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E-bikingBikingWalkingRunningHikingBirdingFishingKayakingCross-country skiingand more
The Redbank Valley Trail follows Redbank Creek for about 42 miles from Brookville to the creek's mouth on the Allegheny River in southern Clarion County. It runs on the former Allegheny Valley Rail Road Low Grade line, so the grade is nearly flat, and the surface is smooth crushed limestone throughout. The trail passes Summerville, Mayport, Hawthorn, New Bethlehem, and Lawsonham, and crosses the creek and its tributaries on decked trestles and stone arches. Below New Bethlehem the creek loops through tight bends in steep wooded hillsides, with the paved Climax Tunnel and the unlit Long Point Tunnel along the way. At the river end it meets the Armstrong Trail, and at Lawsonham the Sligo Spur branches north.
Redbank Valley Trail
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Redbank Valley Trail has about 103 to 145 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 Redbank Valley Trail!
In half of past years, color along the Redbank Valley Trail peaks October 17 to 28, typically around October 21. The trail has 44% deciduous coverage, with the majority being red maple, black cherry, and northern red oak.
The Allegheny Valley Rail Road graded this line up Redbank Creek in 1872 and 1873 to reach Driftwood by a route freight could climb easily. Long before the grading crews, Redbank Creek fed the Native American fishing village of Fishbasket near Alcola, where a Shawnee town stood into the late 1700s. The railroad called the route its Low Grade Division. It opened in 1874 from Redbank Junction at the mouth of the creek. It hauled coal, lumber, oil, brick, and tile from the industries along the valley and carried passengers to Pittsburgh. Crews finished the Brookville and Climax tunnels in 1877. The Long Point Tunnel followed in 1898. The Pennsylvania Railroad absorbed the Allegheny Valley, and the corridor later passed to the Buffalo and Pittsburgh and Pittsburg and Shawmut lines, known at the end as the Mountain Laurel low grade corridor. The last train ran through New Bethlehem on November 5, 2007, pulling up the rails behind it. The Allegheny Valley Land Trust bought the railbanked corridor in June 2010. Volunteers organized the Redbank Valley Trails Association that May and began trail work that fall, so 2010 is the year the trail opened for use. Pennsylvania DCNR named it the state's first Trail of the Year in 2014. The rebuilt Climax Tunnel opened in 2018, surfacing was complete in 2019, and a new bridge replaced the flood-wrecked Long Run arch in 2020. The association took title to the corridor in February 2020.
Armstrong TrailSligo SpurNorth Country Trail
plus interpretive signage along the trail
