Yesterday afternoon, four members and three leaders of my church‘s youth group traveled to Laporte, PA to hike a portion of the Loyalsock Trail. If I recall correctly, I believe we started at a parking lot on Mead Road, a gravel road off of U.S. Route 220 (approximately 2 miles north of the US 220/PA 154 junction).

After driving for about 90 minutes, we unloaded our bagged lunches, swimsuits and towels and hiked about two miles on the Haystacks Trail, a “Red X” trail of the Loyalsock Trail (i.e. a bypass or alternate route that starts and ends on the main trail). After hiking down some decent hills, a decent straightaway, and some more hills, we reached our destination, Loyalsock Creek.

Moments after arriving, the seven of us were changed into our bathing suits and making our way into the very cold creek. I’ve never been swimming in a creek before, so this was an interesting first experience. The bottom was quite rocky (and extremely slick), so it was difficult to swim; in fact, I did more walking, crawling and sliding than I did swimming.

We slowly made our way to an area set apart by some larger rocks, where we enjoyed a mix of fast moving rapids and quite pools. There were at least a couple encounters with snakes (one of the boys said it was a Copperhead, but I wasn’t close enough to see it) and a few more with some decent sized spiders. We didn’t swim all the way to the Haystacks (a section of the creek with large boulders that look like bales of hay sitting out in a farm), but we were close enough for one of my fellow leaders to snap some great photos.

After enjoying the water for about two hours, we headed back to a section of rock where we’d left our stuff, got changed, enjoyed a late lunch and prepared ourselves for the hike back to our cars. This time, the hike was a bit more grueling because a) we were exhausted after being in the water and sun for a couple hours and b) we were climbing up the hills, not down them.

We finally reached our cars where we cooled off with some of the best tasting water ever. Moments later, we were back on the road and heading home. The three students I had in my car were out cold in less than ten minutes, so it was a very quiet ride home; normally, I would have really enjoyed that, but I was quite tired myself and wished someone else had been awake to help keep me awake.

Though the day was long, it was an awesome time of fellowship with some of our students. I wish more students had joined us, but many families were returning from their 4th of July vacations and couldn’t participate. In a few weeks, the youth group is going tubing on a nearby creek; I can only hope that day will be as much fun as yesterday.