Rothrock State Forest, Pennsylvania - July 29th, 2023 - July 30th, 2023

The three of us left right after I arrived at Tina’s house, following my full day at work on Friday. Kathy was already there. It was a long drive of over five hours to Pine Grove Mills town in Pennsylvania, where the overnight bikepacking loop started. The rain on our arrival wasn’t anything surprising as the whole summer was very wet. We moved everything to the roof box and laid down on the back of Tina’s large SUV to get some sleep. None of us got much of it, however, as we were crammed next to each other and barely dared to move. Morning came soon enough and it was time to pack our bikes and leave. Tina warmed up her coffee as we were preparing and shortly after we rolled from the quiet gravel parking lot. We stopped at the Naked Egg Café for breakfast.

The food was delicious and soon excited for the adventure ahead of us we pedaled away. At mile 14 we climbed up a gravel road to a fire tower.

There was a nice hut and fire pit there (would make for a perfect camping spot), but the tower lacked steps and we couldn’t climb to the top of it to enjoy the view. We took a short break and walked around to see if we could access any view point. There was not much to see in between the trees, as we found out, and Tina got stung by a bee. Group of women hikers emerged from a nearby trail in the woods and the leader took our picture in front of the hut.

Soon we found ourselves going down the hill that we just climbed back and continued our trek again. At mile 16 we stopped at a spring water pipe to refill our water bottles.

We arrived at Colyer Lake at mile 26 and decided to take a short break again. Tina spotted a 2.6-mile trail circumventing the lake and suggested we ride it. What a blast it was. The single track was very smooth and zigzagging, taking us over a brook and next to a very unusual looking damn.

At mile 42, we climbed up to a beautiful valley vista. The climb was long and rather steep with bugs flying around our heads for company.

And from there we rolled over smaller hills in the picturesque Amish countryside.

We stopped at mile 51 at Milroy Deli for early dinner and to resupply for the next day as there were no stores on the second half of the route.

Of course, the stop at Frozen Spoon for ice cream was not a matter of a question but rather a mandatory thing. And at mile 56, we finally arrived at our campsite.

The rain surprised us again later that night as we retired to our tents. It just passed by and reminded us about its presence again – a constant thing this summer season.

The next day the climbing continued, and the gravel was very loose at some point making it harder to pedal up. It seemed like all we did was climb. Although, the climbs rewarded us with beautiful views and fast descents, which were the main highlights of the route besides the pleasantly overwhelming tranquility of the forest.

And Tina got stung by a bee second time around on this trip.