Valley Trail, Raccoon Creek

           It's a beautiful season, these last lingering days of November.  I hate to see empty-headed fools rushing from one feel-good holiday to the next, putting up their Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving.  This, too, is a chronological place, a landscape in time.  This season, too, is worth savoring.

          It's still fall.  And despite the hunters, it's one of the best times for a hike through wooded hills.  With all the leaves off, there are vistas that are hidden much of the year.  A sunny day in the late November woods is its own distinct kind of pleasure.  So quiet.  So solitary.  So pure.

           The Valley Trail, at Raccoon Creek, starts near PA 18, where it bisects the park into eastern and western halves.  The park road that meanders from its east entrance to this midway point at PA 18 is actually a full five miles long.  But the trek along the Valley Trail is much more direct.  It only takes 35 minutes to hike from the trail's western terminus to within view of the lake.  And it gets prettier the further east you go.

           In places, the views out across the wooded valley and adjoining hills are something more than "pretty," if a little less than "gorgeous."  For me, on this day when I completed the rough draft of my doctoral dissertation, it was a transcendent experience: a perfect journey through a brilliant place of sunlight and shadow, rocks and ravines, bare trees and broad panoramas.

           I heard not a single gunshot, though I did see hunters' cars parked alongside the road, and a solitary hunter having a lonesome picnic in the Roadside East Picnic Area.

          I had gone to the park office to purchase the book Walks, Hikes, and Overnights in Raccoon Creek State Park, by Mark Christy. The publication date is not recent (2003) and it's one of those mathematical books that counts the elevation changes and the mileage from landmark to landmark.  It's not glossy, which is fine, but it also seems to have a clinical approach to hiking, omitting most visual detail and description.  All the same, it's thorough and precise, and it should help me plan my hikes in a way that I haven't really been doing.  I don't love the book the way I loved Hiking the Allegheny National Forest, by Jeff Mitchell.  But Raccoon Creek is my Allegheny National Forest now.  And to the untrained eye, these photos look exactly like the ones I used to take up North.  In fact, I can remember hikes in the ANF that looked surprisingly like today's.  Few there are who even remember who I was before.  And this forest is good enough.  It's not as big, but big enough.  It's not as wild, but wild enough.  It really is good enough.

Frankfort Mineral Springs

           The Frankfort Mineral Springs are an old spa dating back to the late 1700s.  All that is left here is the water spring, a building, and some stone foundations and lawns.  In wetter seasons, the trickle of water on the left side of the photo becomes a full-blown waterfall.  That's my florescent orange cap atop my walking stick; it's that time of year again when you have to carry a talisman into the forest to ward off the bullets.   

           Speaking of orange, I don't know what minerals are in this water, but I'd say there's definitely iron.  This, too, is in Raccoon Creek State Park, which is becoming my new haven.  I come into the east entrance of the park then drive the wooded lane five miles west to the middle of the park, and the further I go, the more relaxed I become.  By the time I've reached the lake, I'm thinking to myself, "I just love this place."  It took me a long time to accept the fact that Raccoon Creek was my best local option for woodland adventures.  I couldn't stop comparing it to the Allegheny National Forest and feeling disappointed.

 There's great hiking in this part of the park, which is just off PA18.  I'd never fully discovered these trails because I just never gave the park a chance.  

 I especially like the Upland Trail and parts of the Mineral Springs Loop--the parts that don't run alongside a busy state highway.  The forest here is pretty, if a little noisy.

 I'm not sure what the building is about, but it's interesting enough.  

The Mineral Springs Loop Trail runs beside a deep ravine that was too narrow and wooded to photograph, but which made a scenic backdrop for my sylvan meditations.  

Gratitude

          I'm grateful that time heals most wounds, and the ones it doesn't heal it eventually makes tolerable.  I'm grateful that Paul Theroux has published four new novels since the last time I looked.  Most of his fiction is about white people falling into sad and sordid lives in tropical places.  Reading his stuff feels like affirmation of my life's story, at least the Africa years.  I'm grateful that the Sixteenth Street Bridge--barely visible in the right side of this photo--is so beautiful, with its ornate stonework and sculptured seahorses.  I'm grateful for this strange little park that overlooks the Strip District, near downtown.  It's a seldom-visited place just off the crazy-busy Bigelow Boulevard.  I'm grateful that the Hegelian dialectic can be applied to a human life like mine: orientation, disorientation, reorientation.  When some form of disorientation comes along to disturb the status quo, we always want to move back to what we had before.  And yet, life's call is always forward to the new thing, the next thing.  I'm grateful that I'm finally coming to grips with having moved here from the Allegheny National Forest.

November Dreams

 It's the gray that I love, and the bare branches.  I love the unclaimed appearance of the trails and every patch of wilderlands in the November woods, even here at the ever-popular Wild Flower Reserve.  

 By making the outdoors less appealing to the crowds, November enhances the illusion of remoteness.  Solitude isn't the same thing as seclusion, but it will do in a pinch.  

There's an otherworldly quality to the November countryside.  Except for the rattling of fallen leaves and the chill groan of the wind, there's little noise.  Water might still be coursing in the brook, but the birds and bugs are mostly gone.  It's a surreal kind of time when senses are dulled, and yet vistas are improved...with only little to see.  I love October best of all, but November sounds an echo in my soul.  I understand the gray.  

Wild Flower Reserve, Raccoon Creek

           Call it spooky.  Call it sad.  But the stark November countryside has its own dark beauty.  

           Despite some nice rock formations, I've always avoided the Wild Flower Reserve at Raccoon Creek, mostly because it's so popular with day-trippers from the city.  But there aren't many flowers to draw folks to this place in November.  Besides, no dogs allowed!  

           Although it's not a large area--314 acres--and it's adjacent to a pretty busy road, the Wild Flower Reserve offers a pleasant stream valley lined with sycamores and enclosed by scenic walls of rock.  

 There's also an old one-room cabin on a ridge top that used to belong to a once-famous cartoonist named Cy Hungerford.  Apparently, Hungerford created the still-familiar "Rosie the Riveter."  What I wouldn't do for a place like this...

Today's trek was only 45 minutes long, and not spectacular, but I needed it badly.  A few stolen moments in the grayling woods.  It's not much to ask from life, but sometimes more than my schedule can easily deliver.  Click on any picture to enlarge it.  

Saint Stanislaus Church, Pittsburgh

          Roman Catholic architecture sometimes strikes me as kitschy, but I was at this place for a wedding, and thought it was worth noting.  This is the old, historic Polish church near downtown Pittsburgh.  It's got its own distinctive style, definitely more ornate--and perhaps more garish--than most Italian or Irish parish churches.  Much of the iconography was labeled in Polish.  

Penn Station, Pittsburgh

 The parson's rule of urban aesthetics: "Judge not, lest ye be judged....

but ye can judge a city by its train stations."   

 Long before air travel, in an age when beauty mattered for its own sake, train stations were a person's introduction to most cities.  For that reason, they were designed to express that city's spirit.

 Pittsburgh still has its two glorious train stations, their architecture and designs fully intact.  

This is the Union Station--known to locals as Penn Station.  Look closely at the carved figure between the arches.  Under this grand dome, there are four cities named in stone, depending on the direction that you're facing: New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Chicago.  

 Amtrak still operates out of a lower level of this station, and the city's light rail system still has a stop here, but this magnificent building is mostly occupied by deluxe apartments and offices.  

The lesser of Pittsburgh's two great railway stations is just across the Smithfield Street Bridge, on the South Side.  It's also pretty impressive, and now home to a restaurant known as The Grand Concourse.  It was the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie station, whereas the one pictured here was the main stop for the Pennsylvania Railroad.  Even the old P&LE station is an architectural feat.  

As I Am Now...

Remember me as you pass by.

As you are now, so once was I.

As I am now, so you will be.

Prepare for death and follow me.

Superstorm Sandy

          Sandy didn't wreak nearly as much mayhem here as predicted, and I'm grateful for that.  I know that she did untold damage down by the shore, and many people there are still reeling from the impact.  These extreme weather events are only going to become more frequent, and their severity is only going to increase, as the dirty energy industries continue to purchase governments and make sustainable energy less available.  It's amazing how we destroy the things we need most--land, air, water--in a frantic grab for things we don't need at all--air conditioning, private cars, newer, more, and bigger everything.  The saddest thing of all is that we end up investing ourselves in all these things that matter little, and we neglect the very things that could prevent catastrophe or give us the strength to survive it.  We are all going to need inner resources to carry us through the desperate times that are surely coming.  Now, before it all hits the fan, we need to cultivate inside ourselves a deep, abiding strength.  We need to develop a tenacious sense of hope, too.  Most of all, we must have courage.  The world as we know it will come unglued, but Life itself will find a new equilibrium...eventually.  The question is: Will we have the inner fortitude to stand by and watch everything we know collapse?  It's possible to remain joyful and grounded even amid calamity; I've seen it done.  But you have to invest yourself in meaningful causes--life-giving causes--before the storm makes landfall.
          How are they going to call a storm of that magnitude "Sandy"?  They should have given it a villainous name like Sabine, or Sybil, or Simone... On the other hand, NPR called Sandy "gigantic, sloppy, and slow-moving."  That sounds about like a lot of Sandies I've known...

Traverse Creek Valley

 Hiked the Heritage Trail through the valley of the south branch of Traverse Creek, in the westernmost reaches of Raccoon.  A few autumn leaves were still in business, but only a few.  They say that a lady always knows when to leaf...

 The transition from October to November seems to be complete: gray skies, forty degrees, barren branches with a few leathery oak leaves still clinging and rattling.  I met a domestic cat on this trail that turned tail and ran like hell when it saw me.  I kept catching up with it, and it would run again.  I don't know what it's doing this far into the woods.  

 If you leave the Heritage Trail and head uphill on the Buckskin Trail, you can look back to get a sense for how high you are climbing.  In summer, when the trees are in leaf, you would see nothing but greenery.  

 The state park maintains an educational area--known as Pathways--on the site of the old Doak Farm.  They offer programs in outdoor living.  This is a cheater's wigwam that makes use of fiberglass beneath the thatching.  I thought the local tribes mainly lived in longhouses anyway.  

 The dark November countryside has a spooky cast to it.  I wasn't the only one who felt it.  I scared up a whole covey of ringneck pheasants as I entered the lawn of the educational center.  There's a large grassy space behind this cabin where a few hunters were already scoping things out.  

Click on this photo to enlarge it.  It tells about the old Doak homestead, dating back to 1772.  A nice, two-hour hike is to begin at the Nichol Road parking area, just off PA168.  Leave Nichol Road to turn right onto the Heritage Trail, and follow it alongside Traverse Run.  Turn left onto the Buckskin Trail spur, then left again to stay on the Buckskin.  Ascend the wall of the valley and emerge onto the Pinto Loop, which brings you back to Nichol Road and back to the parking area just off PA168.  

Kings Creek Cemetery

           King's Creek Presbyterian Church was organized on this spot in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, in 1785.  But settlers were living in this area well before that time.  The Doak Family farm, perhaps three miles away, dates back to 1772.  Both the Doak Farm and King's Creek Cemetery now find themselves within the bounds of Raccoon Creek State Park.  Poor Isabel Martin--surely a Protestant--died in 1874.  Why do you think someone has placed an open Bible (sopping wet) and a suspiciously Roman-looking Jesus on her grave at this late date?  Surely there's no one left who knew her.  You can see where the rain has soaked the pages of the book and splattered the tombstone with a pulpy mist.

           My guess is that Isabel's grave has been visited by folks looking for paranormal experiences.  King's Creek Cemetery is a favorite with local ghost-chasers.  It's isolated.  It's on public land.  And it's old.  The oldest legible headstone (bottom photo) dates back as far as 1810.  However, there are surely older graves here.  I was hiking in a nearby area of Raccoon Creek State Park--by pure coincidence on All Saints' Day--and decided to stop by and explore the cemetery on my way home.  I bet there were Halloween revelers here last night, drinking, wandering around in the dark, getting a spooky thrill.

           Most of the graves date from the 18-teens through the 1870s, although King's Creek Church relocated to Florence, PA, as early as 1798.  There's another interesting cemetery on the sight of the former Florence Presbyterian Church--which in turn closed its doors in 2005 and merged with Paris Presbyterian Church.  I'm not sure why so many far-flung, unincorporated communities in this area are named after splendid European cities... But I must say--perhaps with some sectarian bias--Presbyterians rock.  Theirs are the oldest churches, cemeteries, and institutions in this region.  Wherever you find 18th century relics in Southwest PA, you're unearthing the artifacts of Old Presbyteria, land of the Scotch-Irish settlers.

           It was a somber, gray day for walking in the woods, exploring hallowed ground on the day after Halloween.  The cemetery is located on a little spur of land that is separated from the main body of the park by PA168.  Private properties push up against the park's borders at this point.  There's a gaggle of unsightly old campers--hunting camps--and some rundown sheds, deer-stands, and shooting ranges just adjacent to the graveyard.

          This is a strange area.  It's just east of the border with the West Virginia Panhandle.  The countryside is pleasant but frequently interrupted by large, ugly industrial zones: strip mines, gravel pits, trucking depots.  And there's heavy truck traffic all over the back roads.  Much of the traffic--but not all--is from the frackers (may their graves be as desolate and forlorn as these!) 

           There are "hollows," or narrow stream valleys, all along the state line around here.  The people who live in these hollows are called "hoopies" by their rural neighbors just to the east.  It's an unkind slur, but it's true that this place has a distinctly Appalachian feel to it.  And just to prove the stereotype, click on the above photo to read the misspellings etched in stone!  A husband and wife are buried together here, and it says, "They ware lovely in their lives, and in their deaths they ware not devided."

           Hoopies or no, they sure knew how to fashion pieces of art out of rock.  The stones are so elegantly worked.  Look at the symmetry, the florid detail, the graceful script.  This one dates back to 1824, and yet it's still legible.

          What of the sainted dead, lying beneath their stones in their moldering Sunday finery, some of them in powdered wigs?  Do they rest from their labors?  Do they walk with us, unseen and unknown?  Is there an afterlife of punishments and rewards?  Or are they merely gone?  It reminds me of an anonymous poem I memorized years ago:

Agatha Morley, all her life,

grumbled at dust, like a good wife.

Dust on a table, dust on a chair,

dust on a mantel she could not bear.

She forgave fault in man and child, 

but a dusty shelf could set her wild.

She bore with sin without protest, 

but dust thoughts preyed upon her rest.

Agatha Morley is sleeping sound,

far beneath the dusty ground.

Six feet under the ground she lies

with dust at her feet and dust in her eyes.