The Stone Bridge Trail used to be the main carriageway to Linden
Hall from Dawson, Pennsylvania. Linden Hall is an impressive
35-room mansion which has been called one of America’s castles. It
cost two million dollars to build in 1913. Linden Hall was
originally owned by Sarah Cochran who was the widow of a wealthy
coal and coke baron. She would have traveled the route of the Stone
Bridge Trail to and from Dawson to attend church. This route to
Linden Hall was closed and abandoned for many years. It became a
trail for pedestrian and bicycle traffic just a few years ago. It
is meant to be a link between Linden Hall and the Youghiogheny
River Trail.
This cache hunt is a three-stage multi. The first two stages
will be found close to the trailheads at the upper and lower ends
of the trail. The latitude coordinate for the final cache will be
found at one of these stages and the longitude will be found at the
other so that the only practical way to do this cache hunt is to do
a round-trip tour of the trail and look for the final cache on the
return leg of your hike. The round-trip distance is approximately
2.5 miles. I recommend against going by bicycle unless you are an
athlete and have a mountain bike. The surface is rough and the
grade is pretty steep. The trail drops down approximately 350 feet
from Linden Hall to the Stone Bridge. The coordinates listed at the
top of the cache page are for the stage located closest to the
Linden Hall (upper) end of the trail. The coordinates for the stage
at the Stone Bridge (lower) end of the trail are: 40° 3.652', -79°
40.863'. I have provided both sets of coordinates so that you have
the option to begin and end this cache hunt at either end of the
trail. Good Luck!
Note: It may be possible, in theory, to obtain the final
coordinates from each end by driving the maze of roads between
trailheads but I will offer that this won’t be easy and it won’t be
fun and you will still have to hike half of the trail round-trip to
get to the cache.
Warning: Do not cross the golf course to get to or from the
cache!
Waypoints
40° 3.758', -79° 41.823' Trailhead (upper)
40° 3.704', -79° 41.385' Viewpoint
40° 3.718', -79° 40.812' Stone Bridge
40° 3.645', -79° 40.870' Trailhead (lower)
