Bikepacking the PA Grand Canyon Loop

We're at the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon and we're going to be doing the 117 mile bikepacking loop that you can find on bikepacking.com. It covers the west rim, the east rim, and part of the Pine Creek Rail Trail. And it's not only going to be entertaining, but it's also going to be informative. Yes, we're going to include all of the waypoints, all the campsites we stay at, parking, all of the kind of fun things to do and check out along the way. We'll have that all in the description for you. So without any further introduction, let's get into the trip. All right, we're setting forth a couple miles in. Looks like there's a little food place right there. That's an outset. Whoa. Gotta look where you're going. Almost wrecked right into that, bro. That was a mere inch. You could tell other people were running into this too. Holy cow. Yeah, there's some outside seating and some canoes and kayaks. All right. Well, that woke me up. So yeah, that's why we look like turtles right now. That bridge is awesome. I told you I was really looking forward to the bridges. This is our first time doing a multi-day bikepacking trip. We've done three, three overnighters now. So yeah, this is our fourth bikepacking trip and the first time we're doing two nights in a row. So we will see how we fare. I think we're pretty prepared. I think we're ready for this. So this is going to be like mega miles compared to what we're used to. So that's going to be interesting. There's also a lot of elevation, a lot of climbing. There's like 6,000 feet total in this route. The first day is pretty flat on the rail trail for most of the time. And then right before we get to camp, it's pretty, it's pretty hilly. So, but yeah, we'll see what we're in for. That's awesome. I already want to go swimming in there. All right, this is the third really cool bridge in 10 miles. The first 10 miles are relatively flat. I think we've only done about 60 feet of elevation and it's been pretty much gravel the whole way. These bridges are awesome, dude. So sick. All right. So right after that third bridge, we see this little country store over here and it also appears to be a restaurant. It looks like a restaurant over there and a country store. McConnell's Country Store. It's about 10 miles into the route. Oh, nice. They got RC Cola. Everyone's favorite cola. Yeah, we should. Let's do it. That freaking general store and area was such a vibe, dude. Anybody would love it. Yeah, seriously. There was people in there ordering like fat subs. Like, oh dude, so much like, so much candy. They also have like good souvenirs in there. Yeah. We should get one on the way back. On the way back maybe. Yeah. So we're going to be doing a loop essentially, but the part that we just did that first 10 miles, we're going to be doing that part again, but all the rest of it is a loop. So we will end up back there towards the end. There's been these like rest stops and bathrooms like every couple miles, which is super nice. Look at that. I feel like I'm in a rainforest cafe right now. It's like Flintstones Kitchen. It's pretty cool. So it looks like we are six miles from Slate Run. Slate Run is where we're going to make a left off of the Pine Creek Rail Trail and start doing some elevation up towards our campsite. Our campsite is seven mile campground. So I'm not really sure if it's going to be a very populated campground or not. When we booked the site, we were the only site booked, but there could be other people there. So we'll see. Thoughts on the view? It's awesome. It's a good one. So about 23 miles in, there's this spigot right here and it looks like people come right here and fill up water with it. So should we fill up our water? Like just one? I might fill mine up. Just why not? Whoa. It fills up in like two seconds. It's so cold, dude. It feels so good. Looks like we got some campsites here. It says TF. Now there were some other campsites like kind of near where we're going to be camping tonight. That looked pretty ideal. These all look pretty nice. They're in like a grassy grassy field. A bunch of people here. So yeah, TF. Oh, did we go off the trail? Is the trail up there? Oh yeah, we went to the bathrooms and then stayed on here. Okay, we gotta go back. It's right there. Okay, yeah, let's sneak up there. Yeah, we pulled off to go to the bathroom and then stayed on the campsite. So I think this is where we go left. It should be Slate. We're gonna go right across that bridge there. We're in Boca Randy here and we got a little food and beverage place up here. The Hotel Manor. Yep, this is where we're getting into it. Get into your easiest gear. Yeah, this is the start of the ride officially. Yeah, basically everything we did up to this was not even part of the ride. We made it to Tiaducton State Forest. All right, we're here right now with Katie. She's about 29 miles into the PA Grand Canyon Loop. Thoughts? Thoughts are up until this point I've been totally good and now I'm starting to feel a little bit tired and we still have some more miles to go because once you get to off the rail trail, you go up these like hilly roads and they are really steep and punchy sometimes and yeah. What are you most looking forward to when we get to camp? Sitting on the bench, the picnic table. Yes. And then making dinner. Luxurious. All right, let's get there. Yeah. Wow, that is awesome. We were just like chatting and then all of a sudden we're like, what the heck? It's like someone's laying down upside down. It's like their butt. Yes, exactly. It's the cheeks. It's the green cheeks. It really does. I see what you're saying now. Oh my gosh. Their cheeks. Cheek mountain. All right, so we are getting very close to the campsite now. So very exciting. I feel like for a second there, we were thinking that this was going to be quite a long battle on these sort of steep gravel roads, but it really wasn't too bad to be honest. Honestly, I'm feeling pretty good about it. And unless we run into a thousand foot climb, which the map doesn't seem to suggest that we should be good to go. We should be at camp relatively soon. So very excited, feeling good, feeling optimistic. Let's get to camp. All right, so we are very close to seven mile campground and we're just not quite sure if this is the road down to it. There's no like actual road outlined on the map, so we're not really sure how to get down there, but this just really seems like this would be it. We're still just a little bit farther away from it, but I don't know. Do you think we should go and just like try it out and see? Maybe we should just go down. I know I hate to like descend and then have to come back up, but I just have a gut feeling that this is it. So all right, let's try it. I'll follow you. I'm gonna christen the campsite with a walking tamale. These things are loud. If you don't know about these, go to like Sprouts or wherever you can get like natural healthy food and they have these. Very, very delicious. So we're at camp now and Katie got right to work building the fire. I got right to work having some snacks. Got peanut butter granola in here, pretzels, and oreo type things. I feel like campsite number four is pretty goaded guys, not gonna lie. If you come here, you might want to get number four. It's got a lot of shade, which is great for filming and great for staying cool. So at the end of this trip, we're gonna rate each individual day and kind of put them in a ranking as to which one was the easiest and which one was the hardest day. That way you guys can sort of plan accordingly if you're going to do this route because we're not really sure what to expect on any given day. All right, so today we did 34 miles and according to the OnX Backcountry app, which we're using to navigate this, it was about 700 feet of elevation gain. So honestly, I feel like it was a pretty manageable day. I think if the next two days are anything like this, we should be good. And here we have some rice noodles, some dehydrated vegetables variety, and then we have some protein, I think it's soy protein. And then we also have some spices in there and it's like umami, so it's very like savory. Nice, good job. I feel like we need to get a new camp stove set up. Drop some recs down in the comments. Yeah, and some new bowls too. What bowls you guys are using? Let us know. Yeah, they do not stack. Yeah, and then the lid. Look at you, chief. Are you a freaking genius? That would have taken me 300 years to figure that out. Looks pretty good. Yeah, it hydrated. Yeah, softened it. It tastes really really good. It's like a lot of food too, which is fantastic. All right, so let me preface this by saying me and Katie can like really eat a lot of food, but bro, we both ate like not even everything that was in our bowls and we both have like tummy aches right now. My bowl was full. I don't know if it's like the food's expanding still in us. It's dehydrated. Everything we we put in there is dehydrated foods. Yeah, so we're just like, dude, I've never felt this full. It's like I feel like I'm eating five meals right now. This is like going out to eat at like like a Chili's or something feeling. Or you can eat buffet. It's Chili's out of five, bro. Oh, I honestly don't feel so good. Just don't poke my eye out. Always amazes me how quickly we can set that up. Like way more than we probably need. We're actually leaving a day earlier than planned, so we have plenty. Some nice campers just offered us some firewood because they saw scavenging, so that's really cool. So we'll have some legitimate firewood, which is nice. Yep. So thank you. What was her name? Allison. Yeah, thank you, Allison. It looks like she's off to a good start here. Man, she's ripping. She's ripping. She's really doing it. Dang. Yeah, because we like packed all those little sticks in there so tight. Dang, it's really doing its thing. Our neighbors just dropped off all this firewood, yo. They're the goats. Thank you guys so much. If you're watching this video randomly somehow, thank you. So I have to share this genius hack. So Katie's bike wasn't shifting good, so I took the Elkhorn rack and propped it up on this picnic table. Now we got enough space down here to spin the rear wheel and I got a rock sitting up here in the front, so it holds it in place. So now I can adjust the derailleur. Look what we got. Cards. It's getting dark. It is. So I cut my toothbrush in half to save a little bit of space and weight, and Katie also cut down her toothbrush. I regret it. I can barely use it. She cut it so small. It's not even a toothbrush at this point. All right guys, we're super tired, so we're gonna go to bed. Good night. Good morning, y'all. Get to wake up to this beautiful view. All right, day two. We are back on the trail. Day two, let's go. Wow, day two out of three is crazy. That's awesome. I'm feeling pretty good. I slept well last night. That campsite was really nice. It had like the sound of water running and everything was like perfect conditions for sleeping well. So I think today's gonna go really well. Yeah, I agree. I feel like the first 24-ish hours or so were perfect. So all right, let's get into it. Katie wanted to stop to get this branch. Doing the Lord's work. Oh wow, that's so perfect. It looks like your bike's peeing. So 38 total miles in and just a few miles past our campsite on the route we came across this spring, which should be perfect for filtering water because we pretty much just have one water bottle left at this point. So yeah, this is sick. This would be a great time, by the way, if you didn't already to go hit the subscribe button and go hit the like button. Appreciate you. So about mile 40, we're on some pretty large pieces of gravel right here. So if you have really skinny tires, Katie's got I think like 40 or 38. So she's like struggling a little bit, but it's not too bad. So my bike fell in the parking lot back at Jersey Shore when we were getting ready and I thought it was fine other than it got like a little smashed up on the bar end here, but it turns out my handlebars were completely sideways. We were like, why is my mega bar bag tracking over the tire like this? It looked completely wonky. So it turns out that it was off by like at least five or ten degrees. So we took everything off and now I'm just kind of adjusting my stem so that I can be riding straight and There's a little spring with a little like gnome house up there. Nice. There's so many places to get water along this route. The sun is out. Oh, I feel so much better, dude. I was freezing all morning. All I had was this and it was like 40 degrees and this is basically like paper thin. Oh, all right. We're banking the left here. Get ready to crank. Yeah, this is Cushman Vista. That was the longest descent of our lives and we're still going downhill. That was just insane. Yeah, and look, it's still going downhill. Like I'm not trying to complain about a downhill, but that definitely means we're going We made it to Tioga State Forest. It's so beautiful. Look at that. Wow. We should be getting to our vista very soon now. We've been going downhill for quite a while, so we're very curious to see how this last bit of the trail or the road is. Yeah, we're not sure if we're going to be going back uphill at all today. I mean, I imagine we might, but yeah, it's going to be a vista though, so let's get it going. Let's go. Bro, we keep stopping, but it's for good reasons. Another vista. This one says Vista Four Mile. Is it telling us that it's four miles to the next vista? I hope not. I hope it's closer than that. Pretty nice vista though. Oh, I think there might be an animal in there. Oh yeah, there is. There's squirrels. Yeah, it's all squirrels poking around in there. There he goes. Yeah, that's so funny. And that's a furnace, right? Yeah, I think so. Like a kiln or something, right? All right, we're getting to the spot where we're going to do an out and back to the vista now. So it looks like it's a right right here, and there's a sign. What does the sign say? Yeah, Day Use Area, Colton Point State Park. Yep, we're going to go this way. Whoa. Holy cow, dude. Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's the rail trail, I think down there. Yeah, you can literally see people riding their bikes. Dude, this is so cool. So it looks like there's like a whole other viewing area or something up there, even higher up. If you know what that is, drop a comment. Yeah, the rail trail's down there, and you got Pine Creek down there too. That's where we're going to be later. All right, so we were looking for a spot to like sit down and have lunch, and we couldn't find anywhere that was one, in the sun because it's really cold, and two, like where there wasn't actually a bench. And so we just randomly came across this spot that has a bench, but it also has this insane view behind me. This is so crazy. We were going to totally just like bypass this. We had no idea this was even here. That is by far the best view. It is lunchtime, and we're both super locked in because we're very hungry. It's like almost three o'clock. We're like, we'll be here at the vista by like probably 11, 12. It took a bit longer. So yeah, it's a late lunch. That is so cool. All right, we're back on the road again. So many views. Honestly, we probably even missed some of them. But yeah, so many spots to look out and see the Pia Grand Canyon. So it led out to this, which is a change of scenery. We just came from over there on that bridge. It looks like there's like some sort of building up here. This might be like a restaurant slash inn. Not sure, but we'll go up and check it out. So we got a bar right here. And then we got an e-bike shop over there. Rental. And then, come on. All right, so now we're taking this road that thankfully has a really big shoulder over to the Pine Creek Rail Trail. And it should be very smooth sailing until we get to our campsite. Just riding a rail trail. Piece of cake. All right, we're back on the Pine Creek Rail Trail now. Smooth sailing. This is cool. It's a really cool bridge. Do it for the vine. Is the side better? I don't know the side. There's bird poop on there too. Careful. Mind freak. Mind freak. You did it. Dang. Are you a gymnast? Gymnasty. Whoa. There's just honestly my biggest complaint about this is there's just too many cool things to see. You can't even ride. Whoa. So cool. Wow. This is awesome. And I'm pretty sure it goes up like pretty far. You could like hike up it. Just not sure if we want to leave the bikes. But friendly reminder to drink some water. We've just gone like 40 something miles and we took like a few sips of water the entire time. It's easy when it's not super hot to just forget water. So even if you're at home, drink some water. It's good for you. All right, so we are rolling into a place called Blackwell right now which looks to have some signs of civilization. This is right before our campsite as well. Hoffman Campground. We made it. Let's go. We finally made it. Long day. Long day. Kay's delirious right now. She's like what? Yeah the view is sick. This is Hoffman Campground. Honestly didn't think I selected one. I kind of got this one by accident but it's all good. It's still a campsite and this place is beautiful. It has a good view. Yeah it's really cool and there's bathrooms too. Sweet. Welcome back to Katie's Cooking Show where we make the same dinner for the second night in a row. But this time with the last portion. Yeah way smaller this time. I don't think I've ever said that in my life. Give me less food. Give me less food. Never said that. Our fuel canister just ran out but it was pretty warm. So did that seem pretty warm? I saw steam coming off of it. Guys there's a lot of people here so we have to whisper all bunches wanted to say good night. All right so we woke up this morning to two dead cell phones which was our navigation and also our means for filming this video. Luckily we also have a GoPro with one battery left and a camera as well. So we took a video of the map with our camera so that's what we're using to kind of have as a backup navigation. But I also got that map up here in my dome. That's basically what we're relying on to not only shoot the rest of the video but also get us back home. So fingers crossed we make it back. Just stopped in here. This was like right near where we were camping at Hoffman Campground and got a little Pepsi and a little peanut chew. So set for the day. Dude this is where we should have camped. We just found this spot. I'm about to get a picture of the sign for next time. Big Run North 18. It's like so tucked in here. Oh my god this is awesome. You got your picnic bench. You got fires. You got two fire pits. Oh that's like a table or something almost. Yeah. You got a picnic bench. You got a seat. And then this awesome fire pit with like a back wall to reflect the heat. Yeah. Do we need ice for anything? Dude this is the spot. Dude we are definitely caving here. A lot of climbing so far today. There's a lot of like cottages and houses and stuff back here. Even some like farms and stuff. Saw some horses and deer. There's a quail. Does he have a friend around or something? There he is. Whoa whoa. Oh that scared me. Oh he seems distressed. He has little babies that's why. Oh sorry for disturbing you buddy. Road work ahead. Well I hope so. Found a perfect little lunch spot here in this state park. So now we are having a little lunch at Little Pine State Park. But yeah we're having some peanut butter and jelly quesadilla things again so. And we got sodas that are pretty cold so. Cheers to the last day. All right this might be our creek crossing right here. Yeah. All right so we need to go over there. I don't know how deep it gets in the deepest spot so I'm going to take my shoes and socks off and just go across it slowly. All right here goes nothing. Yeah. Oh it's chilly on the feet. Yeah all the rocks are like super smooth. Just take your time and don't fall. Yeah. Look at Katie right now. Oh my gosh this is insane. You got it babe. Okay I will go sit my bike down and I'll help you. Hold on. Yeah. This seems like almost too hard. I think something's not right. Okay the bike needs to be lifted up but I need to get in the right position to do so. Like piggyback kind of. Now I just need to go really slow because if I fall I'm on like a really big rock right now. It's really hard to like keep my balance here. Yeah. All the pressure. I really don't think people do this. It's all the way up to my thighs. Yeah. If I fall I'm going down. Yeah. I can't fall here. Oh it hurts my feet. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. Yeah. Um is there another way around this? No. No. Well we would have to miss out on this portion of the of the loop which like technically then this wouldn't be the the official loop if we didn't do this. We could have just continued on this road made it safely back to the rail trail and back to the car but this is like doing doing the full thing. I can't believe this is like this. Yeah. It's actually pretty deep. I'll show you how deep it is right here. Like it was up over my shorts. I was like having a wider stance. I think it helps with being sturdier. Never felt so locked in. You got it. I got it baby. I got it. You did it. You did it. You made it. Need my help? I'm good. I'm good. Just give me a minute. How was that? Oh man that was crazy. The feet are so sore. That was the hardest part was the feet. Oh. Ow. Oh. Just crazy and it's it's cold too but your feet just feel like they're just like stepping on marbles the whole time. Crazy. We did it. We did it. We did it. Like falling over. Then we go this way. Yeah. After all that. Then we go this way and we got across the creek one more time. You guys I feel like I've been humbled. I feel like that was way harder than I thought it was gonna be. Yeah definitely. I thought I was gonna be swept away no lie. I was like I had my bike in the water and it was getting up to like here. Yeah. And then I was like pushing back on it and it was still moving and I was like nope this isn't I'm gonna get swept away. I'm glad Nick was there to help me because I don't think I would have been able to do that. Even though it seemed a lot harder when we got there we could kind of tell it was gonna be hard. I just really wanted to do it just so we could say we did it. You know what I mean? Like type two type on. And we made it so we're good. Look at this. There's so many tadpoles. Yeah does it say lake shore? Yeah that's where we got to go. We go this way I believe. Look at this area. This is so beautiful. I feel like I'm in like a safari or something. Looks like the wetlands. That is so sick dude. What do you call this kind of nature? Wow. Oh what's this? Let's stop. What is this? Happy acres. It says happy store too. Do we want to see what a happy store is? Vitamin water. They also have like coffee Oh really? Yeah. Oh nice. We're back on the rail trail and all we have to do is head towards Jersey Shore and our ride will be done. Alright guys so we are back where we started this entire journey. We are back on the same bridge where we did the intro and that means we're super close to the Jersey Shore parking lot. This trip has been really awesome and I'm so glad that we did this and that we were able to take you guys along with us. Now we want to kind of go over each day so you sort of know what to expect. I would say the first day was probably the easiest. Yeah that was pretty easy. Second day was definitely the hardest. The most amount of miles and everything too and it was also really cold and all I had was this like little sun hoodie so I was really cold but the last day was amazing too. It was a little challenging but it was also one of the best days I would say and a really great way to sort of finish up the trip. So just want to say thank you guys so much for watching the video and be sure to like the video and subscribe to the channel as well. We're going to be doing a lot more bikepacking trips like this in the future so you won't want to miss it. Thanks so much guys. Catch you in the next one. Peace.