"Coal Oil Johnny" Homestead & Gerard Trail in Oil Creek State Park

John Steele, or “Coal Oil Johnny,” was a famous party boy of the 19th century. He actually was a national celebrity during the days of the Pennsylvania oil boom, just after the Civil War, because he was opulently rich, extravagant, and unspeakably wasteful. The whole schtick about lighting cigars with $100 bills was attributed to him. In early life, Steele had been adopted by the McClintock Family, wealthy farmers who settled in the valley of Oil Creek, in Venango County, in 1796. This is not the first McClintock house; this one was built on their property in 1850, then restored in the 1990s and relocated within the bounds of Oil Creek State Park, very close to their original homestead.

The interior of the McClintock home, which I snapped through a window, would have been small but well-appointed for that time and place. When oil was discovered in the region, the McClintocks struck it rich, and John Steele, the adopted son of the family, inherited enormous wealth. Steele fled to Philadelphia to spend his riches in grand style, and the newspapers of the day loved to report on his wanton material excesses. He earned the nickname "Coal Oil Johnny," and he was known for his flashy clothes, lavish parties, ostentatious jewelry, and expensive tastes. After rapidly wasting all his money, Coal Oil Johnny fell into disgrace and began working with a traveling show, hiding his identity. Every time someone figured out who he was, he moved on to another place, finally dying penniless in Nebraska at the age of 77.

For all my recent fascination with Oil Creek State Park, I'd never explored the southern portion of it, which is much like the northern segments that I've already hiked. The park encompasses the scenic hollow of Oil Creek, and the Gerard Trail runs a 30-some mile loop around the entire park, hugging sheer bluffs above the stream far below. 

I did a quick 5-mile trek on Saturday before heading back to the city. 

The sluggish waters of Oil Creek flow languidly along, depleted by a hot, dry summer. The woods are crawling with ticks right now. Even taking precautions, I had to remove four over the course of two days of hiking.

 

Fall Walnutting

A few years ago, I was reduced to hiking at Raccoon Creek--which is not a bad place, it's just not the North Woods--and I came across an area I've known for years with hundreds of wild black walnuts on the ground. I stuck about 2 dozen in my backpack and came home and learned how to process them. Walnuts come encased in a thick, pungent green womb that smells like lemon-lime. You can't break the husks open without gloves, otherwise the dark, inky fluid inside will stain your fingers and everything they touch. I found a helpful website that taught me how to process wild nuts. You start collecting them in the early fall and then breaking them out of their hulls. Once husked, you let the walnuts sit in their shells till about Christmas...which could explain why nuts and nutcrackers used to be popular Christmas gifts. 

Black walnut trees aren't much to look at--unless you've got a really grand one. Most are scrappy and unappealing. But black walnuts themselves are pretty good, really flavorful, with a dense, rich, slightly bitter and unmistakably wild taste. Today, I easily filled an entire backpack with all the nuts I gathered off the ground, leaving many for the squirrels. I recall breaking the shells open with pliers and removing the meats with needle-nose pliers, which is a task for much later. I can begin breaking these out of their hulls right away, but I'll probably wait a few days. 

Raccoon Creek was my only respite from city life when we first moved back down to Pittsburgh, lo these 15 years ago. It felt strange to go back there today. On my way home, I took the slow scenic route right through the park, which has not changed at all down through the years. I'm so grateful that my horizons have expanded to embrace both the Northlands (that I love) and the city (that I love somewhat less). I mean, just today I subscribed to an early music concert series here in town--which is something you cannot find north of I-80 till you get to New York State. Living in two worlds. Actually, I've been doing that in one sense or another for a very long time. I don't know how I'm ever going to live in one place or the other when I need elements of both. 

North Country Trail from Tanbark to Minister Creek, Allegheny National Forest

 

My easily-achievable goal today was to hike the North Country National Scenic Trail (NCT) from the Tanbark Trail all the way to the North Loop of the Minister Creek Trail--about 3.8 miles one way. The Tanbark ends where it joins the NCT at Mayburg Road, just south of the disappeared village of Dunham Siding.

This quadrant of the forest is close to Hearts Content and the Hickory Creek Wilderness. And let me tell you, it's a fantastic area for viewing wildlife! No joke: passing near the parking area for Hickory Creek, a young black bear bolted across the road about 50 feet ahead of my car. I didn't have time to get a picture, but it was a beautiful creature. Then, in the woods, a dark brunette fisher darted across the path. Finally, on the road home, a fat porcupine was scrambling along the roadside on Cobham Hill Road, bottom photo.

It was a lovely day to do a 7.6 mile out-and-back in the autumn-scented forest. Cool, partly cloudy, and perfectly sentimental. It tugged at old cords in my heart. Being in the woods today made me feel as I felt hiking this forest in my 30s--young, forward-looking, in search of adventure. Let's just say that I felt like a 30-something for the first 4 miles... The remaining miles were uphill and a little footsore. It rained here recently, and the woodlands smelled rich and wet and spicy. It smelled like my grandmother's old tin spice cabinet. The best day I've had on the trail in a long while. The trees, the sights, the scents, the animals.

I did indeed arrive at the northernmost point on the North Loop of the Minister Creek Trail. There's a beautiful campsite where the trails meet, right on the banks of Minister Creek. Some Boy Scouts from Cleveland were working on the bridge over the creek, which prevented me from lingering long.

A rusted old saw blade leans against a tree at the campsite, just to remind you that you might FEEL like you're in the boreal forest of Alaska, but this is still Pennsylvania, where most of the wild places used to be industrial sites.

The hemlocks were lovely with the sun breaking through--as they are in every season and condition.

This is a perfect little camp on Cobham Road. Today the woods reminded me of a long-ago trip to Vermont in October--where I saw my first wild porcupine, and the woodlands smelled like old fashioned spices, and cottages appeared along narrow country lanes, and I felt young...thinking I was no longer young and not really knowing that I still was.

Of the three lovely woodland creatures who graced me with their presence today, only the porcupine stopped to pose for the camera.

More Pics of the Rimrock Trail

It didn't begin with me, and it surely will not end with me.  I'm just a single tile on the roof.  I am overlapped and overlapping.  That's how a roof does its job.  Things have to overlap for the water to run off...and perhaps our lives are the same.

We think of our lives as whole and complete in themselves.  And yet, we die with so much left undone, so many projects we barely started, so many books we never read, so many places we never visited, so many relationships we never brought to their fullness.

Ah, and so many people we never loved...or barely loved...or loved far less than they (or we) deserved.

Is it possible that my life will never see its own neat conclusions, its own fruition?  Must the events working themselves out in me extend into the lives of my children, or those I've loved who survive me?  Do our human lives overlap like tiles on a roof. No single tile can do the whole job of shedding water on its own. It must pass the water down, hand it off to another tile... Is that how our lives work, with their issues, their dramas, their doubts, and joys, and nagging desires?  Do we just hand them off to another when we die?

They say--a little too frequently--that it's about the journey, not the destination.  The Rimrock Trail might tell you otherwise.  It's pleasant enough, but you'd never make this climb if not for the views at the top.  Westerners dismiss our Eastern trails as "tree tunnels," sightless, uneventful.  And while I like trees and welcome their shade, I have to admit that broad vistas are more exciting.

In places, the way is steep. What calls us forward if not the idea that our efforts will be rewarded...with a view, with a climax, with a resolution?  Are my parents' and grandparents' passions still playing themselves out in me?  Are your ancestors' sins and glories still resolving themselves in you?  "For nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest; neither is any thing hid that shall not come into the light."  Maybe it takes generations for our private stories to be told.

Fading Americana

Such a strange fall season. The nights are cool, but the days are still hot. The trees were already turning colors and shedding their leaves in early August due to the heat and aridity. This past Saturday, up north, I took a long walk down the gravel lanes near the house--in the furthest northeast corner of Venango County. Most of the buildings along those roads are old hunting camps, many of which are abandoned, like this one. It makes me sad. I think how I used to long for a little place in the woods, just like this. How can anyone leave it to collapse into its foundation?

Some of the hunting camps are disused farms, or else farms where someone still works the fields, but no one lives on site. This place is cursorily maintained, but it clearly hasn't been anyone's home in a very long time. I was curious about it--so scenic, with such a large farmhouse and barn. It must have been quite prosperous at one time. Of course, many of the farms up here did milk cows on the side, while leases with the oil companies brought in the real money.

Same homestead from a different angle. The world was so woefully dry that day, as if every green thing would crumble to dust and blow away.

I'm not sure I've ever seen such an ungainly farmhouse around here. The general rule--when they were building farmhouses in this region--was to make them as tall as they are wide, but this one never got the memo. The second photo from the top might make a decent painting--if the right artist undertook the task and got it from a slightly further distance, to include more of the surrounding countryside. 

Night Scenes, Morningside, Pittsburgh

This street runs right along the Allegheny River in the city of Pittsburgh.  See how the vines, and brush, and trees overtake these old rowhouses--which command a majestic view of the river?  Not much parking along these streets, and a trip to the grocery store will be followed by 25 steep steps up to your front door, so try to do it all in one trip.

Now, what do you think the story behind these tire tracks might be?  Someone spinning dozens of donuts in the middle of an intersection?  

Kinzua and Rimrock Overlook

I've become like a Londoner in some Evelyn Waugh novel who "weekends" in the country and returns to town every Sunday night in order to be back to the office on Monday.  Except that in my line of work, I flee the city after work on Thursday evening and return on Saturday evening, so that I can be back to work Sunday morning...which is decidedly not anything a character in an Evelyn Waugh novel would do.  (Also, if I have a wedding or a funeral on Saturday, I have to come home Friday night, giving me only 24 hours away.)  The point is that I take Fridays off and spend them up at my country house.  

This is Kinzua Dam, which locals pronounce "KIN-zoo."  This area was a reservation for the Seneca People until the US government rescinded its promises, evicted them from the land, built a dam for flood control, and put most of the reservation under water--at least the Pennsylvania portion; there's still some reservation land across the line in New York State.

You can see how desiccated and sunbaked the scene is.  I hate, hatE, haTE, hATE, HATE all the confounded sunlight!  And the heat.  I get reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder.  I need cloud-cover and the occasional rainfall.  It's been an unpleasant summer, and most of the things I planted this year have either died or failed to thrive--old heirloom forsythia varieties, mainly, which turn out to be neither deer-repellent nor very hardy, though they are said to be both.  (Don't speak to me of planting native species; that will be another post.)

But I'd waited years to do the uphill trail from Kinzua Beach to the summit on Rimrock cliffs.  It's a pleasant trek through late-summer woods to the broad views at the crest.  It gets rocky and steep as you get close to the top.  Look at these uneven stone steps.  

The views are worth it--some of the best in the Allegheny National Forest.

It's possible to drive to the top from the other side of the hill, so it's a little disappointing to get all the way up there and hear the raucous voices of strangers.  But I was here on a Friday morning in late August.  There weren't many folks up top.

I had this broad view all to myself for about half an hour.  It's not exactly breathtaking, but it is scenic.  Look out over this land where the redtail soars beneath you, where Chief Cornplanter once dwelled, where--long ago--the trees were all torn from the hillsides and carted off to New York and Philadelphia, where the forest was finally allowed to regrow.  This land has been stolen, and bought, and sold, and sold again so many times.  It's been pumped for oil and entirely denuded of hemlock and beech, and then left to return to something akin to its natural state--except this time in maple, and oak, and pine.  The story of America--and perhaps of most of the earth--is always one of stealing, and buying, and selling.  But still the land survives...and manages to be beautiful.

After hiking the 1.6 miles back downhill to the beach, where I started, I picked some elderberries and wild grapes.  Can you believe that the big fat grapes you buy in the grocery store descended from the small, flavorful, thick-skinned things you see here on my wrist?  I do like the flavor of wild grapes, though I hate the way their vines overtake the woods.  They're concentrated, and they almost burn your tongue.

And this?  This is Kinzua Beach, a public swimming beach in the Allegheny National Forest.