Laurel Highlands Trail at Maple Summit Road

 

I got to do a rare Saturday trek last weekend.  Saturdays often become work days for me, and when I don't spend them working, I spend them doing chores around the house.  But my stress load has been heavy in recent weeks, and so I decided that I owed it to everyone in my life, including myself, to get out into the sweetly-scented October woods.

I've been doing small section hikes of the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail.  I've done a few overnight backpacking trips on that trail, but it's a little too popular for my tastes.  And yet, the discovery of a nice wooded lot for sale--only 1.5 hours from home--has got me returning to that part of the state to see what else I can find.  The lot is beautiful, affordable, and exactly what I'm looking for, though the real estate agent said the owner has decided not to sell. 

The map shows a scenic overlook along the LHHT relatively close to mile marker 9, near Maple Summit Road--so I made for that.  I didn't see anything but a lot of curious rock cities.  The biggest boulder, shown here is about 25 feet high... Interesting but hardly a scenic overlook.

It wasn't until I passed that tall boulder for the second time, on my way back toward the car, that I noticed a lightly-worn path leading up into a deep, narrow crack between the rocks.  Someone climbs these rocks--could it be for the view from the top?

It's a scramble, and the stony walls do rise 25 or 30 feet on either side of the narrow canyon.  A more confident person than I might try to scale them.  

You can't really see it in this photo, but someone has run a rope from the high branch in this tree, and they use it to climb up and down the rock face to the left.  I thought it looked a little too risky to try without a companion.

I was sure the "overlook" shown on the map was on top of those rocks, but unable to find a way up, I returned to the LHHT...where it occurred to me that I might be able to reach the top simply by bushwhacking up the gentle slope that's visible from the trail.  It worked!  I made it to the top of the boulders without risking life and limb--though I did get a tick, and the bite is red and itchy these four days later.

See this rocky ledge?  This looks straight down into the narrow canyon, 25 feet below, where I'd passed only a few minutes earlier.  It's a pleasant stony ledge in the sun, on the same level as the nearby treetops.  It reminds me for all the world of a certain antique diorama in a dark back passage of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.  In the diorama, an eagle, or some other grand bird, is on a rocky ledge in the Laurel Highlands, looking out over barren trees.

Look to the dead center of this photo.  This is the closest thing I got to a sweeping vista, for all my efforts.  I'm sure that when the leaves are off the trees there's a better view.  But it was beautiful up there atop the boulders.