
To park or not to park? One of the gray areas of this “running all the streets” effort is what to do about trails in city parks. Pittsburgh has numerous parks from the dual East End green behemoths, Schenley and Frick, to the high hilly Riverview Park in the North. There are a variety of trails, from wide paths paved with crushed limestone to winding deer trails. What to do? What to do?
For this run, I entered Frick Park through its Blue Slide gateway. Blue Slide Park is a local curiosity. If you Google it, the first wiki-pedia link is likely for Mac Miller’s album of the same name. Incidentally, upon Mac Miller’s untimely demise, thousands gathered there for a memorial (see CBS story ) . I was not following Mac Miller at the time, but on that night run ended up mingling with this crowd of mourners. Here is a link to some pictures I’ve taken of the Blue Slide.
Anyway, I chose big easy paths to run on, passed dog walkers, and groups of parents with strollers. Passing the OLEA (Off Leash Exercise Area), I went down the ravine onto Falls Ravine Trail. Its a nice, quick downhill that takes you to Lower Frick. Frick is one of the wilder parks in the area. Most of it is heavily wooded. The wide paths are roughly along watercourses and going off of them on the smaller trails leads to massive hills. At any rate, I popped out of Frick Park on Lancaster Ave, in the heart of Regent Square. This is a picturesque area with large houses, brick streets, nice yards and towering trees.

I ran a little bit out off the map into Edgewood. Eventually turning around, I came back through Frick Park by its Allenby Avenue entrance, which quickly becomes Braddock Trail. Braddock Trail follows Nine Mile Run until you hit Commercial Avenue. I veered off a little earlier, skirting the soccer field and going up Irongate Trail. That doesn’t even make it onto Google Maps, but is a biker trail which ascends in big rolls up above the Irish Center. If you take the right side-trail, you can drop into the Walnut Towers parking lot, high above Commercial.
So, with this run, I’m CONSIDERING including wide park trails as part of Run All The Streets. BTW, I’m trying to get an overall map ready for the 50th run of Run All The Streets.