Raccoon Creek State Park

John had to work for part of the day on Saturday so instead of going into Pittsburgh we went to Raccoon Creek State Park.  The park was west over to the town of Freedom and across the Ohio River.  Still in PA, but very close to the West Virginia border. 

It is a fairly large park with a lake and more than 40 miles of hiking trails.  The day was warm and most of the people we saw were at the lake.  The first trail we found that didn’t look overgrown with poison ivy was the Heritage Trail.  After an initial climb to the top of a hill, it was a fairly level walk.  The forest here seems to be very “branch-y” to me.  There are not a lot of large trees. 

This large tree caught my eye:

Here is some ground cover that we had never seen before, anyway.  Like a Christmas tree covering the ground. 

A good hike, we both broke out into a good sweat so that we felt like we’d been to a spa or something.  I got a little patch of poison ivy on my wrist, but it seems to be mostly gone now.