Had a nice three mile walk with George today, the theme: We don't need no stinking trail maps! And we don't need no stinking trail either! The idea was to head out to the Rachel Carson Trail and hike a couple miles, and turn around and head home. Since I had little luck finding trail mapage on line, I thought a stop at the Carson Homestead would be conducive to finding someone who had a better idea as to the location of the trail head. A gaggle of friendly and chatty women who volunteer at the homestead directed us to where we needed to go, "did you bring your machetes?" they started off with, "you'll start out following a chain link fence around a soccer field at the end of the road. You will be thinking, 'this certainly can't possibly be right,' but that's where you go." They went on to explain the plight of neglected trail maintenance, that apparently the group that used to keep the trail well maintained (and provided maps) no longer does so and the current group is not so fastidious in these endeavors. Once we found the "trail", we apparently had the option of going one way for five miles or off in the other direction for the other thirty miles. I suppose we were briefly on the actual trail, an open causeway underneath towering power-lines. Not the picturesque description I encountered earlier while researching the trail of "scenic vistas of the Allegheny River." With no shade or cover from sun, this was hardly the pleasant walk in the woods I had envisioned, so off we went, off trail, into the woods, along a stream, along a road, back up through more woods, back to a road, past the scenic power plant and up under the power lines again and back into the woods. We muscled this linear trail circular. Apparently, if we start the hike on the other end it's a bit more well marked and maintained. I want to give this trail the benefit of the doubt. If the majority of this trail involves following power-lines/pipelines, that would be unfortunate, but I would be willing to give it an early morning or late afternoon (read: not under the blazing sun with no cover to speak of on a 90 degree day).