By flyhot in September, 2011
The wife and I rode the trail on Sept 11 2011. We started from the State Park and rode to the end of trail and beginning of "share the road". It was a gentle uphill ride to the road. Very isolated and quiet. We passed 4 walkers and 4 bicyclists total in the round trip. Also saw tons of chipmunks, 1 large owl and 2 deer. The surface is paved and in excellent condition. Round trip, we rode 22 miles and rate this trail very high.
By Brian Clark in March, 2002
"Nice paved trail with lots of history around the valley it's in. Good place to spend an afternoon, you can ride your bike, hike, have a picnic, ride the train and visit the oil museum.
Drove from Altoona to check it out, rode the trail and went to the oil museum. Trail has lots of historical markers along it, seems like I stopped every 1/2 mile to read them, lots of stuff I didn't know about oil history. Checked out the tourist train that runs parallel to the trail on the other side of the river. Having the museum right near the trail made the ride more interesting. Museum has machinery from early oil operations outdoors along with a recreation of the drake well. Main museum building has artifacts and photographs as well as small working models of how oil wells operated. Seeing the wagon they used to transport nitroglycerine in along dirt roads was a real blast."
By in November, 2001
Trail was great. The only problem was that we didn't know that hunting was permitted in the area.