Felgar Road turned me back the last time I traveled it, last week. That unspectacular misadventure is described in the post just below.
And so, I returned today for a rematch. The upland forests are lovely right now and rich with the memory-laden scent of October leaves. This is my favorite month, such a pensive time of year, when memories of days gone-by drop silently around me like so many leaves.
Fall awakens old yearnings in me. It makes me long to walk off into the wilderness on some kind of quest, and so Felgar Road was an ideal destination. The top photo shows the road as it runs alongside the Pennsylvania Turnpike. On this open stretch, it feels almost like a service road, but I think Felgar Road is actually older than the pike.
You follow the road a frighteningly long distance into the steep woods only to re-emerge next to the Turnpike. The Texans and other frackers are digging a pipeline that runs between the two roads, and in places you can see the fatsos in their orange vests right through the trees. This photo looks west along the Pike.
Once the track becomes impassable to vehicles, you get out and walk, abandoning the car at one of the rare pull-offs. It's only then that you discover these amazing views out over America's first superhighway. Notice the semis traveling the Pike. This is looking east.
The traffic screams in the valley below, but there's a smug isolation up here on the peaks above it all. As others speed at breakneck velocity from one place to the next, I stand apart from it all, surrounded by golden leaves like some medieval saint enshrined in stained glass. An observer, unseen by the travelers far below.
Along much of the trek, the "road" was little more than a grassy track along the ridgeline above the Pike. I suspected that Felgar Road would eventually rejoin the frackers' new pipeline road at some ugly juncture of ruined forest. This turned out to be the place. In theory, even this dangerous-looking thoroughfare is open to hikers. Trail signs point to it, saying "PA Turnpike / Route 31." But I didn't really find it very appealing.
Today's hike was really cool, despite the fact that I did not escape traffic noises and I did end up seeing frackers in the forest--both things that I deeply despise. The world was just so bright with autumn colors and the views so vast.
You would think I'd have been disappointed. Not only did I suffer industrial incursions into the forest, but I also missed my hiking goal.
I had hoped to trek from Felgar Road onto the multi-use trail that leads to the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail's footbridge over the Turnpike.
I intended to stand in the middle of the footbridge and watch the interstate traffic passing down below. But I got sidetracked by the hideous new pipeline road, with all its noise and florescent-vested Texans.
And yet, despite missing my goal, I ended up bushwhacking through some scenic if nondescript meadows and woods, like the places pictured here. It was a day of great discoveries.
There were good mountain views in spots.
And in the end, I accidentally discovered the Marshall Fields Trail, which called me further and further into the woods, away from the Turnpike.
The Marshall Fields Trail is a beautiful little lane that snakes through autumn trees. At a certain point, I came upon a lesser lane that split off and led to this clearing. Is this one of the "Marshall Fields"? I wonder what it's for and why someone clearly comes out here to mow it.
But alas, when you hike an hour and a half from home, you don't get as much time on the trails as you would hiking thirty-five minutes from home. I had to hurry back to the car so that I'd be back to the house before the school bus dropped off the kids.
I had some anxiety about traveling back uphill on the deep, loose gravel at this far eastern end of Felgar Road. I didn't know if my car would end up spinning out on it.
Here, again, is a more traveled segment of Felgar Road as is runs along the Pike. I met some young guys in a red pickup who told me they were out on the forest looking for firewood. They asked me if I worked for Powdermill, which is strange. One of the trails out there is called "The Powedermill Loop." I wonder what it is.
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