Outdoor Activities

One of the things we miss most about Pittsburgh (and drone on about in nausea-inducing detail) is the incredible access to nature for a city of its size. In fact, there are quite a few things you can do without leaving town at all - and a few you may want to check out beyond the city limits.

You can hike for miles in Frick Park. It's only a few blocks from our Pittsburgh house and is purported to have some of the best mountain biking in PA. It's named for Henry Clay Frick, erstwhile strike-breaking industrialist, who bequeathed it and a maintenance endowment to the city.

Closer to museums and activities is Schenley Park - another large, beautiful park with nice trails and fewer dogs. From there you can see Phipps Conservatory, Carnegie Mellon and drive into Oakland. When you do, you may want to check out the outdoor carousel at Schenley Plaza. The park has little food stands and seating, and is a nice place to take a break after visiting the Carnegie art or natural history museums or the library.

Looking at Schenley Plaza now, it's hard to remember that a few years ago, it was an ugly parking lot that we would trudge across to get to the good trucks (an oddly legal form of food service in Pittsburgh) serving graduate-student-priced food. The trucks are gone now - along with the low priced food - but Pittsburgh has an extra park instead of a parking lot. Just the kind of happy thing that can happen in a shrinking city.

If you're feeling adventurous you can kayak through downtown Pittsburgh - we once took a history tour by kayak. Or you may care to bike/jog/roller blade on the jail trail through downtown. And, if wooden roller-coasters that double as national historic monuments are your thing, you should definitely visit kennywood - complete with George-Washington-slept-here markers.

Finally - we almost held the festivities at Hartwood Acres - which would have been beautiful, too.