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Scenic Remote

Ghost Town Trail
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Wildflowers of the Ghost Town Trail

The Ghost Town Trail runs from Dilltown, in Indiana County, to Nanty Glo in Cambria County. The Dilltown trailhead is located on the east side of Rt. 403, just north of Blacklick Creek. The Nanty Glo trailhead is located along South Branch Blacklick Creek behind the fire station, near the intersection of First and Walnut Streets.

The Indiana County Parks Department has posted an excellant map on their website.

GPS Data
All Data:
   Magellan Waypoint File     Excel     TopoGrafix .loc File
Features & Trailheads Only:
   Magellan Waypoint File     Excel     TopoGrafix .loc File

The Ghost Town Trail is sort of a scenic extravaganza and a lesson in ecology at the same time. The trail runs through the historic industrial an mining area along Blacklick Creek (from which the trail takes its name), with a northern spur and the southern end of the trail taking you up into the tributary valleys of North and South Branch Blacklick Creek. The woodland scenery is wonderful, especially along the tributaries, with mountain laurel, pines, wildflowers, and rushing mountain streams. Historic artifacts include the remnants of a quarrying operation and the Eliza furnace, a blast furnace which produced iron between 1846 and 1849.

Among the scenery, however, is much evidence of the past. Plaques erected by the Department of Environmental Protection describe efforts to correct acid mine drainage, and you can see evidence of AMD in the staining of the rocks and milky color of the water in some locations. Occassional coal refuse piles provide entertainment for BMX riders. Another strangely fascinating feature is a series of three boreholes drilled into the mine through the creekbed near Vintondale to lower water levels in the abandoned mine. These boreholes form fountains in the stream, surrounded by an array of colors resulting from the discharge of mine water. (video clip, 1,060Kb)

The AMD & Art Project has been working to combine remediation with aesthetics by turning the the area just upstream of Vintondale into a wetlands treatment system and park. Just a couple of years ago, this was an area of bare soil and concrete relics. Today, it is a series of treatment ponds with and abundance of vegetation. It will be interesting to watch the results of this project over the next few years.

  • Completed Length: 16 miles
  • Connecting Trails: none
  • Surface: packed stone
  • Topography: 1348 ft MSL at Dilltown, 1400 ft at Vintondale, 1550 ft at end of Rexis spur, 1680 ft at Nanty Glo. Average rise: 7.7 ft/mile Dilltown to Vintondale; 41.5 ft/mile on Rexis spur; 44.9 ft/mile Vintondale to Nanty Glo.
  • Historic Eliza furnace
  • Markers at historic locations of the Ghost Towns
  • Acid mine drainage treatment project under construction near Vintondale
  • Historic quarry remnants on Rexis spur

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