Quarry and Powder Mill Trails, Forbes State Forest

Since Christmas, I've been taking my days off down at the Forbes State Forest near Linn Run State Park, in the Laurel Highlands.  It's a 65-mile haul, but definitely worth it.  The Quarry Trail begins at an old rock quarry across the road from the park office and wends south for a few miles all the way to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I-76.

At its southern terminus, you can hear the turnpike traffic screaming, probably half a mile distant.  But you've already got enough noise and speed in your life.  Don't go that way.  Instead, turn right (west) onto the Powder Mill Loop Trail, which takes you above a very deep valley and out into some truly remote woods with beautiful streams and pure silence...at least in the winter.  My cell phone camera cannot capture the bigness of this country--the depth of the wooded valley, the vast sweep of the mountains all around, the height of the trail above the streams below.

ATVs are not allowed on this trail, but that doesn't seem to stop them.  So...if there is any noise out here, it's probably those damnable machines.  Ah, but sometimes they come to fitting ends in the rocky hollows of the Forbes!  This bit of wreckage is probably invisible in the summer.  (As much as I gloat to see one taken off the trails, I do hope nobody got hurt.)

The Powder Mill Loop joins up with the old Felgar Road--which I've explored and talked about elsewhere on this blog.  The intersection is tricky, but when you come off the trail and onto a T at a dirt road, just make sure it's the one that runs parallel to the screaming turnpike, far below.  (Don't take the first dirt road to the left when you come up off the trail; it's a false lead.)  Ah, but take time for a quick detour!  Before following the loop to the left and downhill, first turn right on Felgar and go uphill for about a quarter mile to pay your respects at the Ritter Cemetery.

Almost all the graves here are 100 years old or older.  Most of them date back to the early 1900s, which means that it's not a very old cemetery, but interesting all the same.

I don't know if there used to be a church on this spot, but it's on public lands now, and it appears to be fairly well maintained.  Strange how a spot like this can be so remote and yet so close to all this traffic.

Go back downhill and follow the roadway that is shared by the Powder Mill Loop and Felgar Road.  Soon enough, the "road" gives way to this muddy track, completely beyond the capacities of most vehicles.  America's first superhighway is just to your right.

And there she blows.  The PA Turnpike as seen from the Powder Mill Loop.  It's an annoying incursion into the forest, but somehow it's fun to stand alongside all those hurrying people and know that you are unhurried.  You see them, but they do not see you.  You're standing outside the madness, with no place to go, gazing on with a mixture of superiority and envy.