See the PA Grand Canyon from both sides

You can spend all day tooling around PA, rarely finding a bad road. For the most part, the surfaces are great, the views are spectacular and there's very few cars out, especially on a Tuesday morning.

This is one of the little detours you should try if you're in the area as it has all three in abundance. It takes it two sides of the PA Grand Canyon, which is just outside Wellsboro.

The gorge was created during the last ice age and used to contain a railroad line at it's base. That's gone now, replaced by a footpath for bicyclists and pedestrians. But you need to come for the always excellent state park roads that climb to the lookouts on either side.

The climb to Lawrence Harrison is the easier of the two, and likely the more busy as it's the main visitor center. It curves it's way along a fairly wide road with forest on either side.

At the top, you'll be rewarded with spectacular vistas. Or at least you will be if it's not raining like it was for us. If you looks to the North West, you should also be able to see your next destination nestled in the trees.

Sensing blue sky, we waited a little while and within five minutes the torrential rain had ceased before enveloping us in cloud before finally opening to sun. The weather here changes quickly. By the time we'd got back on and ridden to the other side of the canyon, the weather was perfect and the roads were dry.

The climb to Colton state park is a lot more technical and, dare I say it, a lot more fun. It's not quite switchbacks, but there's a lot of very tight turns in a very short space of time, all the while ascending. I'd been told before departing that it was one-way traffic so I made full use of the width. Unfortunately, it's also not true. There's so little traffic it didn't matter, but be warned...

At the top, you get similar vistas, but this time we got some excellent views of the many birds of prey that live here. Unfortunately, I didn't have a long enough lens to capture them but you will see plenty of hawks and eagles floating on the currents.

As it's not one way, after you loop around the lookouts, the way down is the road you took. Downhill, it's a slightly scarier prospect but it shouldn't be. Make sure you've got a little space between you and the vehicle in front (we took a minute between riders) and you'll have plenty of fun.

If you are down in the area, you really should take an hour and stop in at least one of these runs if not both. Neither of them go anywhere, but it's a chance for some spectacular scenery and to enjoy some roads that you'd otherwise probably never consider. In fact, I'd suggest you might want to take a couple of hours and do it more than once