Big Basin - Allegany State Park

[shinrin_yoku]

I'm planning to be in the Allegany area the week of Thanksgiving. Any tips on how to see the most accessible old-growth sites around Big Basin? My bushwhacking skills are beginner-to-intermediate. Is the old-growth trail (that is in the process of being built) accessible already?
Thanks in advance!

[Erik Danielsen]

Hi Shinrin_yoku, the trail is accessible and has a little parking area with a kiosk around 42.058094, -78.761696 on ASP Route 1. The problem is that during the winter ASP Route 1 closes to automobile traffic and becomes a snowmobile trail. I don't know what date it closes, but you should call ahead to the park office to see if it's still open. The roads that do stay open in the winter don't provide easy access to any of the old-growth, but there are trails you can take from those roads to the interior "Big Basin" if you don't mind hiking (or snowshoeing, depending on what the weather does between now and then) several miles each way. Otherwise the "Camp 10" old-growth is probably the easiest to access directly from a road during the winter- a small steep area and not many trails, but easy to navigate and hard to get lost in. The Upper Red House Brook area with the big hemlocks is also easier to access in winter than the central Big Basin, with an old forest road that runs parallel to the brook to its east that can get you back to the road in a pinch and multiple places to park from which the only real direction necessary to get to the old stuff is "follow water downhill."

I suppose I should make an updated map of much of what's covered in this thread, which would make it clear how you would access those.

[shinrin_yoku]

Thanks, Erik! Yes, it would be very helpful if you could update the map. I'm hoping it won't snow yet, but snowshoeing is not a problem for me I'm also planning to visit the PA old-growth sites during this trip, but they are much more easily accessible...

[ElijahW]

Erik,

Wow, those are beautiful trees. That Blackgum has a look similar to the ones Tom Howard and I found at Verona Beach State Park a couple of years ago, though yours is much larger. The treasures you're finding in Allegany seem to have no end. Keep up the good work.

Elijah