The weather report for Belleville, Pennsylvania--the village at the foot of Stone Mountain--called for snow flurries mixed with rain and chilly (but not unbearable) temps on Easter Monday and Tuesday. I'd had this trek on the Standing Stone Trail planned for weeks. I needed it, and I wasn't about to let a late, lingering winter keep me from it. When my friend and I got to the trailhead at Allensville Mountain Road, this was how things looked.
Although a Democrat, my friend is a Texan through and through. He lives in Pittsburgh proper and can barely bring himself to say a single positive word about any place that is not the Lone Star State. He even thinks that the big decorative stars that people put on the outside walls of their houses mean that they wish they lived in Texas. He and I have backpacked Big Bend together as well as Dolly Sods and a few places in Northern Pennsylvania. He might grudgingly enjoy the treks, but he'll never admit to liking any destination outside of Texas--with the sole exception of the Sods. "It's too wet here." "There are too many trees." "Where are the armadillos?"
But when it comes to choosing a hiking destination, he's utterly passive. He lets me do all the planning. And so I decided to take him to an undeniably beautiful part of the state that he so despises. The forecast was concerning, but even after an hour on the trail, the wintry weather showed no signs of materializing. We were going to hike 9 miles or so north from the trailhead on Allensville Mountain Road to a campsite I had reserved in the campground at Greenwood Furnace State Park. There are at least seven really gorgeous overlooks along that mountaintop hike. I'd scheduled a rural taxi service to shuttle us back to the car in the morning, and then we were going to drive half an hour south to Jacks Mountain, where we intended to hike up to those parts of the Standing Stone Trail known as the Throne Room and the Hall of the Mountain King.
We broke for lunch at the overlook known as the "Little Vista." It's one of the few views off to the western side of the mountain--which is admittedly less dramatic than the eastward views. It's still pretty. As we sat there, we saw mists soaring rapidly up the valley from the south. Tiny snow flurries appeared all around us, and we observed, "Huh, maybe we'll get a little snow after all." Here are the mists rolling in from the south and west at the Little Vista. They looked so harmless at first...
We thought little of it and continued our northward trek toward Greenwood Furnace. Temps began to drop fast. The wind picked up, blowing hard from the east--which is odd--and the flurries turned into a blinding whiteout. We reached a sign telling us that Greenwood Furnace was still another six miles away, and at that point we turned around and headed back to the car. The pleasant hike on the ridge of the humble Stone Mountain had begun to feel like one of those documentaries about climbers who perish in the snows while attempting to climb Mt. Everest. When we had crossed Saussers Stone Pile on the northerly march, it was entirely dry. On the southward return trudge through the snow, it looked like this.
The actual height of Stone Mountain is 2,190 feet; the so-called "prominence" is 560 feet. The wind blew the snow hard and fast up on the stony heights. The spectacular views disappeared entirely. The mountaintop was socked in by endless flying snow. My beard iced over! The rocks became treacherous and slippery. When we finally made it back to the car, it was covered in snow. We had walked 7 miles in three and a half hours on rugged terrain and in bad weather conditions--3.5 miles each way. Not bad, really. The narrow, winding road up the mountain has steep drops and no guardrails--spooky enough in clear weather and borderline harrowing under these conditions. I thought we'd get down off the mountain to find that springtime still held some command of the world below. Maybe we could even drive to the state park and claim our campsite. I was wrong. Winter had returned with a wicked vengeance. Amish buggies trotted along the slushy roads. An Amish boy pulled his little brother in a sled, enjoying the return of the snow--both of them still wearing the straw hats that Amish men exchange for their wool hats in April. Driving was tricky and slow most of the way back to Pittsburgh. I won't lie; it was a big disappointment. I really needed a night in the woods. April snow always reminds me of that depressing line in the old Barbara Streisand song that was popular when I was little: "...like a rose under the April snow..." I like winter. I like snow. But after Easter? And yet...my friend did admit that he liked the views from up there on the Standing Stone Trail.
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