't an issue for me this early on the season, I could definitely see some areas where the trail will be overgrown once the underbrush leafs out. The trail was fairly well blazed, I only lost the trail once and that was because I was following my feet instead of the blazes

To summarize, this is a very difficult trail, do not attempt unless you are in good physical condition. It will challenge your knees, ankles and core stability. Plan at least 5 hours to do the 7.5 mile loop. Wear boots with excellent ankle support and water resistance. There is no cell service and no bail out trails, if you get in trouble, you will have to get yourself out.

This lovely waterfall is the highlight of the trail and is located about 1.3 miles from the parking area.