Tuscarora Trail
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The Tuscarora Trail is a hiking trail that splits off from the Appalachian Trail in West Virginia, passing through Virginia and Maryland, then rejoining the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania. It is 252 miles long, and includes both the 110-mile trail section formerly known as the Tuscarora Trail in Pennsylvania and Maryland, and the 142-mile trail section formerly known as the Big Blue Trail in Virginia and West Virginia.
The Tuscarora Trail (including the Big Blue section) was built as a speculative alternative route for the Appalachian Trail. It was built further west, in a more wild corridor, because it was feared that development would force closure of the AT, before the Federal effort to conserve that trail.
Much of the trail in Pennsylvania was closed in the 1980s because a terrible gypsy moth onslaught had killed much of the oak forest that the trail passed through, and it grew up with brambles, briars and other vegetation to become impassable. It has since been re-opened and is now maintained by the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club.
The Tuscarora Trail is today an official side-trail of the Appalachian Trail, and is blazed in blue.