Hike #29 - French Creek State Park (Mill Creek Trail); or, "It's Tough Being Clever When You're Swarmed by Bugs!"

Hiking French Creek State Park On October 10, 2011, Hiking with Impunity returned to French Creek State Park for a fourth time. With its 7,730 acres of land, and over 35 miles of hikeable trails, it's easy to see why people (including us) return to this state park again and again, always finding a different route to take.

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Hike #29 - French Creek State Park (Mill Creek Trail); or, "It's Tough Being Clever When You're Swarmed by Bugs!"

Hiking French Creek State ParkHiking with Impunity returned to French Creek State Park in Elverson, Pennsylvania for a fourth time today. Whereas we had covered the Western portion of French Creek in our previously published hike from August 24th (see Hike #24), and had written about our brush with heat exhaustion while hiking the Boone Trail (see Hike #8 - "How to Get Heat Exhaustion without Really Trying"), today we hiked a loop that we pieced together using the Mill Creek and other trails in the eastern part of the state park.

We'll be bringing you full details from this hike soon. In the meantime, if you are one of the lucky people who found our calling card on the trail, click here (unless you see a comment box below), scroll to the bottom of the article, and post a comment -  let us know what day you found it, and what trails you took!

Hike #24 - French Creek State Park; or, "Navigation: Successful"

Scott's Run Lake

We returned to French Creek State Park for a third time, with map in hand, and a planned loop that we had concocted ourselves. After studying the almost 35 miles of trails, we had decided to hike through the Western portion of French Creek, having done the Boone Trail (see Hike #8) and Mill Trail loops before on two separate occasions. All the guidebooks that we use stress the Boone trail as the hike to do, but part of the fun of going to French Creek is plotting a course and subsequently navigating the vast nework of trails.

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Hike #24 - French Creek State Park; or, "Navigation: Successful"

Scott's Run LakeHiking with Impunity hit French Creek State Park's trails today. We hiked on 6 different trails, including the famous Horseshoe Trail - an approximately 135 mile trail that runs from Valley Forge National Park to the Appalachian Trail right outside of Hershey, PA. 

To plan the hike, all we used was the state park map and our (finally developing) good senses. 

No guidebook. No advice. No suggestions. And, most importantly, no heat exhaustion! (see Hike #8: French Creek State Park; or, "How to Get Heat Exhaustion without Really Trying")

We'll be bringing you all of the information about our latest hike, including which trails we hiked and a boat-load of pictures, within the next week! Remember to subscribe to our newsfeed to stay up to date with all of our newly published articles (either by entering your email address in the sidebar, or visiting our Hiking with Impunity Newsfeed  and subscribing there).

Happy Trails!

Hike #8: French Creek; or "How to Get Heat Exhaustion without Really Trying"

French Creek State Park truly is an amazing place to go for a nice hike. They have over 35 miles of trails to choose from that cover a decent sized portion of the 7,730 acres. We had decided to go to French Creek because of the diversity of trails as well as a recommended hike by Backpacker Magazine. We had also researched the trails on the Pennsylvania State Parks Website, and found that this particular hike would give us the most bang for our buck in showing us many different areas of the park. (It should also be noted that the famous Horse-shoe trail, which runs 130 miles from Valley Forge to the Appalachian Trail, also cuts through the park.)

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