On the day I explored Davy Hill, I passed slowly through the quaint little riverside borough of Tidioute and said to myself, "I need to spend some time here." Little did I know that I would get my wish. Tidioute is one of those classic little river towns on the northern stretches of the Allegheny where you can find grand old mansions like this with their terrace-gardens running all the way down to the water's edge. I didn't get many good photos of Tidioute because my visits there were less than ideal for that kind of thing.
What? More Presbyterians? Tidioute is like so many villages in this area: a curious mix of scenic and stark, sumptuous and squalid. Any such town with a lovely rural setting like this in Vermont or New York would be all antique stores, and bike lanes, and brew pubs. Not so, Tidioute. The one dusty antique store in Tidioute looked like its doors hadn't opened in years. A lonely interior decorating shop stands in ambitious splendor---either a sign of renewal or blind optimism. Once-opulent old homes and buildings line Main Street in varying stages of upkeep and decay. A lovely north country setting presides over all, in the form of forested hills and shallow river. Most of these faded river towns have a single grand bridge to traverse the river that gives them their identity and charm.
I've told this blog before: According to my long-dead grandfather, Tidioute got its name from a Seneca woman who went around topless. Who knows? Another advantage that Tidioute has is its rail trail, which is a dead end trail following a former railroad bed along the west bank of the river for about 10 miles before dead-ending. This pleasant Airbnb stands on a hill at the edge of town, overlooking the river and the trail. I stopped to hike a few miles on the rail trail and to plan my glorious ascent of the extremely steep Babylon Hill, which is in the Allegheny National Forest just south and west of town.
It's a beautiful walk, if a little muddy. In places, the islands in the river block the ugly little camper and trailer settlements on the opposite bank.
In some places the trail is graveled. But most stretches are just wet earth. Not sure you'd want to bring a bike down here.
Map-work brought me to this spot where Grove Run flows off Babylon Hill and into the Allegheny River. The unmarked and unmapped trail up the hillside in this photo goes to (or near) the summit of Babylon Hill--I believe. That's my next virgin peak to bag. But I didn't have the time or the gear to do it that day--a long, steep ascent on wet leaves requires poles or at least a walking stick. So I headed back to the car with my plan for next time. Arriving back at the car, the day got weird. It was raining hard. My key got stuck in the door, trying to unlock it. I mean, it was really stuck. AAA was of no use at all in this area. My first frustration with them came when I had to tell an automated voice that I was in "Tidioute." That was less fun than it sounds. They decided I needed a locksmith, not a mechanic, and called me back half an hour later to say that there is no locksmith responding to their appeals. Then I called one of those 24-hour locksmith companies with the same result. During all of these long, frustrating phone calls, while talking to automated voices on the phone, my phone battery was draining and it was raining. I finally had to walk half a mile into town, try a few businesses until I found a hardware store, where I bought WD-40, which didn't work, and borrowed a pair of needle-nose pliers. Nothing worked. When at last I did manage to wriggle the key out of the lock, I still wasn't able to get back into the car. The hardware store, half a mile away, was closing at 4:00, and it was 3:30. I rushed over to return the pliers, and they directed me to a mechanic who opens his shop at 4:00pm. Nice guy with double ear-piercings from North Carolina. He popped my car open, and I was able to drive home with a damaged car key. The whole fiasco lasted from 2:00pm to 4:00.
The countryside around Tidioute is worth exploring. Follow Campbell Hill Road as it wends a little scarily up away from town, and you come into a broad area of dense woods and old farms that are now mainly hunting camps.
I wonder what it does to housing costs in this area when suburbanites come in and buy up all the affordable properties and turn them into camps. My conscience still bothers me about that--despite the fact that a real estate agent assured me that when the seller demands a cash-only sale, it's more the fault of the seller than the buyer. Anyone who really needs to buy affordable housing can't swing a cash sale, in most cases. Our whole system is just so broken... This beautiful old farm probably sees only about two or three weeks' occupancy a year, I'd guess.
This old farmhouse looks like it was a hunting camp for a long time, but now someone is rehabbing it for a year-round home. I suppose the swing can go both ways.
There was a really cool camp sitting in pristine isolation up here on Campbell Hill Road, just above Tidioute, selling for $90,000. (Not the place pictured here.) But the road is very muddy and even slick. I think you'd need a better vehicle than the one I drive.
Maybe this was an old schoolhouse at one time? Now it's hunting camp. It's such a joy to explore these wild lands on foot or by car.
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