Took 59U to Oakland. Took 71C to downtown. Saw a 63B-Rankin Express To Regent Square, which I wanted to get a schedule for, but the Wood Street T station was closed. One hopes this is the last total T closure for a long time.
I walked across the Sixth Street Bridge to the North Shore. Then I walked east. And east. And east some more. I might have turned off the trail and gone up the 31st Street Bridge ramp, but there was an enormously long train parked on the tracks between the trail and the ramp, so it was easier to just keep going.
The trail turned into a dirt path along the tracks, then into crushed limestone(tm), then into a huge debris-filled clearing with a bulldozer. Trail continued (more nice new crushed limestone) past Millvale and past an underpass, eventually ending in one of Pittsburgh's charmingly maddening little limestone cul-de-sacs, as if to say "You weren't dumb enough to think this actually goes somewhere, were you?", and a NO TRESPASSING sign.
After the underpass and the boat dock, there was no one else on the trail. Absolutely deserted and beautiful in the perfect sunlight. I sat down on the gravel and considered the river and the jumble of Lawrenceville, and other things.
I was very glad to be alive. Miles later, I still am.
I turned back and got to the underpass. I crossed the same railroad tracks where the freakishly long train had been parked. Then I reached a hideous confusing curving multi-lane road that was an on-ramp and an off-ramp and probably a Pittsburgh-left-at-the-next-yellow-ramp as well, and stood there observing for two minutes or so. This was necessary because it was completely non-obvious what direction traffic was moving in.
Fortunately, while contemplating the road, I realized that the bridge (which I thought was the 63rd Street Bridge but was only the 40th Street Bridge, a.k.a. Washington Crossing) appeared to be accessible without crossing the road. There was even some kind of alleged sidewalk.
The alleged sidewalk eventually tilted at a 45 degree angle. But once that had been surmounted, things became much easier, for the sidewalk disappeared entirely, leaving only a grassy median in which stalwart predecessors had trampled a path. Moreover, I saw a man coming down the median on this same path, and so concluded that the path actually went somewhere. He had a briefcase-y sort of bag and grinned widely when I nodded at him (the nod was meant to signify "right on, brother!").
At the bridge, I had only to step over the railing, and I gained the bridge sidewalk.
The bridge railing had dozens of copies of the Pittsburgh city seal, all in horrible disrepair, but the sidewalk itself (and the roadway surface) were in good shape.
What then? Lawrenceville, Bloomfield, Bloomfield, Shadyside, back to CMU. Walking time: about 2.5 hours.
Moral: Just keep walking, and everything will be fine.