Allegheny Pilgrimage: Day 6, Tionesta Creek from Hastings to Kellettville

Monday was Memorial Day, and so I no longer had the creek to myself.  Various bands of kayakers shouted and cavorted on the water, but I typically passed them all by with a smile and a nod.  It was a perfect day for paddling--breezy and cool with lots of sun.  At my streamside camp in the early morning, I saw two female deer swimming across the creek in the mists.

Somehow, I'd left my hat in my friend's van, and so I had to wrap a T-shirt around my head like a turban.  But it was a wondrous day riding the currents, staring in awe at the bald eagles that soar up and down the valley, and thinking about life--my life, my career, my family, but also the life of the world.

By the time my water adventure was finished, on Day 8, I would put in 25 or 30 miles on Tionesta Creek--including the portions of the creek that constitute Tionesta Lake, a human-made lake with a campground that's run by the Army Corps of Engineers.  But for this day, my humble goal was the tiny forest hamlet of Kellettville, passing through the even smaller hamlet of Mayburg.  Neither town has many year-round residents.  They're mostly just summer homes and hunting camps.  But there is the notorious Cougar Bob's Kellettville Tavern, where I was hoping to have dinner.

This shot was taken from under the bridge in Mayburg.  On the Tionesta, you measure your distance according to the few bridges that span the creek.  What joy to travel the water on a day like this, with the sweet smell of a fresh creek in the woods, and the birdcalls, and the eagles still darting about overhead!

Somewhere on the water between the two towns, you come across Frog Rock, a large boulder in the creek that someone has painted to look like a frog.  I'm glad they didn't paint it to look like a shark.  That honestly would have creeped me out a little.  But a giant frog?  No problem!

The paint seems to be wearing away a little, and it's more visibly a frog when you see it from the downstream side, which I was not able to do because I was too busy attending to the fast-approaching shallows.  In fact, I took far fewer photos on the water than I would have liked because I had to keep my phone safely stowed where it wouldn't get wet.  There were a few occasions where the currents carried me over big boulders that were hidden just beneath the surface of the stream.  Sometimes you would see them through the clear water and go floating overtop with no problem.  Other times they would scrape the hull of the boat.  But still other times, if you hit them sideways, they could easily overturn your boat.  This came close to happening to me just once on this trip, but I'm a pretty experienced kayaker and was able to avoid meeting a Titanic fate on the floor of the...creek.

Before long, Kellettville appeared through the trees. On past adventures, I had looked into staying at the Army Corps of Engineers' little campground at Kellettville, but it never panned out.  This time, the thought of staying at a now-deserted campground with a picnic table, a restroom, and a fire ring was nearly irresistible.  The hostess told me that almost everyone had packed up and left earlier that day, and that there were three "walk-in" campsites that were free to backpackers.  I happily accepted and learned later that the kind hostess knows my father-in-law.  (A lot of people do.)  At dinnertime, I made a little trek into Kellettville to see if Cougar Bob's was open.  It was not.

But en route, I discovered this pleasant snowmobile trail along the creek.  It was here that I finally felt a sense of melancholy.  I hadn't felt any kind of sadness since Day 1, when the trail-runner went flying past me on the NCT.  But on that Monday, walking along the creek that I'd been traveling, a sense of loneliness finally descended on me.  What am I doing here when everyone I love is far away?  And am I mediocre?  And has my living really mattered to anybody yet?  And why do we spend our short lives in places that are not beautiful, places where there are jobs but no bald eagles?  

The gloomy funk was short-lived.  A redemptive thought came to the rescue: It doesn't matter.  It doesn't matter if I'm mediocre.  It doesn't matter if my living hasn't made much difference in this world.  It doesn't matter that we spend our lives in the bland and faceless suburbs.  What matters is that we've been invited to the dance of life, that our living takes part in something bigger than itself, that we belong to the Mystery of Life itself, that in it we "live, and move, and have our being."  It was actually the memory of a Bible verse that pulled me out of my gloomy state--Colossians 3:3--a verse that comforts me with the notion that my own life is somehow lived out within the larger life that we call "God."  And the meaning and the fullness of any one human life are impossible to judge because our lives are all intertwined in something so much big and longer lasting than their own short span of years. I am free to participate in all the goodness, truth, and beauty that our world offers, and the value of a life is not in its achievements but in its participation in those marvels that are not "things" as such.  It gave me joy to think that some of the water molecules that had wetted me on Friday morning at Red Bridge were perhaps joining me again on the creek.

And so, I returned to my campsite at the conventional campground in a happier state.  Maybe I'm not working as an attorney for BLM, and maybe I'm not down at the border putting out jugs of water for migrants in the Sonoran Desert...but I do desire those things, and desires are something.

Oh, how the water calls!

Allegheny Pilgrimage: Day 5, Tionesta Creek from Lynch to Hastings

Sunday morning, chilly and gray, saw me revisiting the old parish church that I once served in Kane, not to mention the local Episcopal church where one of my former parishioners is now the rector.  Covid has not been kind to churches in rural areas, and I do fear for the future of religion in the provinces!  The lure of extremism is all-pervasive these days, and socially-responsible faith--the kind that respects science and treats sacred texts metaphorically--is a little too nuanced for a lot of the people who are still interested in religion.  Ah, but for me it was the day to begin my second leg of the journey: the watery portion of the trip.

Instead of hiking the rest of the way to the southern border of the national forest, I decided to borrow a kayak and travel the remaining distance on Tionesta Creek--which is a smaller waterway that was only just barely navigable with 40 lbs. of food and camping supplies aboard.  The rainy Saturday rescued me from rethinking my plan to travel Tionesta Creek.  If the water levels on the Tionesta had been lower than a foot and a half, Plan B would have been to do the Clarion River.  But the Clarion does not pass through the parts of the forest where I wanted to travel.  I wanted to be deep in the heart of my beloved forest--where Tionesta Creek passes like a miniature Congo snakes through forests of its own.  I wanted to pass through Mayburg and Kellettville.  I wanted to row past Salmon Creek, and Lamentation Run, and Bear Creek.  The Clarion only just passes along the southern border of it all--at the edge of things, not the heart.

Oh, it was lovely to set out on the water!  The smell of the fresh, clear stream!  The breezes lightly passing over the surface of the deep.  It's not quite a river, but it's a large creek, and deep in many places.  But it also has long gravelly stretches that are broad and very shallow.  I probably had to get out of the boat and tug it along behind me five or six times throughout the course of my three days on the water.  Other times I made it over the gravelly shallows by staying in the boat and pushing hard with the paddles.  But most of the time, it was smooth going...and so wonderful.

Although I'd intended to put in at Sheffield--in the dead center of the national forest--my friend wisely advised me to put in a few miles further downstream, where the water would be deeper.  We bid farewell at a place where the town of Lynch used to be.  Now there's just a bridge and a lonely hunting camp.  It was already getting close to 2:00 on Sunday afternoon, so I didn't paddle far before I stopped to make camp on one of the few riverside banks that was level enough.  In those first few hours I saw fine redheaded mergansers, and wood ducks, and two bald eagles!  And when it was time to sleep, it was wood thrushes and barred owls that sang their melodic songs.

Allegheny Pilgrimage: Day 4, Kane, PA

My wife met me on Friday because Saturday was our 17th anniversary.  She picked me up at Red Bridge, and we went back to Kane--that borough in the forest where I spent 3.5 happy years.  The place has changed a bit.  There are fashionable new restaurants on the main street, and we went to one of them for our anniversary dinner

All in all, it's still a provincial place with worn out buildings and rough characters in flannels.  But it's got a depth to it, too.  When we lived there, I used to compare it to that old TV show, Northern Exposure--a small town in the wilderness, peopled by backcountry intellectuals, and misfits, and outcasts from contemporary urban America.  Most of the people I knew there are not at all "rednecks."  They were judges, and lawyers, and dentists, and eccentrics who made biodiesel out of used cooking oil.  Kane is all of those things.  But there's something else, too.  There's a darkness, something gritty and humorless with a dark and very real undercurrent of rural poverty and Trumpism.  

Kane Manor, the home of Civil War officer Thomas Kane--for which the town is named--is now a bed and breakfast, and I highly recommend it.  It made a nice switch from sleeping on a hammock among the trees.  Even just to get a shower!

The house was built by Kane's widow after his death.  Lovely place, 18,000 square feet.  The new owners are putting a lot of energy into the place, and I hope they make a go of it.  

There's something sort of enchanting about a moldering old mansion on the edge of a haunted little town deep in the forests of the East.  Actually, the place was hopping with guests.

A reprieve from the drafty sleeping arrangements of late.  That is my only complaint about hammock camping.  The roof is sold separately, and though it protects you from the rain, it does not keep the night air out in the same way my tent does.

Ghost-chasers love the old Clay Street School, in Kane, which is two doors down from the mansion.  It's sat empty for years and there are plenty of legends about the place.  It was nice to spend a Saturday back in Kane--where my now-teenage daughters learned to walk, and speak, and use the toilet...  The place where I was ordained, where I did my first baptism, and where I first stood at the Holy Table... I miss this place.  Not badly enough to live here again, but enough to keep coming back.  I ran into so many people I used to know, and I was reminded of the joys of small town life.  Being a clergyperson in a little town in the woods gives you a position of prominence and status.  I don't have that in the suburbs.  But one of my daughters, at her suburban school, has two classmates named Viraj.  That's something small town Pennsylvania cannot offer: ethnic diversity.  (Small town New York actually does a whole lot better in that department!)

Allegheny Pilgrimage: Day 3, North Country Trail, Hemlock Run to Red Bridge

Thursday morning, bright and clear--deep, deep inside the forests of the North!  The path was calling, so we set off to see where it might lead.  The goal for the day was Red Bridge, and I actually ended up going a little further.

Just this, nothing more.  Daylight on the greens and grays of the woods.  A light shimmering sound as the breeze touches the leaves high in the canopy--a noise reminiscent of the ocean.  Birdcalls.  A cool and sunny day.  This is all I needed.

The portion of the trail that runs along Hemlock Run is very scenic, and it comes to a glorious climax near the spot where the creek empties into Chappel Bay--right here at this large campsite near the lake.

Distances become hard to estimate after you cross PA Route 321 again.  What seems like it should only take an hour or so ends up taking longer.

So many forest crossings.

And so many idyllic bodies of water to be crossed!  Water levels were low, especially for May, but we did end up getting some rain by the following morning--and then all the next day and most of the one after that.

Again, the water glinting in the sunlight just through the trees.

By this third day, I had songs that I sang as I walked alone--old songs that bring me comfort.  I felt more truly like a pilgrim.

At one point, weary and dragging, I thought I saw a picnic table through the trees at the top of a hill that I was slowly climbing.  Surely it's a mirage, I said to myself, but it was not.  More and more of these backpacking shelters are being erected along the trail, and they make nice places to take a break.

On this day, I did meet another backpacker in the woods, a Ford employee from Cleveland who had been laid off.  I wished him well and encountered him again a little further down the trail--where he had laid claim to the Root Run campsite that I had been aiming for myself.  I left him to it, thinking there would be more camping closer to Red Bridge.  I was wrong.  The terrain from that point to Red Bridge becomes pretty unwelcoming.

A shagbark hickory.  How could you not hug a tree like that?

The rest of the evening became something of a fiasco.  I got to the day's second road crossing at Red Bridge with no trouble--but weary from the long trudge.  Red Bridge is a national forest recreation area with a popular campground, and I told myself that as a last resort I could ask if they had any vacancies, but it seemed unlikely since it was coming up on Memorial Day weekend.  Looking at the map, I decided to cross the long bridge (which is not the slightest bit red) to camp in the forest on the far side, close to the water.  I found a spot and began to set up when some rowdy fishers showed up.  They didn't see me, but I heard them loud and clear, so I moved on and finally ended up pitching a hasty camp in a small patch of woods close to the road.  And yet, it was a glorious night in the forest, and a long rainy morning in my hammock the following day until my wife arrived to meet me at 3:00pm on Friday.

Allegheny Pilgrimage: Day 2, North Country Trail, Handsome Lake to Hemlock Run

Sunrise over Handsome Lake Campground, with mists still on the waters and in the woods.  On Wednesday I set out at 7:30am and told myself that an early start is always best when doing a "through hike" with quantifiable distances to attain each day.  I was convinced that I would start by 7:30 every day of my pilgrimage, and in retrospect I wonder what gave me so much confidence in myself.  

The fresh green of the springtime forest is especially lovely when backlit by the golden morning sun.  It was a beautiful day for walking among ferns and hemlocks.

I did about 10 miles a day on the NCT.  This stretch of the hike was pleasant, but it does feature two road crossings and one roadside trek of about a quarter mile.

Despite these brushes with the motorized world, I encountered not another soul on the trail all day.  Chafing started to become an issue.  I thought regular old boxer shorts would serve better than briefs, and I was wrong.  In the end, it proved best to forego underwear altogether.  Fortunately, I brought some other skin ointment that worked well on the abraded skin.  Later, at the Rite Aid in Kane, I would find a product that was made especially for hiker's chafing. 

It was nearly a perfect day in the woods--though I lost my beautiful Protestant prayer beads, the ones with jasper stones and a copper Celtic cross.

Water is almost never an issue in the Allegheny National Forest.  There's always a brook, or a creek, or a "run," which is something in between the two.

Silence and Solitude were my companions.  Portions of this trail I had hiked before, but most of it was new to me.  I wondered how I lived here without having explored every square foot of this forest.  But that is one of the things I most miss about this place: I discovered something new each time I went out.

There's just SOOO MUCH to discover up there.

And 3.5 years is not nearly enough time to squeeze it all in.  By the time we moved away, I had only just begun to know that marvelous place.  By the way, this is the first time I ever hiked using two trekking poles, and I think it really helped my speed and balance.  It returns your bipedal self to a quadrupedal design, which redistributes weight and effort to four limbs instead of two.  

The Hemlock Run campsite is a little dark and forlorn.  It straddles the trail, with the fire ring on one side and the tent area on the other.  I typically prefer to sleep out of sight of the trail, but it was less easy than I'd expected finding areas suitable for setting up the hammock tent--pictured here.

See how the trail runs right through the site?

In the interest of giving myself easier evenings, I stopped hanging a bear bag on this trip.  Instead, I invested in some odor-proof plastic bags and a bear-proof sack--which I simply dangled from any tree branch.  It's a lot more convenient when you're pitching camp just before dark.

Allegheny Pilgrimage: Day 1, North Country Trail from New York to Handsome Lake

The intention was to take a "pilgrimage" to clear my head and heart, to gain a new sense of clarity. This word "pilgrimage" has made a comeback in recent years.  It used to be a journey to a sacred site, usually in order to entreat some miracle or to give thanks for one.  Nowadays a pilgrimage can be any journey with sacred intention.  I wanted to return to the Allegheny National Forest and cross it from north to south on the North Country Trail--a 98-mile trip that should have take ten days.

Time constraints and practical considerations caused me to set my sights a little lower--which is practically my motto in life: "Never Fail; Aim Low."  The point of a pilgrimage is not to meet a list of goals but to travel with holy intent.  And so, I parked my car at the North Country trailhead near Willow Bay in the Allegheny National Forest, then I hiked 1.1 mile in the wrong direction into New York State.  Here's a lonely border among the trees where New York and Pennsylvania meet.  From there I turned back around and marched south on my 30-mile trek toward the town of Kane--where I spent 3.5 of the best years of my life.

I did indeed carry 40 lbs. on my back--since food for a long trek is heavy, and I unknowingly packed about twice as much food as I needed.  But my newish Alps Mountaineering 90-litre backpack made the load feel like a pile of chicken feathers.  

Oh, the joy of being back in those northern forests in May!  The air was fragrant with the scent of wildflowers, and ferns, and the rich, dark earth.  Although I didn't get started until noon, I wanted to put in eight miles before the end of the day, so that I could camp at the little-known campground called Handsome Lake.

Handsome Lake was a Seneca shaman who revitalized that tribe's traditional religion--sort of a Native American revivalist.  He was also the half-brother to Chief Cornplanter.  And Handsome Lake Campground can only be reached by foot or by boat, so it's usually not very busy.  But it is pretty in its lakeside isolation and silence.

The North Country Trail runs alongside the lake up here in its northern stretches, and it's a warming feeling to see the silvery water as it shimmers through the young leaves.

I met a few other hikers on the trail, which surprised me, since it was only the Tuesday before Memorial Day.  One was a large, middle-aged lady with a Polish-sounding accent who seemed happy to have someone to talk to.  She also ended up staying at Handsome Lake, but women backpacking alone must always be wary of creepy men in the woods, so I mostly just smiled a lot and tried to seem unthreatening.

The other was a cool guy traveling at about 5 MPH.  (I was doing about 2.)  "Coming up behind you!  Excuse me."  Then he was gone.  I hate to say it, but he made me feel a little sad--slow, and old, and weak--which is not the way I wanted to feel at the start of my ANF pilgrimage.

Here's the view from one of the campsites at Handsome Lake.  Isn't it beautiful?  It costs $7 a night, "honor system."  I actually did not end up staying inside the campground.  Instead, I camped out on that little point of land that you see here in the distance.

I fell asleep to the sound of water lapping the shore and all the nocturnal music of the forest.

The View from Chestnut Ridge, Uniontown

It's a nice enough view, sure, and lord knows we spent a long time looking for this spot.  But mostly I just want this article to serve as a vestibule onto the far better views I recently discovered on a very brief trip to Vail, Colorado.  Click HERE and HERE.