In 1.03 miles descend to Rock Run. You can either camp here, just above the bridge for the Rock Run Connector Tr or walk uphill for another 0.5 miles to a nice bench along a huge beaver dam/pond.

Day 2: Continue up Rock Run. There are a couple of small but nice campsites at water’s edge along this section. Cross Rock Run and at 1.96 miles from the Rock Run Connector bridge meet the junction with the upper portion of Rock Run Ski Trail. Turn right onto orange blazed AFT.

Soon find yourself walking along the headwaters of Benner Run. There are several potential campsites along this section. Cross Benner Run and walk across an open meadow to a Red Spruce plantation. At 1.26 miles from leaving the Rock Run Ski Trail come to a grassy woods road. Turn left onto the road following the orange blazes. In another 0.3 miles leave the road turning left onto a footpath. Re-enter the meadow and cross a grassy maintenance road for a set of radio towers over your left shoulder. In another 0.15 miles arrive at Rt 504.

Cross Rt 504. In 0.13 miles cross another woods road. The path itself will become a well rutted road as it descends steeply. In another 0.21 miles make an abrupt right turn up a rocky foot path and in 0.51 miles come to a partly obscured overlook. Descend steeply and ascend several times visiting the vistas along the way. The last vista is signed “Ralph’s Magnificent Vista” in honor of Ralph Seeley. Leave the last vista and scramble through an area known, for obvious reasons, as “Rock City”.

At 0.60 miles from Ralph’s Magnificent Vista cross Underwood road. In another 1.62 miles cross Smay’s Run Trail. This is a good spot to call it a day. A slightly more secluded campsite is just a few more yards down the trail at the bridge that crosses the run.

Day 3: Continue west on the AFT. In 1.1 miles cross Julian Pike and join the Moss-Hanne Trail. It will be blazed with orange triangles and is a mix of foot path, old woods roads, rock bridges and wonderful boardwalks. In 2.6 miles pass a spur trail that leads out to Shirk’s Rd on the left and then the continuation of the AFT. Turn right to stay on the Moss-Hanne Tr with its orange triangles.

Name: Hardcore/Wooly Bully/Shortstack                                                         Hike: ATF-East

Date(s): 08/03-05/13                                                                                           Rating: 4

Critique: Encouraged by word of recent trail clearings and re-blazing for a trail race on AFT, Hard Core, Shortstack, and Wooly Bully stopped at the Black Moshannon State Park office, to sign in, get maps and trail updates from the park ranger. We faced light rain as we headed north up the Shingle Mill Trail, descending along the Black Moshannon Creek, charming with plenty of flowers, including Hollow Jo- Pye Weed and Cardinal Flower, sometimes growing in the center of the creek. After joining the AFT, we headed east through fields of ferns and ended the day at a campsite just past the Rock Run cutoff trail. Day one was a nice woods hike with relatively smooth trails and little elevation gain. Overnight temperatures were in the low 50's, with some traffic noise from I-80, and owl and coyote calls in the distance. Day 2 proved different. The weather improved with nice, low-humidity conditions for the remaining of the trek. After crossing Rt. 504, the trail became very rocky (ROCK ALERT!), with some steep sections. At one of the rougher sections, we meet backpackers from the Penn State Outdoor Club, participating in a five-day "Freshman Orientation." We continued up towards the overlooks enjoying more ferns, three "named vistas," and lots of blueberries! After crossing Underwood Road, the blazing (fresh yellow paint to this point) disappeared for a while, and then turned red. The blazes and trail maintenance had been good to this point, but the trail race must have ended here. Three tired hikers almost called it a night at the first Smay's Run campsite along a wood road, but fortunately decided to take the second site under the hemlocks. Again, we had the campsite to ourselves except for the owls and whatever roams through campsites at night (deer?), and everyone slept well. Day 3 included fantastic views of marshlands from a network of boardwalks and more blueberries. The trail notes may need updating here, as we had a few confusing sections getting on to the Indian Trail and Bog Trail was not labeled until on top of it, but we ended up in the right place, along the lake on beautiful boardwalks. The last two miles of the circuit were road-walking past nicely kept lakeshore houses. Overall, this was a nice trail, 32.8 miles total. It was a little rocky, rutted, and steep in the middle as accurately described in the trail notes, but otherwise moderate, seeing only a few groups of hikers and mostly, well marked except as noted. A plus for summer outings here, the beachfront was open and the bathhouse available for showers and changing.

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Name: Bob Ardner                                                                                                  Hike: AFT-Eastern Section
Date: August 17-19 2012                                                                                      Rating: 2

Critique: I hiked the Eastern Section of the AFT with a friend on August 17,28, 29 2012.
Friday 8/17/12. We started from the Black Moshannon State Park parking area near the beach, and had a hard time finding the Shingle Mill Trail (SMT) above the dam. We ended up walking Black Moshannon Road to the bridge where we crossed the creek and picked up the SMT. We followed it to where it connected with the Allegheny Front Trail (AFT).
We were surprised to see that the AFT was blazed yellow. All of the trail write ups we read prior to the trip indicated that the trail was blazed orange with no mention being made that the AFT was being re-blazed.
This section of the trail was easy to follow with signs that there had been trail maintenance done recently. After crossing the creek at the green cabin it started to rain and continued for over an hour. Shortly thereafter the trail became overgrown and continued to be overgrown for most of the rest of the day until we got to the Rock Run campsite, the additional water from the overgrown foliage not only added to our becoming even more wet, but slowed our pace since we couldnt see the foot bed of the trail so we had to slow our pace to make sure of our footing and to be sure we could see the blazes. The blazes had also changed back to orange.
Saturday 8/18/12. This was a perfect day for hiking. Cool, sunny with low humidity. The AFT was blazed orange through this section. When the first steep climb started we found the trail choked with picker bushes that were as tall as we were and because of the thorns, slowed our progress considerably along with tearing clothes and scratching bare skin. The blazes changed from orange to yellow again. After the vistas (which were impressive) we continued on to the Smays Run campsite. However at Underwood Road, the blazes abruptly changed to red. We wasted more time checking and double checking our maps and the written trail description we had. The was no mention of red blazes. We followed the red blazes and moved on to our camp. We took the small camp site near the bridge and found it to be fantastic.
Sunday 8/19/12. Our last day, so we were up early and on the trail by 7:20 AM. The weather overnight was cold (low 50s) and the day was cool with low humidity and clouds. When we hit the park boundary, the blazing changed again to yellow. As we continued into the park we were looking for the Moss-Hanne trail (MHT) to be blazed with orange triangles as stated in the on line trail description. We found the MHT had been re-blazed with yellow blazes. Our compass readings agreed with the topo map and the overall topography was right, so we pressed on and completed the hike by noon.
Overall rating: 2. Fully 45-50% of the trail was overgrown and the numerous changes in blazing was confusing, and in some circumstances could be dangerous to novice hikers/backpackers.

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Name: Jason Daschbach                                                                                       Hike: AFT - East Loop
Date: 6/25 - 6/26, 2011                                                                                        Rating: 4

Critique: A friend and I did the hike described here the weekend of 6/26/2011. We went in the opposite direction of the author (counterclockwise) and had a great trip. The trail is very overgrown in a lot sections and our legs took a beating from the overhanging flora but I would still describe it as easy to follow. The overgrowth makes it hard to see where the trail is going in the distance but all of the intersections are clearly marked and we didn't have any navigation issues. The maps above are spot on and a very helpful resource. We did 20 miles the first day and camped at the rock run connector and finished the last 10 on Sunday. We passed a lot of prettier sites that were closer to the water and this time of year infested with bugs so we opted for the less pretty more functional camp. The trail is surprisingly flat with only one portion that could be called a real climb and even that was short. Because of that it's possible to go quite quickly and cover a lot of miles. The mountain laurels were blooming and it was quite beautiful in spots and I have DEFINITELY never seen so many fern in all my life. As far as the eye can see in many spots.

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Name: Chris                                                                                                              Hike: Allegheny Front Trail loop
Date: 6/4-6/6/2011                                                                                              Rating: 4

Critique: My backpacking co-enabler from church and I hiked the 40 mile loop AFT over two and a half days 6/4-6/6. Two years ago we made our first trip up to the AFT to use the trail to do some trout fishing. The trail has changed some since our last trip. I would estimate that only 40% of the trail has seen any maintenance this season and at least half of the remaining 60% is very overgrown. At times the trail appears nonexistent. Blazes are very hard to find due to fading or peeling, the brush at times is over five feet tall and the path seems to disappear under your feet, and in an area where rattlesnakes are known to frequent it can be a little disconcerting to say in the least. All that being said I still enjoyed our trip. Just, if you go, be prepared to pay close attention to trail junctions, have your compass at the ready, and know how to use it. I also recommend not using the park supplied map that we used, instead use the trail notes provided by Mid Atlantic hikes. I printed the notes and left them on the kitchen table, a move I would regret for most of the trip. Scott Adams has a good map at his site http://www.pahikes.com/trails/allegheny-front-trail . On our first day we started at the parking area at rt 504 where it crosses Six Mile Run and hiked 16 miles to the north east side of the loop and camped at the Rock Run trail connector. As we hiked up out of the Red Moshannon valley a thunder storm started to move in. We were picking up the pace when a grouse hissed at my buddy and circled in front of us about ten yards. We looked down to see her peeps literally under our feet. Then about a quarter of a mile up the trail we had two bear cubs run up a tree about 20-30 yards off the trail. They were cool to see, but the problem was we couldnt see mama because the brush was 4-5 feet tall. We just backed away slowly and tried to out run the storm. Then by Gods grace as the storm really started to open up we found a hunting cabin where the owners let us wait the storm out. After the storm had passed we made it to camp (flushing two roosting turkeys) for the evening with about 45 minutes of day light left-- just enough time to pitch hammocks and get in out of the rain. Sunday we made good time to the south east corner of the loop and started our trip across the vistas. This section of the trail is very rocky, and doesnt look hard on the elevation profile but, up-close and personal , it is a challenge. Traveling east to west the third from last vista has a beautiful dry camp site. We took an hour long lunch and let our gear dry out in the afternoon sun. From there we made our way down to Black Moshannon SP and the Moss Hanne trail across the marsh sections of the AFT. Your feet will get wet here there is no avoiding it over the next 4-6 miles. We ended up camping .75 south of Wolf Rocks after a 17.5 mile day. The camp site was a welcome sight with good water and trees to hang from. Monday morning we headed south, back to the car. Wolf Rocks were interesting to see, but I would recommend skipping the next 3 miles of the trail by road walking north on Six Mile Run Rd. The trail is very overgrown in this section , the blazes (when visible) are faded at best , and the trail leads right through about a mile heavily logged (almost clear cut) stretches. Aside from all the overgrowth it just seemed like uninteresting terrain. The last three miles of the loop was a beautiful walk through a mature pine forest. After more than 39 miles on the AFT we finally missed a trail junction and got off the path. An old blue blazed trail took us up by the airport, where with the map and compass we found a pipeline and followed it out to rt 504 where we hiked west back to the car at the 504 bridge over Six Mile Run. No one wants to find themselves off the trail, but if I'm being honest, it showed me that with a map and compass we were able to get to where we needed to go. In spite of the last part of the trip I enjoyed our time on the AFT it was the most wildlife I have ever seen on a trip, the views were good, and I enjoyed the challenge of navigating with the map.

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Name: Tammy                                                                                                          Hike: AFT-East
Date: 9-9 thru 9-11-2010                                                                                      Rating: 4

Critique: Wow, this was a lot tougher than I anticipated - we did the trail counterclockwise making the end really hard - once you pass the vistas you are in for some very steep climbs. I would recommend clockwise unless you are wanting more of a challenge...otherwise, the trail was pretty decent. Some areas weren't clear at all and you really had to fight your way. The Southern portion lacks water so keep that in mind. Benner's Run was beautiful and a perfect spot to camp. Make sure you have good shoes as there are a lot of rock sections. Once you leave Julian (S. end) and head towards 504 (East side) you are in for some major rock climbs!

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Name: MikerTheHiker                                                                                              Hike: AFT-East
Date: 8/31-9/01                                                                                                      Rating: 5

Critique: I registered at the Park Office, picked up their rather basic trail map, and parked in the beach lot. This hike is really awesome. There is a section at the northern end of the park that goes along a beautiful creek, then you hike under giant laurel bushes in a somewhat wet area along another creek. The trail has some good vista's but they were mostly blocked by trees, this is the rocky area. There are quit a few swamps and although they have walkways over them, you really need waterproof boots. Towards the end of the hike there are gigantic pine forests. That is where you will find the Blue Berries. Some of these bushes are over 7 foot high. There are also several nice meadows, and areas covered with ferns. This is a moderate trail with loads to see, including the pristine state park. It is well blazed but has quite a few blowdowns. I went after a somewhat dry spell, and there was still plenty of good water to be found.  I'll definitely be heading back up to hike the west half.

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