By Jason Nark, Philadelphia Inquirer
It was some time after lunch, on a recent Saturday afternoon, that I began to regret my decision to hike Pennsylvania’s Black Forest Trail.
Maybe it was the $1 bag of beef-flavored ramen I’d cooked, or the gnats drinking my sweat, or the 30-pound pack that was digging into my hips.
Mostly, it was the trail itself. The Black Forest Trail is named after the ubiquitous eastern hemlocks that shade the landscape with their dense canopies. It’s widely considered Pennsylvania’s most challenging trail by the state’s hiking enthusiasts. Reviews of the North-Central Pennsylvania loop on the ever-popular AllTrails hiking app attest to that.
“This is without a doubt the hardest trail in PA. The ascents and descents will test your mental fortitude, not just your physical fitness,” one hiker wrote.
That’s where I was after lunch on my first day. I was about seven miles into what I thought was a 42-ish-mile hike (more on that later), and I realized I’d planned poorly and would have to push hard to be home by Monday afternoon.
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