Hike length: 10.5 miles Suzanne and I started out on this circular trail at 11 am. The first two or three miles of the trail was a near vertical climb interspersed with sharp cut-backs. Once we reached the summit of the mountain we were on it was well worth it, the next 5 miles or so the trail kept along ridge tops with amazing views of our lovely Pennsylvania mountains. This hike took us along a variety of substrates, anything from the rocky dusty inclines, briefly on a utility dirt road, densely wooded areas where we kept losing the trail markers since the trail was very well trodden and it is September, leaves that have started to fall have masked the placement of the trail. For a mile or so we were along a section of the Laurel Highlands Hiking trail, so the trail blazes were not always the same. There were a number of places where my hiking guide gave very cryptic descriptions of the trail in the un-blazed areas, "after about 1.3 km you'll turn right at the large maple tree." We were surrounded by heaps of large maple trees. We didn't get back to the start of our loop until 5:30 pm. The six and a half hours reflects some of the navigation difficulty we had in the woods, but it was fine by us. In those six and a half hours we didn't see another soul for six hours, or about 10 miles, as it was only on the last stretch toward the car when we passed a couple walking their dog. Just us, our quiet peanut-butter sandwich lunches and a couple of very cool old abandoned charcoal iron furnaces in the woods; we theorized that if we were bears, these old furnaces would make for a great surrogate cave. We convinced ourselves so thoroughly of this that we did not dare approach too close. We also wanted to start another part of our hiking tradition, not only were we going to seek out nearby, circular trails for day hikes, but we are also going to survey the diners we encounter and sample their pie and coffee. We stopped at Dean's diner on route 22. A place I've passed by dozens of times with Mark on our way to and from Johnstown. We were served absolutely enormous pieces of pie! [Did we finish them, I don't recall, but I think I had the lemon merenge and Suzanne may have had the coconut cream] Note: I originally thought this hike was going to be 7 or 8 miles, a good length for one of our first day hikes. We got a good chuckle later realizing that we had already hiked well over eight miles and saw in the notes of my hiking book that the hike was actually 10.5 miles. This was a good trail and I would hike this route again.