Warrior Trail Association gearing up for another season
Warrior Trail Association
Courtesy of Frank Pecjak Jr.
Courtesy of Frank Pecjak Jr.
Some participants at one of the Warrior Trail Association’s public hikes.
Courtesy of Frank Pecjak Jr.
The Warrior Trail
If you’re a hiking enthusiast, the rise in temperatures should get you thinking about throwing on your comfortable walking shoes and heading outdoors. Plus, you needn’t go far to find an interesting trail.
The Warrior Trail, which begins in Greensboro, travels along the ridge that forms a divide between the watersheds for 45 miles through Pennsylvania and continues on for another 22 miles to Moundsville, W.Va.
Keeping the trail free of fallen limbs, brush and debris as well as remarking faded or replacing missing trail signs is no easy matter. That important duty falls on the shoulders of the Warrior Trail Association members and volunteers. The group meets once a month to help maintain the trail’s walkability.
Greene County residents are invited to take part in the next work hike, scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday at the association headquarters at 1346 Garards Fort Road in Fordyce.
The association will supply all the needed tools and supplies, but participants are asked to bring hard soled, work boots or shoes and gloves. Volunteers should dress for a day in the woods.
“We’ll cover a couple of miles, and people can join us for an hour or two and come and go as they please,” said Frank Pecjak Jr., association president and member since the early 1990s. “If they want, they can also bring along lunch and a beverage.”
Past work hikes have drawn up to 15 people, depending on what there is to do in the county that day. Pecjak said it normally takes the association about five years to cover the entire 46-mile stretch of the trail that runs through Pennsylvania.
The association holds a general membership meeting at 6:30 p.m. on the third Thursday of every month, March through November, at the headquarters in Fordyce. The building was originally a one-room, red brick schoolhouse. For a while, the association rented the building for $1 a year until Greene County officials decided to deed the building to the association Current membership is around 100 people, and annual dues are $15 for an individual or $25 for a family.
The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, April 18, which will include the popular pot luck dinner. At the meeting, Doug Wood, a Native American re-enactor, will give the regularly scheduled monthly talk on the subject of edible, useful and medicinal plants of the 17th and 18th century Amerindians.
To support their efforts, association members organize buffalo burger sales three times a year at various festivals: the White Bridge in Carmichaels, during the Covered Bridge Festival in September; the Stone to Steel Heritage Festival at the Greene County Historical Society (this year on Aug. 3 and 4) and at the historical society’s Harvest Festival (set this year for Oct. 12 and 13).
Coming up on June 1 is the annual public hike along the trail. Participants should arrive at association headquarters in Fordyce at 9:30 a.m. While the hike is free of charge, hikers might want to bring along a lunch and water.
“Although we usually plan for a 5 mile hike, participants can leave the trail at one and two-mile intervals and catch the shuttle we provide back to their cars,” said Pecjak, who once hiked the entire trail over a six-day period.
According to past president Llew Williams, the trail has been used for more than 5,000 years, when Native Americans started to wear down a path from their settlements along the Monongahela River to Flint Ridge, Ohio. Their goal was to mine or trade for flint, which was plentiful in that area, and carry it back home to make knives, scrapers and projectiles.
Fifty-four years ago, a group of prominent Greene County residents, including then-Waynesburg College president Paul Stewart, then-District Attorney Bertram Waychoff, former Waynesburg College professor James (Fuzzy) Randolph, several Greene County judges and others interested in archaeology and Native Americans met to discuss ways to promote the scenic beauty of the county through tourism.
Their initial idea centered on developing a hiking trail along the Mason-Dixon Line, but the plan was scrapped when they discovered it would have to pass over Dunkard Creek numerous times. Instead, they set their sites on an alternate trail, now called the Warrior Trail.
A year after the group outlined the route of the trail, the Warrior Trail Association formed.
Roughly one-third of the trail is on state game lands, another third is on hard road and the final third is on private property. Although biking and horseback riding on the trail are not permitted, landowners allow hikers to camp overnight when asked. Three Adirondack shelters located at 11-1/2 miles, 24 miles and 35-1/2 miles are available for those who may want to lay out sleeping bags without having to pitch a tent.
Free maps of the trail are available at the Greene County Tourism office in Waynesburg.
For more information about the association or the trail, phone 724-998-1386 or visit the Warrior Trail Assciation link on Facebook.com.