Remote section of Appalachian Trail brimming with history
| Up in the mountains, a ridge or two behind the Fort Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, there is section of the Appalachian Trail located between Route 325 and Route 443 that seems to be a little more remote than other sections of the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania. Perhaps it seems to be deeper in the wilderness because of the mountains it traverses. From the road crossing on Route 325, the trail immediately crosses Clark’s Creek and climbs up Stony Mountain, crosses Sharp Mountain, passes through Rausch Gap and climbs Second Mountain before dropping down into Swatara Gap at Route 443. |
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When a hiker follows the Appalachian Trail as it heads north from Route 325, the trail climbs over 1,000 feet in the first three miles to the top of Stony Mountain. At the highest point, the white-blazed Appalachian Trail intersects the northern terminus of the yellow-blazed Horseshoe Trail. My friends and I paused at the plaque on a rock monument that stated the Horseshoe Trail begins in Valley Forge 121 trail miles away. We hiked on. In three miles we came to the location where the 1800s coal mining village of Yellow Springs once stood on Sharp Mountain. Iron compounds in the creek give the spring its name and color. Five miles past the village site we reached the Rausch Gap Shelter, built in 1972 by the Blue Mountain Eagle Climbing Club. Thru-hikers use this three-sided shelter for the night on their long journey to Georgia or Maine. Directly in front of the shelter, a pipe carries water from a nearby spring.
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