About
Local knowledge is the most valuable thing on a long trail. We built a place to keep it.
Trail Sherpa is a community-driven planning and reporting platform for the long-distance trails of the Pennsylvania Wilds — starting with two backpacking routes in Lycoming County: the Old Loggers Path and the Loyalsock Trail.
The problem
Trail knowledge is scattered.
Every year hikers come from across Pennsylvania and beyond to walk the OLP and Loyalsock. And every year the same questions get asked in the same places: forums, Facebook groups, outdated guidebooks, threads on Reddit. Which spring is running. Where the blowdowns are. Whether the shuttle driver is still answering the phone. The information exists — it just lives in someone else's notebook.
We're building the place where that local knowledge gets organized, dated, and shared — so the next hiker can plan their trip with what's actually true this season.
The pilot
Two trails. One community. Free for the OLP.
The Old Loggers Path is the grant-funded centerpiece — a free, sponsored trail pack made possible by the PA Wilds Center for Entrepreneurship. The Loyalsock Trail follows as a parallel build, with official trail data sourced once licensing is in place. If the model works here, it scales to the rest of the PA Wilds — and beyond.
Who's building it
Amoeba Media, LLC.
Amoeba Media is a single-member LLC based in Williamsport, PA. It's the operating company for Trail Sherpa, run by Zach Lyon — a product designer and front-end developer who's been building for the web since 1998. Amoeba's broader work is automated business solutions: bridging the physical and digital for organizations that don't have a software team. Trail Sherpa is the in-house project that tests every pattern Amoeba sells.
Amoeba grew out of Zach Lyon Creative, Inc. (founded in Reno, Nevada in 2003) — twenty-plus years of designing and building websites for travel, tourism, and small businesses. Trail Sherpa is what happens when that lineage meets a 27-mile loop in the Loyalsock State Forest.
Stewardship
Built with the partners who already do the work.
We work alongside the organizations who maintain these trails and steward this region. Our job is to amplify their work, not replace it.
- PA Wilds Center for Entrepreneurship — grant sponsor for the OLP pilot.
- Alpine Club of Williamsport — volunteer maintainers of both the Old Loggers Path and the Loyalsock Trail.
Want to get involved?
Share a trip report, file a condition update, suggest a feature, or just send a story. We're building this with the people who walk it.