The Susquehanna River At The Canoe Access near Karthaus
"This 127-mile loop through portions of five counties is a drive-to-believe-it kind of experience. The distinct Elk Scenic Drive road signs are your guide for this journey. Known for unparalleled wildlife viewing, you can start from the west end (Rt. 144) or east end at Lock Haven (Rt. 120) via easy access points off I-80." https://pawilds.com/journey/elk-scenic-drive/#!directory/map/ord=rnd
Driving on 144
The Route Overview:
We took 80 out to snow shoe, headed to Karthaus to see the iron furnace, then drove up 144, visiting several overlooks, and hiking to yost falls, before going on to Hyner View, and ending with dinner in Lock Haven. If you choose this route, pack a picnic, and download your maps for offline use - you will have little to no cell service, and there are no gas stations or restaurants between show shoe and Renovo. :-)
We stopped in Snow Show, at the "Grocery Store", to get subs for our picnic lunch. The grocery store in Snow Shoe is a full hardware store, bank, post office, and has a subway counter in the back. (Subway subs - get your sub made to order, then pay for it at check out with the rest of your groceries) The grocery store had a fantastic selection, including Tim Hortons coffee and a variety of unique brands of chips - and ALL of this was in a building the size of our local Weis markets. It was incredible. I wish we lived closer, I would do all of my shopping there!!
On our way into Karthaus, we passed this marker along the side of the road.
Curious, when we got home I did some research. You can read about her murder here:
The drive into Karthaus was beautiful.
The Karthaus Furnace, built in 1819, collapsed before 1940, and was restored in 1967.
Unfortunately, it collapsed again in 1970.
Read more (and see more photos) of the furnace here:
I would LOVE to know more about this car at the furnace.. but there is no mention of it in the newspaper articles I read.
German Settlement Reclamation Area
Parking at the German Settlement Reclamation Area
View from the path around the Reclamation area
Yost Run & Kyler Fork Waterfalls
Next we parked at the Churck Keiper Loop trail parking, and walked just over a mile down to two waterfalls - Yost Run Falls, and Kyler Fork Falls
Read more about getting to these falls here:
Two Rock Run Vista
There are two short trails from the parking area at Two Rock Run Vista, and there are educational signs at the parking spots, with a porta potty nearby. But nothing that explained the name Two Rock Run Vista. :-) Still, it was a pretty stop, and a nice chance to stretch our legs on flat ground, after that hike straight uphill from the waterfalls.
Fish Dam Overlook
Fish Dam Overlook had the best views of any of our stops along 144. It was also the shortest walk from the parking to the view. But I did not see fish, nor a dam, and again have no idea where the name comes from.
Big Rocks Vista
This area was one of our longer walks, as we followed the yellow blazed trail up over the rocks to the top. There are a lot of huge rocks here, and it's a fun area to explore. But even standing on top of these boulders, there was no "vista" that we found.
Hyner View
On our way home, we stopped by Hyner View - one of our favorite spots. It was pretty foggy, but the view was still beautiful!
Hyner View
We ended our trip with a stop in Lock Haven at the Main Street Grill for dinner, where the food was absolutely fantastic.
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The Step By Step, With Geocaches Listed, Plan:
When we plan trips like this, I put a note in evernote with our stops in order. This is what our note looked like for this trip:
Basic Plan - Driving to Karathus, doing a virtual and a couple of interesting location caches. Backtrack, then drive up 144, stopping at all the overlooks, walking to the falls, and having a picnic?
144 takes us to Renovo
From Renovo we head to Hyners Run, with a couple of caches on the way
Hyners Run is the last "must see" on my list, then it's if we feel like caching more in Lock Haven, or stopping for dinner.
Snowshoe Travel Bug Hotel
Drive to Karathus -
Virtual Cache
Earth Cache - Water Trail
G Susq. Bridges
Multi Cache - Coke - Appears to be missing, but it's an Iron Furnace...
Backtrack - then head up 144
Up 144, there are a series of overlooks. Most have caches. We will stop at all of them. The falls are off this road too.
German Settlement Reclamation Area
Three mile round trip hike to Yost Run Falls and Kyler Falls.
Earth Elemental II - Cache at the falls
G - Two Rock Run Vista
G - Fish Dam Overlook
G - Big Rocks Vista
G- Big Rocks Cave
"For a really beautiful view drive out to the end of Barneys Ridge road(the road you came in on) and you can see for miles!" (We started to do this, but it was over 4 miles on a really rough road, with trees down, and a super slow moving vehicle ahead of us. We gave up and turned around about 1 mile in)
Jesse Hall Picnic Area Cache (Cache is missing)
Then we drive into Renovo, where there will be a couple of restaurants and a few urban style caches, if we want (we skipped all of these)
Earth Cache - Red Hill
G Near The Resting
Earth Cache
Hyner View
Heading home through Lock Haven, if we want to stop for dinner. (We had steaks at the Main Street Grill on on Market Street. A little hole in the wall bar with great food!)
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