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The Sandy Creek Trail is a paved 12 mile rail trail in Venango County, Pennsylvania, on the former Jamestown, Franklin and Clearfield Railroad. From the Van trailhead on Tarklin Hill Road it drops gently westward for eight miles down the wooded valley of East Sandy Creek, crossing the creek on high trestles and passing through the 967 foot Mays' Mill Tunnel. At Belmar it meets the Allegheny River Trail beneath the 1,385 foot Belmar Bridge, then crosses the Allegheny River on that bridge and follows the river four miles south to Fisherman's Cove near Brandon. The grade is rail-flat and the woods close in for nearly the whole distance.
Sandy Creek Trail
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Sandy Creek Trail has about 104 to 147 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, e-biking, running, biking, walking, and birding, 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 Sandy Creek Trail!
In half of past years, color along the Sandy Creek Trail peaks October 14 to 22, typically around October 18. The trail has 61% deciduous coverage, with the majority being red maple, black cherry, and northern red oak.
Immigrant crews earning $1.50 for a 10 hour day punched the Mays' Mill Tunnel through the ridge above East Sandy Creek starting in 1905. The valley already had two small industries, Mays' Mill and the Slab iron furnace, and both were long gone when the railroad arrived. The work camp for the tunnel went up on the old furnace site and housed crews for two years. The line was the Jamestown, Franklin and Clearfield Railroad, a project of Franklin oil man Charles Miller with backing from John D. Rockefeller, meant to link New York and Chicago through Franklin. Its Belmar Bridge across the Allegheny River opened in 1907. The New York Central bought the road in 1915 and ran it as its Franklin Division, hauling coal and freight. Penn Central and then Conrail followed. Service through the valley ended in the 1980s, and the tunnel's brick liner began to leak and shatter in the freeze and thaw of its east-west bore. The Allegheny Valley Trails Association, a volunteer nonprofit founded in 1990, took on the corridor. Paving reached both tunnel portals in 2000. The trail earned National Recreation Trail status in 2004. In 2005 the group poured concrete side walls, set precast arches inside the old tunnel, and filled the void with a quarter million recycled tires, completing the 12 paved miles from Van to Fisherman's Cove.
plus interpretive signage along the trail
