Trail Sherpa: PA Wilds

Trail Sherpa is a community-powered platform for planning long backpacking trips and staying oriented once you're on the trail. Built for the Pennsylvania Wilds — the seven-county stretch of state forest that holds some of the most beautiful trails in the Northeast — the app pairs a browser-based trip planner with an offline-first mobile companion.

Plan trips at your desk. Navigate them in the woods.

Build a multi-day itinerary in the web planner at trailsherpa.org. Every trail comes with an elevation profile, curated waypoints, campsite locations, and a suggested itinerary that you can reshape day by day by dragging boundaries on the elevation chart. Then take the mobile app on the trail — GPS shows exactly where you are on the line, waypoints appear on the ribbon ahead, and condition reports from other hikers surface as you approach them.

Four featured trails

• Old Loggers Path — 26-mile loop, Loyalsock State Forest — FREE (sponsored by PA Wilds Center)
• Loyalsock Trail — 58 miles from Mead Run to Worlds End
• Black Forest Trail — 42-mile loop
• West Rim Trail — 30 miles along Pine Creek Gorge

What Trail Sherpa does

• Offline-first mobile app — sign in once with signal, then the app stays usable for weeks off-grid. Condition reports file locally and sync when you're back in range.
• Live trail conditions — file a report on a blowdown, dry water source, or flooded section as you walk past it. Other hikers see it within seconds.
• Photo-pinned map — geotagged photos plot on the trail map so you can see what a specific spot actually looks like before you get there.
• Community forums — trail-specific discussions for trip reports, gear questions, and shuttle logistics.
• Trail-steward alerts — trail maintainers get an email when a report lands on their assigned segment.
• Web planner + mobile app — same account across both. Plan Tuesday, hike Saturday.

Who Trail Sherpa is for

Backpackers who want their planning to be less scattered — no more digging through old forum threads and outdated guidebooks. If you hike in Loyalsock State Forest, the Susquehannock, or the surrounding Wilds region, Trail Sherpa keeps up-to-date trail intel in one place.

Who built it

Trail Sherpa is a project of Amoeba Media, LLC, based in Williamsport, PA. The Old Loggers Path trail pack is free through the PA Wilds Center's mini-grant program. Learn more at trailsherpa.org.