I've done the vast majority of my hiking in north-central PA, and even after moving away I keep going back because of the incredible trail network. It's always possible to put together an worthwhile loop of any distance you want, from 2-200 miles (attached screenshot of my day hikes in the area as evidence).

I'd like to break my pattern and explore more areas, particularly Virginia. Any specific forest/area in VA (or the rest of the Mid Atlantic) with a comparably dense and extensive trail network?

Big tracks on a hike through Michaux State Forest (size 12 shoe for scale). Tracks were a few days old, so no actual bear spotting.

Repost of an old trip report of mine, when my phone's camera was much suckier.

On May 23rd, a friend (Dave) and I set out on an attempt at backpacking the newly crafted but constantly evolving PA Wilds Trail. Our best estimates put this version of the trail somewhere near 200 miles, but I’m still waiting on the final GPS verdict. Starting on the Quehanna Trail at Parker Dam State Park, we planned on a roughly 10 day journey to the northern terminus of the West Rim Trail. This won’t be an exhaustive trip report, as u/ANF_Hiker has already written a much more detailed and better photographed report.

Big 3 gear: Gregory Optic 58, Marmot NanoWave 45, Borah Gear 7x9 UL Tarp

The rest: REI Flash Insulated pad (RIP), Pocket Rocket, Z-lite.. ask if you want to know any others

Day 1: This spring was a late one in northern PA, which became obvious as we drove from my friend’s house in Lancaster to Parker Dam. The full green canopy gave way to brown, mostly bare branches, with little groundco

Got my butt kicked by a couple inches of new snow the other day on some local trails

2 day backpacking trip in the snow, working off the cookies.

Posting as a test while I figure out how to use this site. The 500kb image limit is absurd.