>>2715235>but sometimes trails in popular areas get closed for erosion and vegetation managementnever seen that here
trails get closed for being unpopular and for closely abutting private land
instead of the forest service stepping in and buying a tiny parcel so a random trail can have dedicated parking with signage on public land, they typically just abandon the trail (which just means to remove all blazes and signage)
99% of closed trails do not go anywhere
sometimes you have trails that were built by boy scouts or conservation corps or things like that and they just never got used much because they don't have points of interest and were just used by a few mountain bikers
most trails here that are abandoned follow a creek and many are just the old logging railroads/skidroads that then got turned into a trail
tl;dr you can do an abandoned trail but its gonna be a mudpit with tons of downed trees and erosion and its basically an obstacle course
a specific example is the campbell mill interpretative trail
I assume they built it soon after the allegheny reservoir in pa was built so sometime around 1970 and I think it ran along dewdrop run and then went up along the ridge
I'm not sure if there's any trace anymore
there's other logging roads (abandoned) you could get lost on in the area and mountain biking trails and forest service roads someday
im not sure if there's any trace of the old trail or the campbell mill, there was a website that sorta showed a map of where the trail was but I can't find it now
would be interesting to explore
