Welcome to what was one of our nation's last lines of defense. This cache is hidden at the launch area of Nike Missile Site PI-71. The land has since been acquired by the Hollow Oaks Land Trust and is open to the public for low impact use. The control station is located one mile east of here off of Leona Ln.
The majority of the site is surrounded by private property, so you will have to hike up from Hassam Road or the Montour Trail. Private property and no trespassing signs prevent access to this site from Nike Road, Burch Road, and Ewing Mill Road. Nike Road is private road with no trespassing signs. Even though driveway at the end of Ewing Mill shows up as a road, it isn't. Rest assured that it is actually a private driveway that you may not use.
Once in the woods, hike to where Montour Run and Meeks Run meet (See attached waypoint). To the right of the cliff, there's a small trail going up the hill. Once up, you'll see a narrow ridge going up with two caches along the way. Follow the ridge / long narrow hilltop as closely as you can. A good portion of the path is marked with orange marker tape. Once you get to the base, you shouldn't have any trouble finding a cut in the barb wire fence. After you sign the log, proceed west to explore the missile site.
"Starting in the early 1950s, the Army made the protection of Pittsburgh's industrial complex a matter of national security, circling the area with bunkers, radar towers and communications equipment. It stationed more than 1,000 military officers amid the hills and woods of Allegheny, Westmoreland and Washington counties, asking them to monitor the skies and live in hastily constructed, low-slung barracks. Their mission was to watch for long-range Soviet bombers and be prepared to knock them down with the world's first guided surface-to-air missile, known as the 'Nike''" (source)
"During the first decade of the Cold War, the Soviet Union began to develop a series of long-range bomber aircraft, capable of reaching targets within the continental United States. The potential threat posed by such aircraft became much more serious when, in 1949, the Russians exploded their first atomic bomb. The perception that the Soviet Union might be capable of constructing a sizable fleet of long-range, nuclear-armed bomber aircraft capable of reaching the continental United States provided motivation to rapidly develop and deploy the Nike system to defend major U.S. population centers and other vital targets. The outbreak of hostilities in Korea, provided a further impetus to this deployment. The mission of Nike within the continental U.S was to act as a "last ditch" line of air defense for selected areas. The Nike system would have been utilized in the event that the Air Force's long-range fighter-interceptor aircraft had failed to destroy any attacking bombers at a greater distance from their intended targets.
A typical Nike air defense site consisted of two separate parcels of land. One area was known as the Integrated Fire Control (IFC) Area. This site contained the Nike system's ground-based radar and computer systems designed to detect and track hostile aircraft, and to guide the missiles to their targets.
The second parcel of land was known as the Launcher Area. At the launcher area, Nike missiles were stored horizontally within heavily constructed underground missile magazines. A large, missile elevator brought the Nikes to the surface of the site where they would be pushed (manually) by crewmen, across twin steel rails to one of four satellite launchers. The missile was then attached to its launcher and erected to a near-vertical position for firing. The near-vertical firing position ensured that the missile's booster rocket (lower stage) would not crash directly back onto the missile site, but, instead, would land within a predetermined booster impact area.
The control and launcher areas were separated by a distance of 1,000 to 6,000 yards (roughly 0.5- to 3.5-miles) and were often located within different townships. Technical limitations of the guidance system required the two facilities to be separated by a minimum of 3,000 feet. Whenever possible, control areas were constructed on high ground in order to gain superior radar coverage of the area. Control areas were generally located between the area being defended and the launcher area containing the missiles." (source)