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The Bells Gap Rail Trail climbs the Allegheny Front on the old Bells Gap Railroad grade, from the Hostler-Roots trailhead on Igou Road north of Bellwood to Route 865 at Lloydsville, near Blandburg. The trail runs 6.3 miles and gains about 900 feet. The first 2.1 miles are smooth crushed limestone, tree lined and steady, with views over the Bellwood Reservoir. Past the limestone the trail becomes a State Game Lands access road of packed dirt, grass, and old ballast, better suited to a mountain bike or a hike. The grade stays near 3 percent, long and steep relative to typical max railroad grades of 2 percent. The hairpin curve at the Bells Gap and Shaw Run confluence opens the widest valley view.
Bells Gap Rail Trail
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Bells Gap Rail Trail has about 107 to 147 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, e-biking, running, biking, birding, and walking, with May, September, and October the best months.
Hourly comfort scores for the next 15 days of weather, tuned to your activity and your own thresholds.
Plan your visit to this trail. Get the best windows for a comfortable outing.
Enjoy the Bells Gap Rail Trail!
In half of past years, color along the Bells Gap Rail Trail peaks October 15 to 25, typically around October 20. The trail has 64% deciduous coverage, with the majority being red maple, northern red oak, chestnut oak, and black cherry.
Sightseers once paid 65 cents for a round trip up Bells Gap on a narrow gauge train. The Bell's Gap Railroad Company was incorporated on May 11, 1871, to link Bell's Mills, now Bellwood, on the Pennsylvania Railroad main line with Lloydsville in Cambria County. Crews began grading in 1872. The 8.5 mile line opened in June 1873 on 3 foot gauge track. It climbed the Allegheny Front at 158 feet to the mile, a 3 percent grade held for nearly seven miles. Lumber, coal, and hemlock bark for the tanneries came down the mountain. In 1874 the company took the name Pennsylvania and North Western Railroad and pushed on through Clearfield County toward Punxsutawney, where it met the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh. The Pennsylvania Railroad controlled it. In 1883 and 1884 the line was rebuilt to standard gauge. Trains kept running until the 1930s, when the state improved Route 865 up the same gap and the railroad lost its purpose. The grade sat idle for decades. In the mid 1990s Hazel Bilka and the Bellwood Antis Community Trust set out to turn it into a trail. Volunteers under Bud Amrhein finished the first 2.1 miles of crushed limestone, and the trail opened on July 8, 2007. Antis Township now owns and operates that section. Above it the old grade continues another four miles as a State Game Lands 158 access road to Lloydsville.
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