Directions to the Tunnels
I've had many requests for directions to the tunnels. Before I do, here is a disclaimer: the use of these is at your own risk. I'm not advocating going anywhere you shouldn't or violating any areas marked no trespassing.
Now for a reality check. What problems have you heard of? I've been there four times and have had none. Out of the 15,000 people that have visited the web site since 1997, I've heard of two. It seems as if the State Police use the area between Sideling and Ray's Hill tunnels for high-speed driver training. A person in 1998 reported that she was "buzzed" at high speed while hiking through Sideling Hill tunnel Hiking in the tunnels is probably not the best idea; they are the only areas specifically marked "no tresspassing" (plus they're very dark )
The second problem was a person in 1999 reporting getting a ticket ($220) for trespassing on the right-of-way. Since she was outside of the tunnel, and there are no signs except for the tunnels, I probably would have fought that one.
If you use these directions, please post a reply to this thread and tell us about your trip. Any clarifications to the directions would help your fellow tunnel enthusiasts
Detailed below is the info on getting to the tunnels. I'll cover west to east.
The western portal of Laurel Hill tunnel is easily visible if you stop your car on the eastbound side of the turnpike at MP 99.2. This is between Donegal (exit 9) and Somerset (exit 10). Off to the right side of the turnpike you'll see a service road which intersects with the old right-of-way. This portal was being used as a salt storage area when I was last there in October of 2000.
The eastern portal of Laurel Hill requires either a long hike (1 mile) from a remote area or trespassing from the current right-of-way in full view of any troopers on the turnpike. I'm not going to go into that, there are much easier pickings at Ray's Hill and Sideling.
To get to the western portal of Ray's Hill, take Rt 30 east of of Breezewood up the mountain. You'll get to a road on the left that goes to the western portal of Ray's Hill. I think it's the only road off to the left. You'll see an overpass, kind of Art Deco rounded corners, you'll recognize it as vintage turnpike. Climb a short hill and you're right there.
To get to the area between Rays Hill & Sideling Hill is easy. Take Rt 30 east out of Breezewood up the mountain, past the road to the left that goes to the western portal of Rays Hill. When you are up on top of the mountain, the road (Rt 30) will be relatively level, and you'll be traveling parallel to the new turnpike. There will be a gravel
road that will be on your left (heading north). It will go under the new turnpike, and you can see this overpass from Rt 30. I think its the only such road, so you shouldn't mistake it.
Go on this road under the underpass. A short distance after the underpass you have to turn either left of right. Go left to Rays Hill (A below) or right to Sideling Hill (B below).
A. This road loops around, heading west initially, then turning north, and finally heads back east. It goes to some kind of a camp. When you are at the lowest point and heading north, you are directly over Rays Hill. You can hike directly down the hill there (heading east), and you'll end up on top of the tunnel entrance. (There is no fan house at this end of Rays Hill, just a concrete wall.) Look behind this concrete wall for the old stone wall that was there for the railroad. Alternatively, if you back up on the road, you might still be able to see the remnants of an access road that also goes down to the tunnel. This was getting pretty badly overgrown, so it might be hard to see. This road went past a transformer pad (long gone) and kind of comes down alongside the tunnel and eventually
joins the old roadbed. This road is pretty narrow and not travelled much. If you have trouble turning around, continue on it to the camp. Also, the point over Rays Hill should be obvious, because this is the apex
of the loop and the road will be turning more sharply.
B. Follow this road for several miles. You'll be gradually be going down hill, and eventually you'll get down to the elevation of the old roadbed and you'll see it off to your left. Then you pass under it. Maybe 1/4 mile past this overpass, you'll see what appears to be a forest ranger's camp. It'll look like a log cabin. Park there, and look for a trail that goes off behind these buildings and a little to the left. Since you are now north of the old highway, you'll be heading roughly 170 degrees by the compass. There was a gate across it last time I was there to keep vehicles out. This trail was an access road to Sideling Hill. I never paced this trail, but it isn't too far until you'll come up to the old road and from there you can see the tunnel. You'll pass some old sheds on this trail; I think these were home of the wrecking/breakdown crew that was staged here at all times, at least in the summer, to clear out "problems" blocking the single-lane tunnel.
To get to the eastern portal of Sideling Hill, and the old Cove Valley service plaza, continue on Rt 30 east until you come to a road called "Pumping Station Road" (how appropriate!). Go down there, probably about 4-5 miles. It will change surface (gravel/asphalt) several times. You will come to an underpass which is the old right-of-way. Before the underpass will be an old access road, blocked off with temporary concrete median barriers. From there you can go left and walk on the old right-of-way, or continue under the underpass to another service road. This is the old road where tanker trucks delivered fuel to the service plaza. The plaza has been torn down, but the parking area and access roads remain. Please be careful, when we were there in 1997 there was a sign at the old service plaza that said it was a shooting range. I heard no shots but I wouldn't wander in there. About a mile down the road after the service plaza is the eastern portal of Sideling Hill.
Good luck exploring on your trip. Again, please leave a reply to this thread if you use these instruction and let everyone know how your trip went. If you post pictures on the web, if you include a link to my site and send me an e-mail, I'll add a link to my site.
Charles Nuske
Unregistered User
(8/6/01 12:38 am) Reply
Sideling Hill Tunnel
Note: I found this web site that describes a PA State Forest Trail “Hidden Tunnel Trail” going through Sideling Hill Tunnel.
Roads to the turnpike
Did a little exploring off of Rt 30 this past weekend, but did not get up onto the old right-of-way. Did make a couple of notes for later on.
1) the road to the western portal of Rays Hill is Burnt Church Rd, it's the only paved road off to the left going up the hill out of Breezewood. There did not seem to be much room to pull off and park at the old underpass.
2) Whether it looks like a driveway or not, the road directly opposite PA 915 S is the way to Oregon Rd.
3) Oregon Rd meets back up with PA 915 N Somewhere between there and the end of the forest to the north, is "Tunnel trail" off to the left (west).
I did not get a chance to hike any of this, as I was just reconnitering for a later trip
Re: Directions to the Tunnels
it seems every time i get to sideling hill tunnel,there's always a penndot truck coming out of the tunnel.they haven't given me any grief,they just look at me and wave!
rogsamp
Unregistered User
(11/25/02 12:24 am) Reply
tunnel explorations in 2002
i just finished exploring the tunnels with another old turnpike nut. we entered the ventilation shafts above the rays hill and sideling hill tunnels, armed with flashlights and a bb gun to deal with the bats. the ventilation shafts are something to see. they start out at ten to fifteen feet tall and get down to around 5 feet, i had to bend right over in order to walk for nearly half a mile through the top of the sideling hill tunnels. there are holes every few feet in the floor, so one must be extremely careful to walk in the center of the tunnel. the ceiling is at its highest in the center, anyway.
it looked as if my friend and i were the first person to walk through this part in decades. there were beer cans and cigarette packs dating back to 1992 at the beginning of the tunnels, but the middle areas were pristine. there was a very dark, black, thick film of dirt on everything in the shaft, and expect to come out several shades blacker than you entered.
some interesting points:
1) the original lighting fixtures are stored in the top ventilation shafts, and one can find broken bulbs all over the floor. it does not appear that every single light fixture is still there, not even close to the correct number that should have been there. did vandals take them or were they removed by the highway commission?
2) there is an old railway in the ventilation shafts of both rays hill and sideling hill. my friend and i walked the entire lengths of both of these tunnels, and we could not find a railcart or anything that could have traversed those rails. what was the railway for? was it motorized? where is the old cart?
3) roughly in the center of the sideling hill ventilation shaft, the wall is bricked over and a metal door hatch is installed in the center. the rails stop shortly before the wall on both sides. the original door still exists there. what purpose did this wall serve? i tried to place the date of the wall, to see if it predated the closing of the tunnel, but i could not tell.
information for anyone who wants to see the ventilation shafts: the shafts can be accessed in some cases through the doors to the left of the tunnel opening, in other cases by climbing up behind the ventilation cages, and entering the ventilation rooms through either a door or a recessed window about fifteen feet below the ground. bring a very good flashlight, something bright and with spotlight capabilities. bring extra batteries, good shoes, warm clothes, and be prepared to get dirty. WATCH WHERE YOU WALK! i cannot stress that enough--there are gaping holes in the floor that fall to the roadway in the tunnel, twenty feet down. be careful! i recommend a bb gun to deal with the bats, and, quite frankly, it's just plain dark in there, it's nice to have some sort of weapon. a word on the bats--they sleep very soundly. one can make a lot of noise without disturbing the bats; one can even shine a very bright spotlight directly on them without disturbing them. if you do not harm them, they will not even realize you are there.
good luck, stay safe, and happy spelunking!
somerset
Unregistered User
(12/21/02 9:21 pm) Reply
Laurel Hill Tunnel - Somerset Native
Excellent website.
Yes, I was born and raised in Somerset PA and found the LHT on an old topo map. Follow this link:
LHT was one of my favorite places to hike while I was home from Penn State. (From Somerset, go on Rt 31 west till the town of Bakersville, make a right at the white church, then take the third left to the "Kuhntown Road". After about two miles there will be a gate and "No Trespassing" sign on your right. Park and hike over the crest and down the path on your right)
The first time I saw the east side it did in fact creep me out: a huge black hole in the side of a mountain with litter and graffiti all around. My Dad and sister warned me not to go poking around places like that, especially alone, and also suggested the government might be using the place to do God-knows-what.
On later trips I hiked over the entire hill. Yes the water tank was still there, plus ventilation shafts and more trails. The “white” area of the topo map are the layers of rock into which the bypass was built – several hundred feet down. It’s an excellent view of the turnpike, from either the north or south side. But I’d advise against camping out or building a fire. If you can see the cars, they can see you, and we didn’t need Officer Friendly’s company.
The west side was closer to the main road and in slightly better condition. The entrance was blocked with a mountain of rock salt. One time I did meet up with a cop, and told him some lie about studying civil engineering (my major was history). He confirmed that local kids were riding their three-wheelers through it, so they blocked one end.
I now live in Florida. Some time ago I came home to see the folks and took one more trip out, but as soon as I parked my car some old crank said I was trespassing and told me to leave. Before I left Penn State I took a day trip to the Ray’s and Sideling Hills Tunnels for a look-see. I have pictures if anyone’s interested…
Bike Trail? I’d love to see it, but lighting and re-maintaining the tunnels strikes me as prohibitively expensive. Not to mention unsafe if you’re biking alone and meet a pack of weirdos in the middle.
panative
Unregistered User
(12/28/02 6:43 pm) Reply
Tunnel info/pics
I love this website. Here I thought I was the only one who day dreamed about what the abandoned tunnels looked like today. I live in near-by Maryland and hope to make a daytrip to the Breezewood Tunnels in the spring. I'd love to see your pics Somerset. Either post them here or email me at dwhite70@yahoo.com . Thanks for the interesting reading and all the directions that I plan on using real soon. I'll post my pics when and if I get there. I also plan on starting a website like this one with my pics attached. I also have some sites already about Outer Banks Lighthouses ( www.angelfire.com/nc/obxl...index.html )and Arizona ( www.angelfire.com/az3/ari...index.html )
Dan W.
Tunnel Fiend
Unregistered User
(5/29/03 2:59 pm) Reply
Mastered most of these
I like reading some of the responses to this post. I would like to add that my friends and I have been curious in these tunnels for a while now and I can add some info on how to find your way there if your interested...however I must warm you that you have two things to worry about on your visit if you decide to go: 1) any PTC or State Police that may happen to find you and/or 2) us trying to scare our unknowing friends or even YOU! lol j/k
anyhoo, Laurel Hill: that would be mile marker 99.3 that you would come to if you'd like to check out the western portal. There is also a giant white line in the middle indicating the county line (remarkable). If you like to go to the eastern side, you'll need to eiether walk or drive (not recommended) about a mile to the entrance. It is right on mile marker 101.4 if you want. Another way to get there would be off of a dirt road from Rt. 31 (ironically found across from one of the PTC control/patrol centers) aptly named Tunnel Road (SR 366) I would like to add that the sign is not there reason being we found it knocked off its pole and we figured it'd be a great souvenier. haha
as for the Rays/Sideling Hill tunnels and abandoned roadway, we only had time to check out the Rays Hill portion of it. easy to get to, you begin to exit Breezewood east on Rt. 30 and after you pass the Ramada Inn, you will notice an old but strong overpass crossing the road. This is the old roadbed. you can park near or around the overpass if u want (which i dont recommend if you want any troopers wondering why you vehicle would be left right near this "certain" overpass) but next time we plan to go, we found a fairly large field on the southern side on 30 before you head to the overpass. You can leave your car there near some old run down pieces of crap nearby. find a small opening in a wire fence close by to access the old roadbed. Once there you can see where the Rt. 70 turnpike offway to Breezewood use to connect with the old roadbed. Heading to opposite direction on top of the overpass, you will notice there are jersey barriers there to keep any motorized vehicles from driving on the abandoned portion, and on the entering barrier it reads: "Welcome hikers and bikers ; private property - no motorized vehicles past this point. Area patrolled by PA Game and State Commission." something like that. if you'd like to go in there, you'll have a good 3.5 mile walk to Ray's Hill tunnel. You will pass by a mailbox the says Trail Info / Bike Pike on it for visitors who wanna leave their John Hancock for historic referance. By the way, we DID discover that there are ACTUALLY WORKING CAMERAS hidden on the abandoned pike so be careful what you do . After I realized there was a better way from travelling on the abandoned section, we drove there to leave our van (even tho that's someone's house there.) this closer overpass is just about a hundred feet from the western portal. you can get to it by taking Rt. 30 further out after the first overpass, and making a left on Moutain Chapel Road. take this to this first and probably only overpass you see and you're there. Climb the hill and prepare for an awesome site.
once at Rays Hill, the 8 of us had fun checking the area and we even had time to climb up to the old ventilation rooms plus the tunnel raliway cavern which spans the entire length (we didnt plan on walking it tho on account that we werent sure about its structural stability). i even had the chance to take a tunnel light fixture from inside answering the question from the one reply. very intesting stuff. well, i hope this helped and godspeed to you all
flamingpinhead
Unregistered User
(9/10/03 2:43 pm) Reply
Caution by the 'camp'
I live in Bedford County, so i have been to the pike tunnels quite a few times. makes a great leasure bike ride parking at the 'hunting cabin' and going the length of road and back between.
one word of caution, however, to get to the tunnel enterance mentoined in Part A (by turning left on the dirt road) of the origional piece
"A. This road loops around, heading west initially, then turning north, and finally heads back east. It goes to some kind of a camp."
I understand that the people that own this 'camp' and the lake that you can see from the new turnpike and a lot of places along the dirt road mentioned are not very friendly to 'explorers' a.k.a. tresspassers. they have a number of large signs on both sides of the dirt road giving away their unfriendliness to anyone traveling their way.
more...
Neat that there's a message board about this.
I think the 2 incidents described in the first post of this thread, were both reported by me, as I remember emailing the person that has this site when I first found it, describing the incidents. I'm a native of Bedford County as well. To clear a few things up:
The "buzzing" incident- a friend and I had just pulled an all-nighter, and felt like taking an early morning walk through one of the tunnels. We went to the Ray's Hill tunnel, and less than 1/4th of the way through it, one of those orange PTC pickup trucks came swarming through, followed shortly by an unmarked police car, with about 4 guys in it. The unmarked car turned on it's siren as it passed us in the tunnel, but kept going. Talk about LOUD! This was probably sometime around 1994 or so.
This is one of several encounters with police officers on the old pike over the years. Before the next incident I'm about to describe, I've never been bothered by police on the old pike, and most would just offer a friendly wave, despite being in the clearly marked "No Trespassing" tunnels. So, it was always sort of an unwritten/assumed thing to locals, that if you were just walking on the old road and/or in the tunnels, they left you alone. If you had any kind of motorized vehicle on it though, you were asking for trouble.
So, in late summer 1995, myself and 4 friends that had never been to the tunnels, visited the Ray's Hill tunnel. Not far into the tunnel, a cop car approached us from the opposite direction. Being use to this sort of thing, I told the others to nevermind it, and we kept walking. He stopped at the end of the tunnel, got out of his car, and yelled at us to come out. So, we did. He then proceeded to slap us all with Criminal Tresspass fines. Some funny things about the incident- The cop was very young, looked and sounded to be someone fresh out of the academy, answering yes and no questions with "affirmative" and "negative", like right by the book. Also, as we were standing around, while the cop was in his car, writing the tickets (taking a VERY long time I might add, we were there for almost 2 hours), another turnpike detail cop pulled up, an older, more experienced guy. He was pretty cool, shooting the breeze with us for a while. One the guys with me asked him point blank "if it were you that caught us, would you have gave us a fine like this, or maybe just told us to leave or just let us go or something?" The cop just smiled and shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, more or less indicating to us that he would have probably just told us to leave at the most, if anything at all.
So yeah, we got fined, and I think with costs and all, it may have been around $220, I forget the exact amount now. The other 4 that were with me opted to try to fight it, and lost. They did get their fines cut in half, however, and rode me a little about not fighting it. My reason was that it would have actually cost me more to fight it than to just pay it like I did, considering the day of work I would have had to take off without pay to go to the hearing. Plus, the other 4 people were 2 couples, so each "household" still ended up paying as much I paid myself. That's the way I look at it, anyway.
Ironically, I haven't been down to the tunnels at all since you're now allowed to be there!
Another post on this thread was asking about the rail in the middle of the ventilation shafts. I would assume, given how the shaft narrows down to 5' clearance, that they had a little cart that fit the rail, that someone could ride in, to replace lights as needed. I doubt it was motorized or anything, probably something you scooted yourself along in, so that you didn't have to bend over and walk the distance.
Also, someone mentioned about the Laurel Hill tunnel being right on the Somerset/Westmoreland County lines. The Ray's Hill has this attribute as well, being on the Bedford/Fulton County lines. Back in the 80's, when I first started exploring the tunnels as a teen, I remember a sign on the wall about 3/4 of the way (going east) into the Ray's Hill tunnel, that marked the county lines. Any other "old timers" remember this? This was also back when most of the original letters on the outside of the tunnel were intact, which was very cool. Another neat thing about going there back then, was that there was all sorts of neat papers laying around from the 60's to be found.
reply
I plan on going out to explore this area. I will contact the PTC and the Rail company to see if permits can be obtained. Some of you talked about PTC employees with flashing lights... so what? They don't have arresting powers or power of detention, do they?
Are any of the areas bordering any game lands or st Forest lands? If there is not a clearly marked posting as you enter an area, you cannot be fined for trespassing once you are within that area, "landlocked", so to speak.
It is a shame that the areas are closed off from exploring by respectful adult users. Of course there needs to be patrols with locals riding 4 wheelers through the tunnels and other activities like teen drinking etc., but this should not be an excuse to prosecute individuals interested in the history of their commonwealth, and the nations first toll superhiway.
Through the years, I have encountered nunmerous police during explorations and so on... it is amazing to me how great the difference can be from one to another. It seems to me that there should be some aspect of cadet training that familiarizes a cadet with the concept of "The Spirit of the Law", as opposed to blind adherance to written rules and regulations.
Hiking in the tunnels is probably not the best idea; they are the only areas specifically marked "no tresspassing" (plus they're very dark 
)
lol j/k
haha
. After I realized there was a better way from travelling on the abandoned section, we drove there to leave our van (even tho that's someone's house there.) this closer overpass is just about a hundred feet from the western portal. you can get to it by taking Rt. 30 further out after the first overpass, and making a left on Moutain Chapel Road. take this to this first and probably only overpass you see and you're there. Climb the hill and prepare for an awesome site.
very intesting stuff. well, i hope this helped and godspeed to you all
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