The Kane Woods

No, not the vast and wild Kane woods of my former years. Strangely enough, the Scott Township Conservancy names its 72 remnant acres of woodlands "The Kane Woods," in honor of the nearby Kane Hospital, I think.

Upon first moving down to the Pittsburgh Area, I took refuge in the Kane Woods every day on my lunch break, wandering its well-marked trails, feeling secretly superior to its ragged canopy, its scant wildlife, and all the many noisome incursions that the city makes into its green domain: the traffic sounds, the electric lines, the sewage pipes, the very aircraft overhead.

And yet, I must admit that the Kane Woods has been a beautiful escape for me: the single, lonesome patch of protected and undeveloped forest within easy reach of my suburban office. I've sought refuge here often. And even though it's not the "forest primeval" that I forever seek, at least I've come away from this place at times with a greater sense of clarity and strength.

Some of the trails run along the brows of cliffs or embankments, giving them low overlooks, as in the bottom photo. The valley floor below might be thirty feet or more.

Scrubgrass Road, where the best trailhead is located, is one of the last truly rural enclaves in Scott Township (Allegheny County). It remains, I suspect, because the land on either side of the lane is too steep to develop. You can be sure that if they did move in with bulldozers and blueprints, the first thing to go would be the not-sufficiently-anglophile name "Scrubgrass Road." It would be renamed after a character in a Dickens novel: Murdstone Court, Havisham Commons, Trotwood Place.

Yesterday's trek was down the long-abandoned Polecat Hollow Road through the state game lands in Washington County. As I was snapping cheap cell phone shots with my old technological dinosaur, little did I know that my wife was in Robinson purchasing me an iPhone. By the time I got home, my Verizon account had been entirely switched over to the iPhone, and the photos of Polecat Hollow Road lost forever.

That's alright. Polecat Hollow Road is a pleasant enough place with some overlooks to a pretty stream valley. It's worth another visit at a season when the mosquitoes are less active and the poison ivy is tucked away under snow.

I wonder what the developers will rename Polecat Hollow Road if--God forbid--the concrete just keeps stretching further and further out that direction. I'm not an anglophile, but I must admit, that the name doesn't draw me.