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....

 

Shadyside Presbyterian Church

This is one of the iconic churches of Pittsburgh, a city with many glorious religious buildings—Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox churches, as well as synagogues. The Presbyterian churches are especially grand, due to the wealth and prominence of so many of the city’s Scottish and Scotch-Irish citizens. 

In her memoir, An American Childhood, Annie Dillard writes about attending Shadyside Presbyterian Church as a child and teenager. Her father insisted that she be there every Sunday, though he and her mother stayed home. On one occasion, Annie was sitting in the balcony, mocking the Sacrament, only to realize that her adolescent friends weren’t joining in the mockery; they were praying. She eventually renounced her membership to an assistant pastor, became Catholic for a while, then left that tradition, too. I don't know where she landed on the religious spectrum. Is she even still alive?

During the factory closures of the 1980s, this church building was attacked by vandals with cans of spray paint… Why?  Because so many of the greedy bastards who were shuttering the Mon Valley and moving steel-operations to cheaper locations attended Shadyside Church. The ushers wore white gloves and morning coats back in those days. It’s a kinder, more compassionate place nowadays, and far less exclusive.

I hadn’t set foot in this building for a very long time. Last time here, I was enrolled in the seminary on Highland Avenue, and the pastor of this church was one of our part-time professors—an erstwhile “prince of the pulpit” (with an ego that could barely fit beneath the ornate sounding board above said pulpit—see photograph). I came back last Sunday afternoon for an “early music” concert by a group that holds all its events in religious edifices, which is a bonus for me, as a fan of both early music and sacred architecture. I’ll document the other venues monthly, as the concert series continues: Calvary Episcopal, Hicks Chapel at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (my alma mater) and Rodeph Shalom Synagogue. I’ve often wanted to create another blog dedicated solely to sacred architecture…or maybe publish a coffee table book about rural churches in Western Pennsylvania. But alas, good quality cameras intimidate me. 

 

Autumn under the Trees with a Link to Dolly Sods in October

 

This is a road where I often walk, near my camp. The backroads around there are full of wonders--eccentric-looking houses, abandoned farmhouses, old cabins, fields and meadows, all manner of wild beasts, birds, deeps woods, the old machinery and detritus of the oil age, and antique cars rusting beneath the trees... I saw a fisher-cat crossing this road in front of me once in broad daylight. We are living in times when those in power care about nothing but power. Natural beauty and art are not priorities except insofar as they enhance a person's power or make a rich person even richer. For that reason, I've bought season tickets to an early music concert series in Pittsburgh. I'm also playing my own musical instrument more often and reaching for all the beauty I can find in the world around me. For a link to some dramatic photos of the Dolly Sods Wilderness in West Virginia, click HERE. 

"Coal Oil Johnny" Homestead & Gerard Trail in Oil Creek State Park

John Steele, or “Coal Oil Johnny,” was a famous party boy of the 19th century. He actually was a national celebrity during the days of the Pennsylvania oil boom, just after the Civil War, because he was opulently rich, extravagant, and unspeakably wasteful. The whole schtick about lighting cigars with $100 bills was attributed to him. In early life, Steele had been adopted by the McClintock Family, wealthy farmers who settled in the valley of Oil Creek, in Venango County, in 1796. This is not the first McClintock house; this one was built on their property in 1850, then restored in the 1990s and relocated within the bounds of Oil Creek State Park, very close to their original homestead.

The interior of the McClintock home, which I snapped through a window, would have been small but well-appointed for that time and place. When oil was discovered in the region, the McClintocks struck it rich, and John Steele, the adopted son of the family, inherited enormous wealth. Steele fled to Philadelphia to spend his riches in grand style, and the newspapers of the day loved to report on his wanton material excesses. He earned the nickname "Coal Oil Johnny," and he was known for his flashy clothes, lavish parties, ostentatious jewelry, and expensive tastes. After rapidly wasting all his money, Coal Oil Johnny fell into disgrace and began working with a traveling show, hiding his identity. Every time someone figured out who he was, he moved on to another place, finally dying penniless in Nebraska at the age of 77.

For all my recent fascination with Oil Creek State Park, I'd never explored the southern portion of it, which is much like the northern segments that I've already hiked. The park encompasses the scenic hollow of Oil Creek, and the Gerard Trail runs a 30-some mile loop around the entire park, hugging sheer bluffs above the stream far below. 

I did a quick 5-mile trek on Saturday before heading back to the city. 

The sluggish waters of Oil Creek flow languidly along, depleted by a hot, dry summer. The woods are crawling with ticks right now. Even taking precautions, I had to remove four over the course of two days of hiking.

 

Fall Walnutting

A few years ago, I was reduced to hiking at Raccoon Creek--which is not a bad place, it's just not the North Woods--and I came across an area I've known for years with hundreds of wild black walnuts on the ground. I stuck about 2 dozen in my backpack and came home and learned how to process them. Walnuts come encased in a thick, pungent green womb that smells like lemon-lime. You can't break the husks open without gloves, otherwise the dark, inky fluid inside will stain your fingers and everything they touch. I found a helpful website that taught me how to process wild nuts. You start collecting them in the early fall and then breaking them out of their hulls. Once husked, you let the walnuts sit in their shells till about Christmas...which could explain why nuts and nutcrackers used to be popular Christmas gifts. 

Black walnut trees aren't much to look at--unless you've got a really grand one. Most are scrappy and unappealing. But black walnuts themselves are pretty good, really flavorful, with a dense, rich, slightly bitter and unmistakably wild taste. Today, I easily filled an entire backpack with all the nuts I gathered off the ground, leaving many for the squirrels. I recall breaking the shells open with pliers and removing the meats with needle-nose pliers, which is a task for much later. I can begin breaking these out of their hulls right away, but I'll probably wait a few days. 

Raccoon Creek was my only respite from city life when we first moved back down to Pittsburgh, lo these 15 years ago. It felt strange to go back there today. On my way home, I took the slow scenic route right through the park, which has not changed at all down through the years. I'm so grateful that my horizons have expanded to embrace both the Northlands (that I love) and the city (that I love somewhat less). I mean, just today I subscribed to an early music concert series here in town--which is something you cannot find north of I-80 till you get to New York State. Living in two worlds. Actually, I've been doing that in one sense or another for a very long time. I don't know how I'm ever going to live in one place or the other when I need elements of both. 

North Country Trail from Tanbark to Minister Creek, Allegheny National Forest

 

My easily-achievable goal today was to hike the North Country National Scenic Trail (NCT) from the Tanbark Trail all the way to the North Loop of the Minister Creek Trail--about 3.8 miles one way. The Tanbark ends where it joins the NCT at Mayburg Road, just south of the disappeared village of Dunham Siding.

This quadrant of the forest is close to Hearts Content and the Hickory Creek Wilderness. And let me tell you, it's a fantastic area for viewing wildlife! No joke: passing near the parking area for Hickory Creek, a young black bear bolted across the road about 50 feet ahead of my car. I didn't have time to get a picture, but it was a beautiful creature. Then, in the woods, a dark brunette fisher darted across the path. Finally, on the road home, a fat porcupine was scrambling along the roadside on Cobham Hill Road, bottom photo.

It was a lovely day to do a 7.6 mile out-and-back in the autumn-scented forest. Cool, partly cloudy, and perfectly sentimental. It tugged at old cords in my heart. Being in the woods today made me feel as I felt hiking this forest in my 30s--young, forward-looking, in search of adventure. Let's just say that I felt like a 30-something for the first 4 miles... The remaining miles were uphill and a little footsore. It rained here recently, and the woodlands smelled rich and wet and spicy. It smelled like my grandmother's old tin spice cabinet. The best day I've had on the trail in a long while. The trees, the sights, the scents, the animals.

I did indeed arrive at the northernmost point on the North Loop of the Minister Creek Trail. There's a beautiful campsite where the trails meet, right on the banks of Minister Creek. Some Boy Scouts from Cleveland were working on the bridge over the creek, which prevented me from lingering long.

A rusted old saw blade leans against a tree at the campsite, just to remind you that you might FEEL like you're in the boreal forest of Alaska, but this is still Pennsylvania, where most of the wild places used to be industrial sites.

The hemlocks were lovely with the sun breaking through--as they are in every season and condition.

This is a perfect little camp on Cobham Road. Today the woods reminded me of a long-ago trip to Vermont in October--where I saw my first wild porcupine, and the woodlands smelled like old fashioned spices, and cottages appeared along narrow country lanes, and I felt young...thinking I was no longer young and not really knowing that I still was.

Of the three lovely woodland creatures who graced me with their presence today, only the porcupine stopped to pose for the camera.

More Pics of the Rimrock Trail

It didn't begin with me, and it surely will not end with me.  I'm just a single tile on the roof.  I am overlapped and overlapping.  That's how a roof does its job.  Things have to overlap for the water to run off...and perhaps our lives are the same.

We think of our lives as whole and complete in themselves.  And yet, we die with so much left undone, so many projects we barely started, so many books we never read, so many places we never visited, so many relationships we never brought to their fullness.

Ah, and so many people we never loved...or barely loved...or loved far less than they (or we) deserved.

Is it possible that my life will never see its own neat conclusions, its own fruition?  Must the events working themselves out in me extend into the lives of my children, or those I've loved who survive me?  Do our human lives overlap like tiles on a roof. No single tile can do the whole job of shedding water on its own. It must pass the water down, hand it off to another tile... Is that how our lives work, with their issues, their dramas, their doubts, and joys, and nagging desires?  Do we just hand them off to another when we die?

They say--a little too frequently--that it's about the journey, not the destination.  The Rimrock Trail might tell you otherwise.  It's pleasant enough, but you'd never make this climb if not for the views at the top.  Westerners dismiss our Eastern trails as "tree tunnels," sightless, uneventful.  And while I like trees and welcome their shade, I have to admit that broad vistas are more exciting.

In places, the way is steep. What calls us forward if not the idea that our efforts will be rewarded...with a view, with a climax, with a resolution?  Are my parents' and grandparents' passions still playing themselves out in me?  Are your ancestors' sins and glories still resolving themselves in you?  "For nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest; neither is any thing hid that shall not come into the light."  Maybe it takes generations for our private stories to be told.