Long Scenic Late Spring Ride in Centre County

For a long time now, I had been meaning to find out the end of a bike trail that begins on Penn State property - the Arboretum trail - near the Sunset park.

Well, on a cloudy and cool Sunday afternoon, I finally figured it out. Started out biking around 230pm with a friend of mine. We started biking from near College and Allen and after a short stop to see the little baby duckies near Penn state's duck pond (near the Alumni Center), we continued through minor uphill biking and got out of the campus on McKee Street off of Park Avenue. Then we headed down into the bike trail near Sunset park and turned into the Arboretum trail area.

A beautiful chestnut gelding we saw on a pasture. I think he is a quarterhorse.

(Side note: The Arboretum at Penn State is a great place to check out during Spring/summer time. Here is a webcam link if you want to see for yourself)

From here on, part of it was familiar territory from all my running practice in that area. However, we kept biking and went past the Toftrees area and deeper into the woods. Barring a few wisecrack remarks from me about the "thickening tree cover and the entry into the deep tropical jungles", it was a fairly straightforward trail ride. (Note: you definitely need a bike with wide tires and sturdy frame, not meant for road bikes).

The trail ended at some location that we were not able to identify, except that it was a new development and eventually we figured we were somewhere outside of State College, between Stormstown and Fillimore. We wandered around, met horses at a pasture, fed them grass, took pictures, then rode a lot more. At some point we talked to someone who was gardening (near Fillmore) and then continued on and found our way back to downtown State College after several hours of arduous biking. Overall, we biked from between 230 to 730 pm! Whew.

Horse pics are below!

Path link: http://goo.gl/maps/NTc5o (some minor approximations and trackbacks)

View Larger Map

Above see a rough map of the trails we hit today. In total, it seems like we bicycled through around 20 miles (give or take a mile). It was a good workout and was topped up by dinner at Five Guys!