Little Pine State Park : Panther Run trail loop

Directions: To get to Little Pine State Park from the south, follow PA 44 till Waterville and take a right onto SR 4001. Drive 4 miles to get to the State Park. If you are looking to do other hikes in the area, check out the camp office along the road for maps.

Views from the ridge

This trail starts off from Little Pine State Park, in “God’s Country” (Technically, Potter Country is referred to by that name, but hey, a thing of beauty is a joy for ever!). After a strenuous scramble, it affords the nicest ridge-line views of Little Pine Creek and surroundings. This part of the trail is the easily one of the best ridge-line walks in PA.

Layered sandstone

Myself & N on the trail

In commonality with other ridges in glacier-carved valleys, the ridge-line is strewn with sandstone boulders, which exist in a multitude of shapes along the trail. After almost a mile, the Panther Run trail meets the Mid-State trail, and the following 3/4 mile is typical MST: rocks, woods and some views.

Beginning of the end: The descent starts here

The rest of the hike consists of an ultra-steep descent into Panther Run (this is crazy . Using Google Maps’ topo feature, we estimated the steepest grade of the descent to be almost 20%. If you are hiking this, make sure you have TWO hiking poles and STURDY hiking boots. Coming down parallel to Panther Run, the trail took us almost 1 hour!

Myself @ Panther Run, we did cut across the trail to get to the stream

At the bottom, the trail’s slope becomes a little easier, and the gentle sloshing sounds of Panther Run offer a mental respite for the hiker.

Panther Run

This is not the end of the story, at the end, where Panther Run trail meets SR4001, the trail abruptly plunges steeply again. But this last portion is a little easier because of the trees and roots. A ~2 mile walk on SR4001 took us back to the boat launch area where we parked. In total, the loop is ~4 miles, and it took us ~4 h (with breaks for lunch, photos, descents etc.)

Between the trail and the road

All things considered, this is a difficult hike, and IMO, the difficulty lies in steep (and potentially dangerous) descents. However, the ridge-line walk on Panther Run trail/Love Run trail, and the gentle walks along Panther Run more than madeup for the effort.