Great Allegheny Passage popularity is on the rise
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
More than 1 million people in 2016 used the Great Allegheny Passage, the multipurpose trail favored by bicyclists and others that extends 150 miles from Cumberland, Md., to Point State Park in DowntownPittsburgh.
“The Great Allegheny Passage trail system is wellused,” said Andrew R. Herr, an associate professor of economics at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe.
Mr. Herr started preparing GAP trail use reports in 2010 for the Allegheny Trail Alliance, the coalition of seven trail organizations in southwestern Pennsylvania and western Maryland that builtand maintains the GAP.
He estimated the total number of trail users to be in the range of 1,027,488 to 1,164,487 in 2016, with a midrange estimate of 1,091,706. “I estimate that overall trail use increased by 9 percent between 2015 and 2016,” he wrote.
He based his estimates on information gathered from April through November by 12 infrared counters placed at fixed locations along the trail and from volunteers who conduct once-a-month synchronized manual counts during various twohour periods from May through October.
The manual counts in 2016 were conducted through the summer and fall on different days of the week: Friday, May 27; Saturday, June 18; Thursday, July 14; Sunday, Aug. 7; Tuesday, Sept. 13; and Saturday,Oct. 15.
In addition to bicyclists, the GAP is used by hikers, walkers, birders, cross-country skiers, snowshoers and dog-sledders.
Mr. Herr said data collection in 2016 “was substantially more comprehensive than in 2015,” thanks to the expanded use of the infrared counters and the volunteers who did the monthly manual counts. The latter are conducted near the infrared counters that are more than a mile away from the GAP’s major trailheads.
“The improved quality and quantity of data collection in 2016 increased the reliability of the trail use estimate,” Mr. Herr wrote.
In an email to members of the Somerset County Railsto-Trails Association, Brett Hollern, Somerset County trails coordinator, thanked its members who volunteered to conduct the manual counts near the Rockwood, Garrett and Deal trailheads. Somerset County has the largest segment — 42 miles — of the GAP.
The value of the manual counts was important to accuracy and legitimacy of the results, he wrote. new habitat. But the battle continues to keep this pristine part of Pennsylvania from looking like ravished areas of the South. Some of the Cook Forest trees are so old and big that climbers have to go up into their branches to treat them.
“It’s going to take a huge effort to solve it,” he says.
That’s why they didn’t balk at self-funding this film, which is narrated by Joan Maloof of the OldGrowth Forest Network. Mr. Luthringer is in it, as are park manager Ryan Borcz and state Bureau of Forestry pest management expert Tim Tomon. Those men will be part of the question-and-answer sessions that follow the film. They will raffle copies of the book “The Cook Forest: An Islandin Time” by Anthony E. Cook, the photographer and conservationist whose grandfather sold the land for the park to the state in 1927.
Now a registered National Natural Landmark, the park is home to one of the last best remaining stands of old-growth forest and old-growth hemlock in the country, including the Susquehannock Hemlock, which has the largest overall dimensions. The trees’ presence influences the lives of everything else that lives and passes through there. And officials have been able to inspect and treat only a fraction of them.
“We’re going to try to save as many as we can,” says Mr. Luthringer. “This [film] gets the word out that we need help.”
Mr. Rohm says, “We’re hoping people really get involved in volunteering. And, of course, they need money.”
He and his wife still are finishing the final editing of — Environmental education specialist Dale J. Luthringer the film, which they might tweak more after the premiere. After that, they may show it at other places and possibly make it available for download online. He says, “We just want it to be the best we’ve ever done.”
You can watch the trailer and more at cathedralfilm.com.
Meanwhile, they’re finishing up another film for the Flight 93 National Memorial. The nonprofit Friends of Flight 93 is finishing up the script for that one, which will be made into a DVD that could play at the Somerset County site and be sold there, too, by this fall. “We have a lot of films in the hopper,” including one about Moraine State Park for the Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau and one for Ohio’s Beaver Creek Wetland Association.
For more on Wild Excellence Films, visit wildexcellencefilms.com.
The “Cathedral” premiere will be held in the Verna Leith Theater of the Sawmill Center at 140 Theater Lane, Cooksburg, PA 16217. Find out more and buy tickets at http:// sawmill.org. Donations to the hemlock woolly adelgid cause may be made via http:// bit. ly/ cookforestadelgiddonations.