The Lincoln Avenue Sports Complex is located on the outskirts of Meadville in Vernon Township. To get there from Meadville, take Spring Street west across French Creek and turn right on Lincoln Avenue. Drive through the Fifth Ward and when you get to the end of the road, turn right on Rogers Ferry Rd. Immediately turn left and you will be in the parking lot where there is ample parking.
Refer to the map below for this stage of the hike. There are several ways to go, but the most scenic is to go northeast from the parking lot and hike along French Creek past the swimming hole, through some beaver territory, to the viewpoint, and then on to "More Hiking." As of July 2013 there is a "no swimming" sign posted on a power pole on the trail to the swimming hole. If you are in a rush there is an obviously shorter route that will get you through this section faster. These trails were improved in 2010 with crushed rock and are suitable for strollers. The swimming area is popular in the summer.
Continuing north, we move on to the second map. Here is where you will notice a locked gate (the gate is indicated by the yellow dot in the lower right hand corner) with a building beyond it. This is the abandoned wastewater treatment plant. If you are limber enough you can slip under the gate or climb over. However, if you don't feel like getting through this gate, you can just walk right in to the Crawford County Industrial Park via the main entrance on Dunham Rd and make your way over to the treatment plant without having to jump any gates. The treatment plant is quite exciting so it will have to be the subject of another post.
Leaving the gate behind, the trail changes from a gravel path to an old dirt road. It can be rather overgrown in places in the summer because it is no longer maintained. I've tried to show the approximate location of the trails but there are also other trails besides what is shown. In various places you will see remnants from when this was part of the Avtex site. It was designated a superfund site a couple decades ago and was cleaned up and now nature is reclaiming it. There are still some well heads, drainage channels, and small buildings scattered about. The fly ash hill is pretty boring; I just marked it so you know what you are getting into if you hike that way. I recommend hiking to the "Creek Access" point. Also, on the northernmost trail there is some nice scenery and an oxbow lake where the trail dead ends at a fence at the property line. When you have seen enough, the only way out of here is to either jump the fence into the industrial park or hike back out through Lincoln Park.
Here is the official map which is posted near the FCOLC trailers. Good luck trying to find all those little trails that branch off. They are long overgrown since FCOLC probably has not seen school kids for a couple years.
