Hollow Trail Part 2 - The Lake Trail

Up these steps, hang a left and you're off...

We left the Panther Hollow trail at the steps that cross over to the home stretch on the way to PHL. When you climb the stone-pillared stairs and bear left a few paces (a right takes you on the main Lower Panther Hollow trail) across the small WPA bridge, the difference is striking. The narrow hikers' path turns into a gravel highway, more or less, straight to the lake.

Panther Hollow Run - FOPHL Tour (photo Jon Buckley)

Historically, the trails have the same history. They were likely originally horse trails improved in 1939 by the WPA (they made the path easier on the feet and replaced the old wooden bridges with stone spans) and then really spiffed up by the Parks Conservancy in 2010.

On the right is the Panther Hollow Run. In the summer, you can only tell it's there by the gurgle and splash of the stream because the creek-side vegetation is so lush. From the fall through the spring, when the greenery is a bit less imposing, it offers the same beauty as the upper stream - tree crossed channels flowing serenely over a stony bed.

Panther Hollow Run

If you peer past the Run, you'll see trees and some oddly aquatic grasses. That's the Lake wetlands, bolstered considerably by Conservancy work, that stretches from the Lower Panther Hollow trail to the Run. Its purpose is to intercept the overflow from the Schenley Drive ravine and prevent it from gushing straight into the PH Run and Lake. The area slows down rain event torrents, giving it a protective marsh to settle in while filtering the water as it seeps into the water table. It also a fairly cool habitat for the SP critters, as an added benefit.

The Wetlands

One side of the trail is tucked against the ravine behind the Anderson Grove. Joggers pound the Upper Hollow Trail almost directly overhead, but you're generally isolated in your own little world by the steep slopes and the tree canopy. This part of the trail has its own attractions.

Popular among both strollers and pooch walkers, there's a little cul-de-sac about midpoint that has a bench to rest your tired puppies. And the Conservancy work is at its most obvious. The stone border along the ravine side of the path is actually an infiltration ditch, slowing and catching the runoff before it washes out the trail and gets into the stream.

A place to rest your weary feet

You may also note a couple of odd looking rock piles, lumber stacks and log trail borders. Their purpose is to form a "slow water" defense by breaking up the flow and allowing it to soak into the ground while directing it away from more vulnerable low lying areas. The FOPHL have adopted them in a smaller way around the lake in select spots.

Almost there...

After you're moseyed down the trail, catching the sights, you'll approach a canopied curve with the Panther Hollow bridge haloed above it. You're almost there - a few more steps, and you've arrived at the Lake, where the trail loops around our Lady.

And thar ya be!

The Hollow Trail - Part 1: The Hiking Path

Panther Hollow Lake is an unpolished gem, the largest of three lakes (Lake Elizabeth, Lake Carnegie) we know of in the City. But equally impressive are Panther Hollow and Phipps Runs, the only "daylighted" (above ground) streams left in the 'Burgh aside from Frick Park's Nine Mile Run.

They're jewels in their own way. Both tumble down steep channels, cascading over stony beds between the trees until they meet in Hollow to feed PHL, a hiker and nature lover's dream splashing smack dab through the heart of the City.

If you enjoy a tranquil stroll through the woods beside a splashing stream, the Panther Hollow Run Trail is for you. The Run is fed from above Bartlett Street - you can see its headwaters as you cross the top Tufa Bridge - and several smaller streams that come down the Schenley Drive Ravine. It's a little rough, wet and narrow in spots, but it provides the best nature hike in the Park.

You get on from the Bartlett Street trail entrance. Hang a right on the main trail, cross the Tufa Bridge, and make a left a few yards later across from the Faloon Trail entrance, at a rock handily painted with an arrow. You'll cross another stone bridge, and there the trail begins to your right.

This section is a half mile or so long from that bridge to its crossover. It starts off flat and wide, but at points, the path twists with small but sharp rises and pinch points that only one person at a time can get by. As we say in da 'Burgh, some spots are slippy. But you'll have a sun-dappled creek crossed with fallen logs and stone beds running along side of you, a slice of nature seemingly out of place in the middle of the City.

The topper is that there are several magnificent stone bridges built by the WPA in 1939, zig-zagging across the stream, replacements for Edward Bigelow's 1908-09 wooden spans. You'll note a couple of more bridges above you on the main trail, and a number of aqueducts pouring ravine-fed streams into the Run on its way to PHL.

Though you're braced by the Upper and Lower Panther Hollow trails, both well-used park lanes, you'll be in a world of your own, surrounded by greenery and crevasse walls. While the isolation is an inspirational boon to the soul, the path is also well traveled by parents taking their children on a stroll, young couples and folk walking their pooches.

Finally, your reverie ends as you approach a set of steps that leads you to the trail crossover. Bear to the left from those steps across another small stone bridge, and you'll be on a wide path that's a straight shot to the lake.

That's the end of the road for the hiker's trek of the Hollow Trail, and now you're just a couple hundred yards away from the ultimate destination, Panther Hollow Lake. We'll lead you down that road in another post.

(photo credits: Rich Tenney & Ron Ieraci, FOPHL)

Hot Fun In the Summertime

Last week, we looked at the ways to pass the wintertime on the Lake. But now that a couple clippers and nor'easters decided to drop in for the weekend, it's time to change focus. Grab a hot chocolate, put your feet up and warmly recall summer in Panther Hollow.

The lake was configured in 1907-09 by Public Works Director Edward Bigelow and Parks Superintendent George Burke. But Oaklanders knew of it way back when it was a relative puddle. It was a boating and picnic site from at least post-Civil War days, and the City wasted no time putting up a rec area in 1892, shortly after Mary Schenley gifted her woody acreage to Pittsburgh.

Panther Hollow Picnic Area 1894 (Exposition program)

It didn't take long for the hard working folk of the East End to figure out that the Hollow and its lake was a pretty fun place to loaf, and they packed the ravine. Married couples and their kids had a cool hang out, and it was even better if you were wooing.

“So many members of the pioneer class in the Margaret Morrison Carnegie School (the all-female school of the college, opened in 1907) were seen strolling in Schenley Park with masculine escorts that the authorities were prompted to issue certain pronouncements to quell romance. It was a labor lost...” according to Arthur Tarbell’s 1937 “The Story of Carnegie Tech.” He noted that many “Carnegie couples” had their introductions via those park strolls, and we're sure it was the same for Pitt pairs. 

It was even better in the moonlight...

Anyway, with that kind of beginning, it was no wonder the Lake was a magnet to kids young and old. Not all of us were holding hands with stars in their eyes. We rode horses in the Hollow. We strolled the trails. We brought baskets with food and wine. We swam, boated, fished, goofed.

Riding the Ponies in the Hollow (photo via Walter Kennedy's "Oakland")

So hey, forget the snow flakes. Close your eyes and remember the hot fun in the summertime that Panther Hollow Lake doled out year after year. It's right around the corner again...

PHL by Melissa McMasters via Flickr