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.