Two Mile Run County Park—Way Cooler than It Sounds!

I’m a native of Venango County and a homeowner there.  I’ve been exploring this place pretty regularly for much of my life, but especially since my return three years ago.  Even so, I’d never bothered to go to the popular Three Mile Run County Park.  But look at this place.  It’s well worth a visit, even in an early North Country winter.  

Like much of the state, and almost all of Venango County, Three Mile Run Park is scenic, if not quite beautiful.  The sepia tones of early winter seem to suit the place under moody gray skies...  

Do you remember these things?  We called them merry-go-rounds, even though they weren’t like the ones at the fair.  I thought they’d been deemed too dangerous, and that they got pulled out of all the playgrounds decades ago.  As a child, I took many a bruising from getting swept off these things by centrifugal force.  But you always get back on.  It’s fun to be dizzy when you’re a kid.  We grownups can’t take it.

The reason I’d never been tempted to visit Two Mile Run County Park was written right into its name: “County” park.  There’s a lot of public land around here, miles and miles of woodlands to discover.  We’ve got the Allegheny National Forest, and the beautiful, lesser-visited Oil Creek State Park, and Cornplanter State Forest, and many game lands owned and operated by the state.  I assumed that a “county park” would be nothing more than a few baseball diamonds, some swing sets, a tennis court and a dog run.  I was so wrong!  Two Mile Run is as cool as almost any state park I know, and it offers just as much.  It’s got trails for hiking, biking, horseback riding, and ATVs.  It’s got a lake for fishing, with a swimming beach, kayaks and paddle boats for rent, and a big concession stand—closed for the winter.  It’s got a large campground with restrooms, and showers, and primitive sites, and sites with full hookups, as well as rustic cabins, like the one pictured here.  The campground is closed for the season, but the park even has an office that’s open year round.  And of course, it’s got the ubiquitous playgrounds and sports fields…for those of you who are into that kind of thing….

At 2,700 acres, it’s bigger than the ever-popular McConnell’s Mill State Park…and more than twice the size of Ryerson Station State Park.  The trail system is impressive, and the scenery is pleasant.

Oh, and picnic pavilions.  There are so many picnic pavilions.  This is the Big Rock Pavilion, presumably because it’s located next to a big rock.

Venango County was very wealthy at one time.  The decaying old mansions in Oil City and Franklin are evidence of that, not to mention the grand old farms and rural estates—some of which are still privately owned, but most of which have fallen into the hands of religious or social nonprofits.  Venango County had oil money, and lots of it.  But how do they continue to maintain such a magnificent park today, when all the money the polluters and frackers make goes down to Texas?

A part of me wants to learn how to do oil paintings.  I’d do scenes pretty much like this one.  I’d be the Corot of the inland Northeast.

In addition to all the many recreational opportunities at Two Mile Run, there are also two houses that you can rent.  This one they call “The Cottage.”  

And this one they call “The Farmhouse.”  I mean, what other county has a park this awesome?  

See the face in this tree?  That’s another thing I like about Two Mile Run; unlike the sometimes sterile, institutional feel of state-owned lands, someone really loves this place.  Think about it.  In order to maintain a park like this, the county has to pay office employees, lifeguards, rangers, groundskeepers, and maids to clean the rental properties.  They’ve got to pay for all the mowing, and snow removal, and maintenance of everything.  Does Venango County do all of this with taxpayer dollars?  If so, it’s a fantastic use of our taxes.  But how do they do it in such a deeply Republican county, where everything is about private ownership and Trumpism, and the tax base just keeps shrinking?  Anyhow, I definitely need to come back here.  There’s much more to discover.

Serious question: If you had to spend the rest of your life within the bounds of a single American county, which one would it be?  You’re wearing a bracelet on your ankle that will zap you painfully hard if ever you cross the county line.  Choose wisely.  There aren’t many counties that provide a full array of urban, suburban, and rural opportunities.  Los Angeles County, California, offers the best of both worlds: first rate urban opportunities as well as mountains, wilderness, and outdoor wonders.  But do you really want to live in Southern California?  Allegheny County, where my primary residence is located, is far too heavy on the urban dimension and too light on the rural.  I don’t think I’d pick Venango County.  The urban opportunities are just too few.  But between Oil Creek State Park, and Cornplanter State Forest, and the various state game lands, and Four Mile Run County Park, we’ve got enough wild places here to keep me happy.   

 

Calvary Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh

Calvary Episcopal Church in the Shadyside neighborhood of Pittsburgh is a pretty impressive piece of architecture. I was there for a Chatham Baroque concert last Saturday evening. Rood screens, which separate a church’s altar from its nave, were jettisoned during the English Reformation, but they reappear in a lot of 20th century churches as a fanciful pretension. It’s a beautiful space, but don’t snoop around too much. There are pews roped off in places where the arches overhead are crumbling and dropping cement dust. It must cost hundreds of thousands each year to maintain these religious monuments. I wonder how much longer communities of faith will be able to remain in grand spaces like this. 

Abandoned Church for Sale

I wonder what the story is here?  This old church sits in the small town of Centerville, on the road from Titusville to Erie.  Looks like it’s been abandoned for 30 years or more…and it’s been for sale for quite a while, too.  The For Sale sign out front has a panel missing.  No one’s ever gonna buy this place.  What would you even do with a rundown old church in a small community like this?  There’s a very active-looking Baptist church across the street.

I like old churches, but not this one.  It’s got a bad energy about it.  I stopped to take a picture for a brochure that I’m working on…. From the looks of the place, I’d say it was Methodist.  They probably just had the wrong personalities in charge at some crucial juncture and couldn’t survive.

 

North Country Cryptids

This is the Allegheny River with Babylon Hill to the right…

A few weeks ago, just as dark was setting in, I saw a red fox in these trees behind the house, staring back at me. Such a sleek, beautiful creature. I’ve been hoping to see it again, so I go out every evening and stare into the woods, but it hasn’t returned.

Red foxes are cool…but can we talk about cryptids?  I know it sounds ridiculous, and I truly am a rational person. But there’s something in the woods behind my house up north—something other than a fox.  And while I mostly don’t mind it, I do sometimes find it a little eerie at night.  The forest is why I bought this place.  Living on the edge of the woods is my joy and my drug.  But when night falls, I sense a presence that troubles me.  Don’t get me wrong; I’d rather deal with cryptids than Pittsburgh traffic. (Not that the drivers in the North Country are any better; they’re equally bad in different ways. Up here, people go the speed limit minus 15. You have to give yourself an extra 15 minutes to get anywhere because there WILL be someone in front of you driving 15 miles below the speed limit.)  But when I shone my flashlight into the trees behind the house last night—taking that damned, accursed dog out to pee—a large, single orange eye reflected back at me, then disappeared. It makes me think back on the night a few months ago when I heard loud, eerie noises coming from these same trees—trees that I adore by day.

Of course I don’t believe in cryptids.  Wendigos, dogmen, bigfeet.  The archeological record simply doesn’t account for their existence.  However, I picked up a horror novella at Barnes & Noble that was set in Northern Pennsylvania: Cold Snap, by Lindy Ryan.  It’s definitely an amateur piece of fiction—too much description and too little story.  It deals with questions of grief, and loss, and guilt.  It’s about a newly widowed woman who goes with her sulky teenage son to a cabin in Northern PA to deal with her grief over Christmas.  But a creature that seems to be a moose turns out to be a wendigo.  (There hasn’t been a regular moose population in PA since the early 1800s, though a few do occasionally wander in from more northerly climes.)  Wendigos are Native American spirits who haunt the living.  They look like deer or moose…until they don’t.  They’re specifically Native American.  I often wonder about the Erie Indians who got genocided by the Iroquois in the 1600s.  (White people perfected the heinous art of genocide, but it has been practiced by other races, too—contrary to popular belief.)  You never hear much about the Erie, but they were the original inhabitants of Northwest Pennsylvania. It would make sense for their unhappy ghosts to roam these darkling forests… I don’t believe in such things, but it’s fun to think about when night is falling in the trees…

Huntin’ Season

 

I sometimes walk this road from end to end, especially in the early evenings.  I do it for exercise...and also to see the trees in the changing light of different times and seasons.  It's uncanny how many different places a single place can be.  The woods on either side are marked with No Trespassing signs, so I stick to the gravel.  On a recent evening, I was walking this road at dusk.  Things were beginning to take on an eerie glint--the darkening sky, the gloomy trees, the utter isolation.  In all the many times I've walked this road, I've never encountered a vehicle of any kind.  But that evening, I saw a pair of headlights coming at me.  No big deal.  A 20-year old American-made sedan headed toward me slowly, suspiciously.  Then, when the car got close, the driver hit the gas.  I assume they were creeped out to see a solitary pedestrian in a hoodie walking this lonesome road at dusk.  Dirt road, fading light, solitary walker with an unseen face...that's the stuff of horror movies or true crime documentaries.  By the time I made it back to my car--about a mile away--there was an expensive pickup parked in front of me.  I didn't like the way the driver was sitting with his windows open, staring at me in from the dark interior.  He seemed to be waiting for me.  As I passed by his truck, he called out "Hi there.  You out here huntin'?"  I said, "No, just gettin' in some cardio."  This answer gave him pause, as if the word "cardio" was known to him, but not commonplace.  Then he looked relieved.  I wasn't carrying a rifle, so he thought I just might be telling the truth.  He told me he'd come out to change the batteries in his hunting cameras in the woods.  The hell he did...  Who waits till dark to go into the forest to change camera batteries?  I'll tell you what actually happened.  The driver of that first car saw me and thought I was hunting illegally on private land.  They called the guy who owns the land--or leases it--and he came out here as fast as he could to catch me.  Walking a lonely public road just for the sake of walking?  Who would do a thing like that?     

November Thoughts

Look at the austere perfection of this scene.  It's like living in a painting by Corot.  Just as there's a stark beauty in barrenness, there's an ironic freedom in loss---as when the trees lose their leaves to stand bare and show their true forms.  It's lovely in a monochromatic way: gray branches stretched out against a gray sky.  If things weren't taken from us, would we ever let them go?  And if we never let anything go, could there be growth and life?  November teaches us to let go of things that can no longer serve us...like last summer's greenery.

November strips the trees of their leaves, and the skies of their light, and the air of its warmth, and our lives of their illusions.  Remember all the unmet goals of the bright, scorching summer?  Gone, irretrievable, half-forgotten.  Remember how you were gonna get that fence painted, and that door repaired, and that phone call made, and that article written?  Remember how you had all the time in the world, and you were gonna be young forever?  

Back in September, I collected about 65 wild black walnuts in their pungent green husks, but I put off husking them till a few days ago.  By that time the majority of them had gone bad.  Once you've broken them out of their green outer shells, you toss them in water to see if they float.  It turns the water inky black.  If they do float--which most did--they're no longer any good.  I was able to salvage only 20.  They'll be ready for cracking by January.

I do love country churches.  This is the Presbyterian church in Plumer, founded in 1823.  They should have celebrated their 200th anniversary just two years ago, but their fading sign--which clearly has not been touched in a very long time--says some weird thing about "Happy 151 years."  Were they celebrating their building's birthday?  Not much happening here these days.  It's a perfect November scene--dormancy, decline, a normal death.  All things must run their course, in time.  Someday, in the brilliance and warmth of some future summer day, I'll explore their old cemetery...

Actually, I may yet do it this winter.  This church never really had a glory day.  It has struggled along since the 1860s, when the minister struck it rich in the oil boom and went off to live the high life in some more glamorous place.  (Funny how wealth reveals a person's true character, just like November reveals a tree's true form.)  Last I heard, they had 4 aged church members left, no minister, and no Sunday services.  The sign unironically declares, "Christ is alive.  The church is alive."  But things are always getting gone from the world, aren't they?  Even things of goodness, truth, and beauty are forever disappearing.  You just have to let them go and hope that something equally good or better will step in to fill the void.

The November full moon was a beauteous thing to behold.  It felt like some kind of weird midday, shining its eerily brilliant light over our old farmhouse near Pittsburgh.

Here's Pittsburgh from the slightly spooky elevator at Mercy Hospital.  You definitely want to take the stairs if you're scared of heights.  I like the quiet decay of November, the sweet smell of moldering leaves, the hunkering down indoors, the refuge taken in small comforts (fires, music, candles, coffee, books).  I like November for the hush that it seems to bring over everything.  The soft grays and browns are a joy to weary eyes that have been burned by too much summer sun.  The cool temperatures are a relief.  I'm considering getting trained and certified as a "forest therapy practitioner."  Not to replace my current career, only to expand it...

 

East End Pittsburgh, with a Link to Hoye-Crest

 

How colorful the east end of Pittsburgh appeared from the roof of Shadyside Hospital on Halloween morning.

For a link to my most recent mountaineering adventure at Hoye-Crest, in Maryland, click HERE. 

North Country Trail: Minister Road to Minister Creek, Allegheny National Forest

                                       

On a recent visit to the Allegheny National Forest, I found a spot on a map that looked intriguing, then drove there and found that it was, in fact, not at all intriguing.  But en route to that place, I came across the old remains of the original CCC camp that was located in the national forest in the 1930s.  This place was used as a prisoner-of-war camp during World War II.

What was an American POW camp for German soldiers like, I wonder?  All I can picture is Hogan's Heroes.

This is not the loveliest fall we've seen in recent years, but it is the longest lasting.  I've never before seen so many trees keeping their leaves past Halloween.

A female hairy woodpecker.  (Who names these things?)

Abandoning my original plan, I cut south on Minister Road and decided to catch the North County Trail all the way to the Minister Creek Trail. I wonder who this minister was that got a creek and a road and a campground and a trail all named after him...or at least named after his occupation.

Where the NCT meets the Minister Creek Trail, there's an abundance of beautiful back-country campsites, like this one...with an old folding chair sitting by the fire ring.  

Don't you hate it when folding chairs appear in unexpected places?  I've found folding chairs in many a far-flung woodland spot.  I think hunters sometimes carry them into the woods and leave them.  And back in the 1980s, when my uncle would come home from work and collapse into his recliner to watch professional wrestling, someone would inevitably produce a folding chair to clobber their opponent.  How did folding chairs get so...ubiquitous?

It was a beautiful, golden autumn day to be among the trees.

This photo was meant to capture the rock cliffs behind the trees.  This is close to a rock formation called Sleeping Giant, which is only known to locals, and which I've covered once on this blog and once on the old blog.  Lots of big rock cities in the woods here.

The caves that you see beneath the boulders could offer shelter in a pinch, but they're not the deep caves that remain 50 degrees year-round.  These are "tectonic caves," basically nothing more than crags beneath and between the rocks.  This tall rocky ledge runs for a long distance parallel to the trail. 

And the forest was lovely in the yellow light of late October.  

A few weeks ago, I hiked to the Minister Creek Trail (North Loop) from the west along the North Country Trail.  There were Scouts from Ohio building a bridge.  Looks like they finished the task.  

Rising Main City Steps, Pittsburgh

This is Rising Main Avenue...

In an age before motor vehicles, and in a city where high ground was reserved for the working classes--people who didn't have horses or carriages--it was common for a city street to become a staircase.  Pittsburgh has more "city steps" than any other municipality in the country.  I believe San Francisco comes in second.  Do you see the railings near the middle of this photo?  That's where Rising Main Avenue, on Pittsburgh's Northside, becomes a staircase and takes a sharp descent.

Many of Pittsburgh's city steps make good shortcuts for pedestrians, and they're grudgingly maintained...though never shoveled for snow (unless by private citizens).  Other city steps are more or less derelict and unused.  The city has put up gates or caution tape blocking access to the most dangerous steps.  But I'd been hearing about the Rising Main Steps for a few years, and people apparently still use them.  So I thought I'd go check them out.  I approached from the top of the steps in the Fineview neighborhood.

It's 371 steps from top to bottom, and I began the long descent with few misgivings.  The steps seemed fine, a little steep in places, according to the contours of the hillside beneath them.  As I descended, I noticed ruined old foundations on the right side of the staircase!  There used to be houses built along this "street."  I don't know when those houses disappeared, but in the age of the automobile, this street gives "on-street parking" a whole new meaning.  Can you imagine coming home from work in one of those hot and hazardous factories, only to climb 200 - 300 steps to your house?  Furniture, groceries, Christmas gifts...everything would have to be brought in on these steps.  The railing has given out in places. 

I was doing great, descending the Rising Main Steps, but at about the middle I noticed that they were uneven and leaning pretty hard to the left.  The banister had even come apart as erosion or collapse tugged at its joints.  Click on this photo to enlarge it.  Even though these steps are still officially open, I felt nervous to walk on the slanted surface.  I mean, this is no small drop.  And so, I cannot say that I walked all 371 steps to the bottom.  I turned around and went back up.

A little research revealed that "Rising Main Avenue" is so named because an old water main used to run along it, carrying the public water supply uphill...or maybe downhill, since city water towers tend to be located in high places.  No one wants to live in such steep places nowadays.  There are many abandoned homes.

Otherwise, the Fineview neighborhood feels semi-rural in places.  This little homestead (behind the ugly utility box) sits on the edge of an urban forest with a large, steep lawn and deer feeding in the grass...right here in the "inner city."  

Minister Creek Campground, Trails, and Overlook - Allegheny National Forest

Minister Creek is the best of the Allegheny National Forest in miniature.  It's got a a little bit of everything: a pretty woodland creek, a very cold swimming hole, a campground, a network of trails, and perhaps most famously, an overlook--which is relatively rare in this forest.  I once had a blog dedicated entirely to the Allegheny National Forest, and I've still never completely hiked the full trail system at Minister Creek.  I spurned it for being so popular.

But you know what?  Sometimes a place is popular because it's just so great.  The tiny 6-site campground is right on the water with spacious, quiet campsites--no electricity, no garbage service, no sewer dump for the RV--just a self-pay station and a clean outhouse.  

The scenic trail system at Minister Creek totals about 10 miles.  Some of the trails go low, running along picturesque streams among boulders, and moss, and hemlocks.  Other trails aim for higher ground, commanding a view out over the valley of Minister Creek, below.  I'd been here twice before, once on a snowy day in February and once, long ago, in high summer.  It was best on a misty, drizzly day in October when the trees were a bit past their autumnal prime.

Just as an aside, the US Forest Service uses this Woodsy the Owl creature in a lot of its signage, but why is he wearing a Robin Hood-style cap?  Or was that the kind of hat worn by foresters in centuries past?  It would make sense if Robin Hood wore a forester's cap, right?  In any case, I think I need one before I do my next long distance hike.

A part of me likes the Minister Creek area for all the reasons that once caused me to avoid it: it attracts people from other places.  You'll usually find cars with New York and Ohio plates.  The campground only has six sites, and they're only available on a first-come-first-served basis.  But there are signs in the parking lot across the road reminding people that they can camp in the forest surrounding the campground as well.

On weekends, campsites here get snatched up pretty quick, and the campground is full most Friday and Saturday nights from May through October.  Now look at this tent.  It's canvas, which is the only kind of tent that's truly waterproof and fully 4-season.  I bet it's expensive and heavy for backpacking, but it sure is nice...

The trail system here is popular, too.  I encountered lots of other hikers out in the rain on a Friday in October.  Here's a shot of nearby Tionesta Creek as it passes through the hamlet of Mayburg, which is mostly hunting camps and summer homes.  I kayaked through this spot in the summer of 2022 when I crossed the 99 miles of the Allegheny National Forest from the New York state line to Tionesta Lake.

I'd forgotten that it was hunting season, but I saw many, many hunters in the woods along the roadsides.  So, I stopped at a new store in Tidioute to pick up some fluorescent orange hunting gear--so I wouldn't get shot.  Tidioute is one of my favorite little towns.  It's got this new outdoor supply store & deli, so if you need a pastrami on rye and some fox scent for your traps, this is your one-stop-shop.  Tidioute also has a bunch of other cool stuff, most of which wasn't there just a few years ago--some restaurants, a grocery store, a hardware store, a few dollar stores, and thrift shops, and even an interior decorating boutique.  Cicely, Alaska on the Allegheny...

It was a great few days for seeing birds.  Although they'd been absenting themselves from my feeders most of the summer, it seems that the year-round birds are back in force.  I saw tufted titmice, dark-eyed juncos, chickadees, and a nuthatch.  Those titmice look all sweet and innocent, but they preside over the feeder just daring any other bird to come and push them off.  We're getting some bedrooms added to the house up there, and I was supposed to meet the contractor today (Saturday) to look over the job together.  But alas, I got called back to Pittsburgh for an emergency, so here I am in the treeless suburbs, missing out on a North Country October day....