Mid State Trail (PA)

Pennsylvania, US

Distance

346 mi

Vertical Gain

55,000 ft

The Mid State Trail (MST) is a 518 km (323 mile) long main trail network with many side trails located in the Ridge-and-valley Appalachians and Allegheny Plateau of Central Pennsylvania. It is known as "The Wildest Trail in Pennsylvania". In 2006, MST was announced as part of the Great Eastern Trail network of footpaths intended to extend from Alabama to New York State.

The Mid State Trail extends from the Maryland border to the New York border, bisecting the middle of Pennsylvania. The southern end of the MST is found on the Mason-Dixon line on route PA326. The northern terminus is located just north of Lawrenceville, PA. The MST is primarily on public land; state forests, state game lands and state parks. MST uses private lands by permission on occasion, generally closer to the Maryland and New York borders.

The MST is maintained by the Mid State Trail Association.

40.21, -78.332222

FKTs

Standard route

Male

Supported
Pat Heine			5d 23h 40m 43s	2021-04-09
Eric Kosek			6d 6h 13m 50s	2020-07-24

Unsupported
Bob Stewart			6d 23h 39m 16s	2021-06-21

Self-supported
Chris Sommer			11d 12h 33m 0s	2016-06-16

This route on the old FKT site

http://fastestknowntime.proboards.com/thread/1278/mid-state-trail-pa

Comments

I'm not sure if this is the right place to send this but in about 2-3 weeks I will be heading out to attempt a speed record on the Midstate Trail in Pennsylvania. There's currently a self-supported / unsupported record held by Chris Sommer who completed it in about 11 days. My goal is to break that time and attempt a true unsupported record. This will be my first FKT attempt ever (rookie) and the route I'll be taking will be as close to the official route posted by the https://hike-mst.org/ in their guidebook and maps. There is a guthook route but I heard is it not up to date in some sections. I plan on using guthook however to track my progress as well as film my attempt using my iphone7 and/or sonyA6000 camera. I don't have an official start date because it depends on when I can coordinate a ride to the trailhead. I plan on going SOBO. It will likely be around June 20th so I guess stay posted... :)

Saturday, July 18th, 2020 at 4 am I will be heading out from the MD/PA border and heading north on a supported fkt attempt. I will be using my Suunto watch, my phone and a spot tracker. I will hopefully have plenty of photos also as certification

I am planning on attempting to break Chris Sommer's self-supported FKT beginning Saturday September 26th, 2020. For navigation I will be following the Guthook App. For resupply I have sent myself two boxes to post offices that I will walk to. My goal is to cut at least 12 hours off of the previous record. I will be posting updates and verification to my Instagram @Philly_hikes.

To update I successfully broke the self-supported record by going border to border in 8 days 3 hours and 30 minutes. I did not use a GPS to track myself so all I have is my word. Although FKT will not certify this result, I walked over 38 miles a day and completely spent myself mentally over a week of barely stopping. @Philly_Hikes

On Saturday, April 3rd, 2021 at 4am, I will be starting at the MD/PA border heading northbound attempting to better Eric Kosek's supported FKT. I will be using GPS watch and SPOT tracker, as well as taking lots of photos for verification.

On Monday, June 14th I will be starting at the MD/PA border heading northbound attempting to set the first unsupported FKT. I will be using a Garmin Inreach Mini as well as Strava & Gaia GPS on my phone for verification.

On Saturday, May 4th I will be starting at the MD/PA border heading northbound attempting to set the unsupported FKT. I will be using my Coros GPS watch, Garmin InReach at least 1x per day, and taking photos along the way for verification.

Route: Mid State Trail (PA)

40.21, -78.332222

FKTs

Comments