The Keystone Trails Association Fall Weekend is all about having fun outdoors, but participants don’t have to rough it too much.
The Oct. 14-16 gathering of the statewide group and other hikers is set at Whitehall Camp and Conference Center in Venango County near Emlenton. Attendees can choose to stay in tents or recreation vehicles on the Christian center’s nearly 300 acres, the motel-style accommodations of the Faith and Hillside lodges, or the dorm-style rooms of the Retreat Center.
Weekend packages, including Friday and Saturday lodging (plus Thursday if you choose), start at $185 per person for a dorm and $285 for a lodge, and there are discounts for families and other groups staying together and for children. The packages also include six meals, starting with a Friday wiener roast and continuing through Sunday lunch.
That cost also covers the registration fee, which includes a full schedule of nearby hikes and other activities. The slate of about three dozen things to do range from bird and nature walks and short hikes to a 12-mile trip on the North Country Trail in Butler County. There are bike rides, canoe and kayak paddles, even a pontoon boat trip on the Allegheny River, plus classes in yoga, kids activities and more. You don’t even have to walk on one riverfront tour because you can take it on a Segway two-wheeled transporter or a golf cart.
The schedule was put together by Joyce Appel who has organized the activities for the Outdoor Extravaganza of the Butler Outdoor Club for 20 years. She’s also a member of the Butler chapter of the North Country Trail Association, which, with the Clarion chapter, is hosting the event. She’s a veteran attendee of several of these weekends and helped organize the most recent one at this end of the state, held at Camp Lutherlyn in Prospect in 2011. Showing off our region’s assets “is always fun,” she says.
While the weekend package prices are for members of the non-profit KTA, other outdoorspeople are welcome to join (for $15 a person or $20 family). And even non-members are welcome to show up and go on the hikes (the registration fee alone is $35). About 100 to 150 people are expected to attend.
“It’s informal and fun,” says KTA program director Sara Haxby, who says these weekends, held each fall and spring, mean “to give our member hiking clubs the opportunity to showcase their beloved region to hikers and trail enthusiasts from nearby, all over the state and beyond.”
You can also arrange your own fun at attractions in that area, including Mineral Springs Park, which claims to have the world’s oldest still-operational oil well, and the tallest bridge east of the Mississippi River, spanning Interstate 80. (The deadline has passed to sign up for the KTA’s ride on the Oil Creek & Titusville Railroad and optional visit to the Drake Well Museum.)
Saturday is the group’s big Fall Meeting and Awards Ceremony, with talks by plant enthusiast Heather Housekeeper and Paul Shaw of Treks and Trails International. Proceeds from the weekend go toward KTA’s mission of providing, preserving, protecting and promoting hiking trails in Pennsylvania.
The camp is about a 90-mile drive northeast of Pittsburgh. To register for accommodations and events (some require registration by Sept. 30) and for more details, visit www.kta-hike.org and click on “Fall Hiking & Meeting Weekend.”
Bob Batz Jr.: bbatz@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1930 and on Twitter @bobbatzjr.
First Published: September 24, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
