" data-lightview-caption="This Trail just gets more amazing as you go, keep looking.By gigi234" data-lightview-type="image">
West Penn Trail Then and Now By gigi234 in 5/19/2011 10:18:44 PM | I have recently walked a short distance on the West Penn Trail with my 84 year old mother and one of my four sisters, it was so pleasant and such an easy walk that Mother was able to walk 1.5 miles. But my story begins much earlier in time. In the early 1960’s we would walk this still used railroad track from White Station to Saltsburg to go to the Saltsburg Movie Theater, at that time we had to listen for the occasional oncoming train and had no time to notice the surroundings nor were we much interested at that time rather than flowers and trees the typical landscape coal company scares was and the Conemaugh river then smelled of the sulfur run off from coal mines in the area. And so as we walked there recently without the fear of an oncoming train our mother told us of walking to school using this same root in the 30’s and of those now gone who walked here with her. As bicyclists passed and nodded or stopped to chat we spoke of old times good and bad, of fresh air, the scent of spring and beauty of the wild flowers and how amazing it is to now see the changes in the landscape, all of the loveliness, the calm splendor of the area as it is now. I’m sure as the weather clears we will spend more time getting to know one another all over again along the West Penn Trail. The trail is truly a welcome prescription for the heart and soul.