A Midsummer Day's Trek

This bucolic scene is the valley of Buffalo Creek in Washington County. State Game Lands #232 is a large tract of wooded land along neglected country lanes that used to be public thoroughfares.

Once again, photos are taken with my lame-arse cell phone. Although this is the notoriously polluted country of coal and shale, there were many fish in the stream, darting in deep pools dappled with the afternoon sun. I tried to imagine a day in their lives, their world, but I couldn't.

The solitude is glorious in the game lands in midsummer. I was a little dismayed to find that the goldenrod are already in bloom, since I associate them with the ripening season of late August and early September.

This trek had a wild feel to it, almost like being back up in the North Country. The road wends through dense forest, occasionally running along the edge of a long-fallow field and frequently running parallel to the creek. In the meadow stretches, the scent of clover lingers in the air.

The old road passing through this segment of the game lands is called Buffalo Camp Road. There are side roads that meet up with it at certain intervals, and they're all worth exploring.

I wanted to stay out there till darkness fell, to immerse myself in the wild lands and the clover smell, to construct a sleeping hut out of grasses and limbs, to swim in moonlit pools with those living fishes.

But tomorrow calls, with its duties and demands. Tomorrow beckons, with its formalities and its rites. Funny how, when the summer is in full swing, you forget what winter was really like.

The Uneventful Things

It's typically the uneventful things that make a life full and happy. Or at least that's what I tell myself in the absence of anything more interesting.

As one who has newly discovered the wonders of hiking the state game lands, I've taken to planning my excursions mostly in the counties to the south: Washington, Greene, Fayette. I usually go for Washington County. It's the closest, and it's a place where history looms in every hollow and around each bend. It's a mysterious place of beautiful hills and valleys, old, old houses, almost-quaint-but-slightly-seedy villages, cemeteries with weathered brown headstones.


This past Sunday's trek took me to State Game Lands #245, just south of Claysville on PA231. The excursion was low key. The gamelands there are pleasant enough. There's a grassy green road that runs up a valley wall. My old digital has finally given up the ghost, so these are cheapo cell phone shots. Not much to see. At the top of the valley, there's a lot of industrial noise from some Consol Energy site located within the gamelands, but down near the valley floor, silence and solitude could be found. Also, note to future self: there's a free shooting range at SGL 245, so if I ever want to practice with the .22, this is the place. Also, I liked the series of fields joined by grassy roadlets. There was a murky pond, and come August, the place will be overrun with apples and elderberries.

The best thing about this excursion is that on the route home I took PA231 north through the intriguing village of Claysville (might be worth an hour's visit someday). I was avoiding I-70 because of outrageous construction delays, and along the minor roadway, I discovered the fabled SGL 232: the wonderland in the valley of Buffalo Creek. With all the creeks and streams, the place looks spectacular.

Jacobs Creek

The Fourth of July spent in the silence of the forest. There's nothing better. You can have your fireworks, your picnics, and your watermelons. Spare me your sanctimonious shows of patriotism. I'll take the wooded valley of Jacobs Creek, a far-flung tributary of the storied Youghiogheny River, which is itself a tributary of the Monongahela.

For this trek (the first outing I've had in a month) I decided to avoid the state parks and their holiday revelers. Instead, I chose to explore State Game Lands #296 in Fayette County.

Before there were factories or mines, before anyone cared about iron ore, or coal, or oil, or natural gas, long before Marcellus Shale, there were streams and rivers: perfect avenues for the march of empires. The French and Indian War of the 1750s is the original story around which Southwestern Pennsylvania is formed. Braddock and his ill-fated band. Forbes the successful successor. Jacobs Run was used as an avenue for settlement in the 1760s, when the Treaty of Fort Stanwix reopened the western marches of Penn's Woods to white settlers.

State Game Lands #296 is divided in half by the lovely brook. This is a large, wooded expanse of land descending gradually toward the stream. There are the requisite oil derricks pumping along gravel roads, and I was surprised to find that raspberries were already ripe beside the roads. But if you trust your instincts to lead you into the more interesting parts of the forest, it's well worth a few hours leisure.

It's not very clear in the second photo, but upon descending the walls of the valley, you begin to sense a deep chasm on the other side of the trees. It's tantalizing and frustrating at once; you know that if there were only a break in the endless leafage, you would have a spectacular overlook to a steep valley above Jacob's Creek. But there is no break, no overlook. You just have to make your way along unmarked hunters' paths to the bottom.


One thing I like about hiking the state game lands is that very few others ever think to do it. And I had some trouble finding this spot despite the research I did on Google Earth and Mapquest prior to setting out.

Upon wending down to the bottom of the valley, you'll cross the requisite railroad track before reaching the streambed. And these tracks rumble with passing trains several times a day, too!

This is definitely a different region from the one where I live, though it's exactly an hour away. Plant life tends more toward sycamores, and poplars, and sassafras, trees with rounded, hand-shaped leaves. But even more different are the human settlements. The village of Jacobs Creek--at the place where the stream meets the Yawk--is nearly a Third World kind of place. There's a reason they call Fayette County "Fayette-nam." Abandoned houses, abandoned churches, a strange old general store that looks abandoned but has hand-lettered signs recently tacked to its wooden front. Many people here live in trailers, and the post office is in a rundown little house adorned with odd garden tools. I wanted to take pictures, but it felt voyeuristic...and I felt as if I was being watched.

But it was beautiful and very long overdue. Note to future self: I-70 to exit 49, Smithton. From Smithton, follow road marked Jacobs Creek (2 miles). From Jacobs Creek, follow the only full-sized road leading out of town. It bends many times, leads uphill and out into the countryside (passing a fantastic abandoned farm on the right, perhaps worth a visit) until you see the unmistakable state game lands signage at a parking area on the left.

Ryerson Station State Park

More and more, my recreational life seems to drift in the direction of Washington and Greene Counties. I love them. As overrun as they are by frackers, and industrial trucks, and greedy corporations, they still have a bucolic beauty and charm. They're truly Northern Appalachia. I might harbor a few romantic illusions about life in Appalachia, though I shouldn't. I know very well that my kind is not appreciated there. It didn't work in elementary school, and it wouldn't work still today. And yet, it sure is nice to visit.

The main attraction at Ryerson Station State Park was once its lake, which was destroyed when Consol Energy undermined the dam and refused to pay for the damages despite the state's repeated demands. Since the lake is no longer the centerpiece of the park, the PADCNR has put a little more effort into grooming and marking the hiking trails. It shows, too.

The park is divided into four main hikeable segments:

>the east, which I hiked in March

>the west, which has only one linear trail

>the north, which has a few options

>the south, which is traversed by great mazes and labyrinths of trails. I did much of the southern segment today.

The first photo is a 300-year old oak tree known as the "Wolf Tree." But alas, how the mighty are fallen! The second photo is the overlook along the Lazear Trail. There's supposed to be a lake shimmering in the distance, but alas again. I don't know which is more shocking: the fact that an ungodly rich major corporation can destroy public property with absolute impunity or the fact that there's anything left intact. When corporations are permitted to behave in this way, and the sate is either unwilling or incapable of seeking restitution, it's hard to say that we're still a "great nation."

Ah, but we were still just on the road to greatness back in the days when the Second Great Awakening shook the long hollows of Greene County. In the late 1700s, camp meetings and circuit riding preachers made the narrow valleys in the eastern "Ohio Country" sing with their strange music: plain, confident, homespun. Here's a testament to that uniquely American brand of religiosity and individualism that marked the early frontier...and that has been driving us into self-centered oblivion ever since.

More Photos of Enlow Fork

The Enlow Fork Mine is an ugly thing, and though it's several miles from the reserve, you can hear it occasionally as its screeching machines whine eerily over hill and dale. I wish I had a panoramic camera for the second photo, because in the near foreground and to the left was a flock of sheep feeding on a hillside, and a bit to the right was a cemetery in the shadow of "those dark, satanic mills."

Enlow Fork reserve is maintained as a state game land, but it owes its existence to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, too. Apparently Consol Energy donated the land in the 80s; they must have been done with it.

The array of colors at Enlow Fork is remarkable, and the blue-eyed Mary (pictured in the previous post) is relatively rare.

Getting to this place is another question altogether. This blog doesn't typically lay out hiking destinations with trail descriptions and locations. (My days as the tour guide of the forest are behind me.) But since I'm sure to forget how to get to Enlow Fork, and since I'll want to return here someday, I list the driving directions below.

From I-70, take exit 11 and get onto 221 south for about 7 miles.

When 221 meets 18 south, follow 18 as it wends among horse farms several miles to route 231.

Turn right (north) onto 231 and head toward W. Findley; after a short distance, 231 bears right, but continue straight onto the unmarked state route 3026, which will lead past the above coal mine.

Where 3026 crosses Ackley Creek Road, go straight through the intersection and cross a rickety, one lane bridge. Follow the road uphill for about a mile and a half, then make a very sharp right onto a gravel road marked with a "state game lands" sign.

This road meanders beneath the coal mine's equivalent to a rollercoaster, or a waterless waterpark ride. It's a long, large, covered conveyor belt with attendant machine monsters. Follow this little lane downhill all the way to a small parking area where the road ends. The trailhead is about 18 miles from where you exited the Interstate.

Welcome to paradise.

Enlow Fork

Enlow Fork is as far-flung and remote as any spot you'll find in the Southwest corner of the state. It's tucked away in the shadow of Consol Energy's Enlow Fork Mine, a sinister looking complex with chutes, and towers, and smokestacks that looms over the hilly, green pasture land in this region of Washington County.

Enlow Fork is actually the name of the creek, and the wild lands here are also known as State Game Lands #302. This place is noted for its abundance of wildflowers, and if you chance across another human here, it's almost certainly a fisher.

This territory is gorgeous and vast. An old country lane--now closed to vehicles--runs through the Enlow Valley and traverses some outdated bridges, as seen in the bottom photo.

I followed a sidetrack up the razorback ridge of a mountain and found myself atop a narrow ridgeline far above the stream. There was no overlook, due to all the trees, but it's nice to sense the height through the trees. I assumed that it would be easy to follow the ridge back down the way I came up, but such was not the case. I ended up in a very different part of the reserve from where I meant to go.

But there were pleasant upland meadows on the mountainside on the way down, as in the second and third photos. Notice the splashes of red and white among the green.

This place can look pristine to the untrained eye, but honestly, nothing is pristine in Southwest PA. This land, too, has been raped. If you look closely, you'll find the scars.

Driving through Washington County is like driving through rural Kentucky. Round, grassy, treeless hills with horses grazing on the flanks. Narrow, winding roads. Enormous farmhouses, many abandoned. Covered bridges. It's really a beautiful place, the coal industry and the newborn Marcellus shale natural gas industry notwithstanding. Just don't drink the water.

Tomlinson Run, West Virginia

Tomlinson Run State Park is in the northern panhandle of West Virginia. It's got some nice wilderness in its western extremes, though I have the impression that the earth beneath it is undermined, since entire hillsides are eroded, many trees are fallen, and in places the trail is washed out. It makes a nice enough day trip from Pittsburgh.

Greene County

March is an awful month in so many ways. The snow goes away, revealing all the litter that the long winter has deposited along the roadways. Trees are bare; skies are gray. The world looks ragged and threadbare. To make matters worse, it's typically the busiest month of the year in my line of work. March is an indeterminate time when winter's no longer convinced of itself, and spring just keeps hitting the snooze button.

But it had been so long since I'd done a real trek, the kind I used to do in the old days, when I lived up North. And so I couldn't resist the urge to make the long drive down to Greene County to tramp among the hills at Ryerson Station State Park.

Greene County is the poorest in the state. It's been a coalfield for centuries, with all the attendant bleakness. And yet, it does have charms. Some magazine connected to Martha Stewart claims that Greene County is one of the ten best places in the country to view autumn colors. And when you're not passing along the edge of a vast strip mine, or in the shadow of a ghostly industrial complex, the countryside is beautiful: undulating, hilly, interspersed with scenic farms, and churches, covered bridges, and an uncanny number of old one-room schoolhouses.

Ryerson Station State Park had been off my radar screen because it's just a little further than I like to drive for a trek. Also, it's a lot smaller than the nearby Raccoon Creek. And yet, there's some great back country to discover down there. I hiked the ominously named "Pine Box Trail" which led--appropriately enough--to an old cemetery.

Long-time followers of my shadowy career know that my favorite cemeteries have headstones from the 1790s or earlier. The oldest markers in this otherwise very cool graveyard were from the 1830s. It's known as "The Chess Cemetery," although there were also a goodly number of markers bearing the surnames Grim and Parsons. A quieter, more pensive spot you will not find.

Unfortunately, the lake at Ryerson Station has been destroyed by its irresponsible neighbor, Consol Energy--a huge mining corporation that insists on paying ungodly amounts to name sports arenas after themselves but cannot afford to repair a lovely-if-little-used body of water whose dam was wrecked by literal undermining. That's another reason I hesitated to go to Greene County for a trek; it's just so corruptly ruled by the mineral extraction industries. I expected to find gas wells, and oil derricks, and loud trucks all over the place. (I begrudgingly admit that I did not find those things everywhere, though they were common enough.)

And yet, I must say, this was the most restorative excursion I've had since moving to the Pittsburgh area. I'll take abandoned buildings if that's all life offers, but I much prefer trees and cemeteries. Old ones.

The Bleakscape

An uncharacteristic pine tree, of a sort that's usually planted on lawns around here. A dying yew tree. An old holly bush gone wild. All of these on the edge of a scrubby clearing.

Was it once someone's home? It stands at the end of a long-ago road, now little more than a deerpath. And there's a heap of cut stones at the edge of the glade; whether they once composed a foundation, or whether they were simply gathered and tossed from a field, I cannot tell. None of it was enough to convince me until I found the little shard of an earthenware plate--bottom photo. I really need to get a better camera, but even in this poor photo, you can make out the unusual thickness of the plate, the anachronistic raised design around the edge. (I think the technical word for that is "frou-frou.") This little piece of plate tells me someone lived here once.

I'm essentially a Norway rat: a once-wild creature who discovered, with the destruction of its habitat, that there's also life in the long shadow of humankind. The rats are resourceful. At one time, they hibernated like dormice and ate seeds and berries; now they live at the edges of society, making a living off human waste.

Once I went to the woods for the three Ss: Silence. Solitude. Stillness. I trekked the wild places in search of freedom, beauty, and the occasional adventure. I was a woodland archaeologist, sometimes searching the wild places for traces of forgotten humanity: old town sites, abandoned roads, perhaps the fragment of an old green bottle. Today, instead, I sift through the wreckage of human blight in search of anything wild. Mostly it's a bleakscape, a worn-down, tired-out country, just trying to recover. Everything here is an overgrown stripmine, awaiting the next stage in its degradation by the Marcellus shale drillers--old cronies of our newly elected Republican governor.

But it's a joy to hear birds in the forest again. Their low, sweet song sounds through the still-bare branches as if they're glad to be home. It's a good time to be a forest bird. Not too cold. The snow is melting, leaving puddles to drink. There are delicious poison ivy berries still on the vine.

The Faithful Few

These time-worn sentinels still stand guard at their appointed places. Look closely and you'll see them: a row of emaciated fenceposts, long since stripped of barbed wire. A swift kick would level any one of them. But since their long idleness began, three or four decades ago, no one has bothered to kick them.