Wingfield Pines and Chartiers Creek

Wingfield Pines is a park, of sorts, that belongs to the Allegheny County Land Trust.

Even though it's nearby, I hadn't gone there in years.  I didn't like the way people let their dogs run wild there.  But I had an hour or so to hike in the bright, cool autumn air before the gun stores opened, so I went back to this place.

The lovely Chartiers Creek runs right through it.  Did I mention that I stopped coming here because I don't like having to deal with strangers' dogs?  Suburbanites and their dogs!

Much to my surprise, there were no more dogs!  Happily, dogs are no longer allowed here because it's designated now as a nature preserve.  A big sign at the gate reads, "No Pets."  I was so happy.  I mean you can't have their precious dogs chasing after the wild ducks, can you?  There were many handsome birds here, most of which I could not identify.

You might be wondering why I went to a gun store.  I wanted to make sure my grandfather's old 12-gauge was still operational, so I thought I'd have a professional take a look at it.  What a weird experience that was!  I was not at all surprised to find that the kind of people who hang out at gun stores also do not wear masks during a pandemic....

Lower Buffalo Church

Lower Buffalo Presbyterian Church looms large in the early history of Western Pennsylvania--at least in its religious history.  I accidentally came across it while driving Route 50 into Wellsburg, West Virginia.  (Yes, yes, I know, West Virginia again.  I tend to fixate on things for several months at a time.)  This congregation has been around since 1789, and their building stands less than a mile from the state line.  I gotta say, the place looks a bit ragged, with paint peeling off the window frames and wild vines growing up the sides.  The rule of thumb with Washington County churches is this: Pick the nearest body of water, which is often (but not always) named after an animal.  Pick either the word "upper" or "lower," then add your denomination and the word "church."  "Upper Buffalo Presbyterian Church, Lower Buffalo Presbyterian Church, Upper Raccoon Presbyterian Church, Lower Raccoon Presbyterian Church, Upper Ten Mile Presbyterian Church..."  You get the point.  Oh, and since I'm trying to switch my day off to Monday, I did take a long drive out to West Virginia again and got lost many times.  Find that adventure HERE.

 

Is West Virginia Truly a Southern State?

It's long been my policy on this blog only to post photos and thoughts about places in Pennsylvania.  For that reason, this is a nondescript photo of the Allegheny National Forest.  Why write about Pennsylvania?  I guess because no one else seems to be doing it.  This is a historic, beautiful, and unique place that doesn't get the attention that it deserves.  That said, it's funny how, as soon as you cross the border to the north or to the south, things get immediately MORE beautiful and unique (if not more historic).  For example, the Chautauqua Institution is just across the line in New York...and somehow it could not exist on the southern side of that line.  And Cooper's Rock is just across the Mason Dixon Line to the south, in West Virginia, and you'd be hard pressed to find such a cliff in the state to the north.  I've often said that Pennsylvania's only job is to make sure New York and West Virginia don't have to touch each other.  We've got elements of both things here: refined East Coast and wild Appalachia.  But not enough of either.  However, I've been exploring the question of whether West Virginia really is a Southern state, and I've gotten two very good days off in that place!  Click HERE and HERE.

Apparently convention states that the red areas are the South.  The pink areas are the Near South.

The Clarion River

The Clarion River never disappoints.  Wild, shallow, rocky, and free, it flows between wooded hills along the southern border of the Allegheny National Forest and westward into the Allegheny River.  

It's one of America's "wild and scenic rivers" as designated by Congress.  You can get postage stamps with the Clarion River on them--as long as the Republicans have not yet eliminated the Post Office.

I chanced upon two river otters frolicking in the water here, and I nearly stepped on a muskrat while rushing to photograph them.

A Place Called Brookston

As you descend the hill, north / westbound on PA 948 into the village of Brookston, you'll see a sign and a tiny grassy lane that forms the rightward branch of a Y and goes back uphill.  A sign at the entrance to the grassy road says "Brookston Cemetery."  In all my years of living up there, I never once stopped by to see the place.

And honestly, there's not much to see.  A few of the headstones are scrawled out in sad, makeshift style and made of regular old fieldstone--especially in the end of the cemetery where mostly children seem to be buried.

I think some of them are in Polish, too.  The majority date back to the early 1900s.

Stones in a grassy field, dates, names, moldering bones down below.  

The Twin Lakes Trail seems to be better maintained than it was when I lived up North.  Because it runs through the very industrialized southern end of the ANF, the trail's course tended to become lost amid new gas wells, gas roads, and clear-cuts.  

The only overlook along the 18-mile expanse of the Twin Lakes Trail is found on the hillsides just above Brookston.  And, well, it's rather a modest view.  

Someone seems to be a repeat customer at this spot, though.  Even if the view's not for much, at least there's a nicely-dug fire ring, a swing, and a neat little stack of firewood.  

Stony Point Revisited

 

This is the little-known overlook at a place called Stony Point, in the Allegheny National Forest.  It's not a spectacular view, but it is a pleasant one.  On our two-family camping trip over Labor Day weekend, I thought this would make a pleasant destination for a two dads and five children.  (The mothers stayed back a the campsite to talk and snack.)  Our friends are mixed-race.  When they got to the campsite in the ANF, they expressed a little shock and fear at all the Trump signs and Confederate flags they had seen driving up to this part of the world.  Me?  In my white privilege, I just look at the flags and signs and roll my eyes.  "Idiots.  Fools.  Unlettered haters."  But my black friends see such things and think, "What if our car breaks down here?  What if we need help out here among people who are flying flags that say, 'We hate you'?"  

On the trail up to Stony Point, we overtook a middle-aged couple in camo.  They turned and stared at us hard: two white guys, three black kids and two white kids.  I took it upon myself to be all homespun and chatty with them.  "Hey there!  You folks headed up to Stony Point?  That's where we're goin'!  I didn't think anybody else knew about that spot."  The woman wouldn't even look at us.  The man just said, "Yep."  I assumed that either they were disappointed that we had interrupted their solitude, or else they were disturbed to see three black kids in the woods (and two dads, no moms to boot--potentially gay guys who had adopted).  Their stony silence had a hostile feel to me.  I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt; I get annoyed too when I think I have the forest to myself, then I see a band of people--especially kids--trooping past.  But there sure are a lot of symbols up in that area to express hate and the marginalization of minorities.  It made me feel shame for the place that I love...

Back to Salmon Creek

We returned to Salmon Creek in the Allegheny National Forest for Labor Day weekend.  That makes our third family camping trip there this summer, and my fourth in total.  It was quieter this time around; the forest more subdued, as if the initial enthusiasm of May had all worn off and a sort of autumnal resignation had set in.  The leaves, still green, are sparser and tinted with a pale shade of yellow.  Drought and cold northern nights are leading them toward the fall.

There are so many apple trees up there.  The North Country Trail passes through an old apple orchard, and trees full of ripe apples stand along the 7-mile dirt road.  My daughter and I picked about forty of them, some of which I made into an apple pie.  The pie wasn't great, but that was more my fault than the apples'.  

Water levels are low in the streams.  It's been a dry summer after a few crazy wet ones.  When the rain was coming down in torrents all winter long, and the basement was flooding, and the cliffs along the interstates were crumbling in mudslides, I swore I would never complain of another drought.  I would welcome a drought.  I lied.