Many times I've driven past this old house, standing alone in the woods. It serves as a grange hall, a church, a community center, and it even has a free little library. It seems to be an all-around gathering place for the sparse population of Watson Township. My name is not Watson, but that was the name of one of my grandparents, and her people are from this area. I suppose I've probably got an old blood connection to this dark, beautiful, slightly spooky corner of the world. Funny how you've got four grandparents, and genetically, you're equal parts of all four. But you only get one of the four names that you're entitled to. Watson could be my last name because I've got as much Watson DNA as that of the grandfather whose name I did get...
This is apparently the church entrance, "Tidioute Creek Chapel." Their website is defunct, but I found them on YouTube. A bit low-church and conservative for my tastes, but, "you do you." A few hundred yards down the road from the grange hall, there's a roadside spring where people come to collect water for their hunting camps--many of which don't have wells. It's called "Sand Springs" on the National Geographic map. Right beside that spring is where the Tanbark Trail crosses the road. The Tanbark is a great option for people who want to hike the Allegheny National Forest, but who are not interested in camping in an ugly clearcut or next to a noisy oil well. The Allegheny National Forest is highly industrialized, with ever-increased operations in logging, and conventional drilling, and fracking. But the Tanbark traverses some of the few protected areas within the forest: The Allegheny National Recreation Area, the Heart's Content Recreation Area (which is not a full-on "national" recreation area), and a corner of the Hickory Creek Wilderness. That's to say, the Tanbark Trail crosses some of the wilder areas of this otherwise over-exploited national forest. In this part of the forest, you don't see old extraction machinery rusting among the trees, and the drillers are not forever building new roads to new well pads. The Allegheny National Forest has been poked, and prodded, and scraped, and poisoned, and scarred by all the soulless industries that still own the mineral rights beneath the trees. But this zone is pretty wild.
The forest here is mostly level and scenic enough, if unspectacular. It's quiet and full of birds and other wildlife. It was in this area that I recently spotted a black bear. The land is somewhat protected, since some of it is designated a "national recreation area" and some of it is just a regular "recreation area" of the national forest. Neither type of designation gets as much protection as a "national wilderness area" (like the adjacent Hickory Creek), but any protection is good in these parts.
Now, let's talk about the Tanbark Trail. It's a slightly overgrown and seldom-used linear trail that's easy to lose in places. It's not very consistently blazed. But the very fact that it's a bit neglected hints at a happier truth: You probably won't see another soul out there! The Tanbark runs about 9 miles (northwest to southeast) from the banks of the Allegheny River at US Route 62. It passes through protected and remote areas of the national forest and all the way to its terminus at the North Country Trail, near the legendary Forest Road 119. A few months ago, I hiked the portion from the Allegheny River to Sand Springs, near Watson Township Grange Hall. I apparently did not include that hike on this blog--though I could have sworn I did. Which is to say, I've section-hiked almost all of this trail, but I have no blog post to document the first segment. Starting at Sand Springs and heading southeast--away from the river--you come upon some really cool rock formations at about 2.2 miles. Take a look at this massive boulder! That is a full-sized hemlock tree growing out of the fissure near the top. The hemlock tree itself must be 25 feet tall. I'm coming back here to camp someday.
This is not a great photo of the birds in question, but when I got to the rock city pictured above, a pair of ravens objected noisily to my presence. They made the most agitated squawking noise while circling above the treetops and following me. It added to the surreal quality of this place with its tall boulders, gray skies, and bare trees. I know it was my presence that upset the ravens because they started yelling when I arrived, followed me while I was among their rocks, and stopped objecting as soon as I left the area.
Up among the rocks, there are views like this from the craggy perches high up in the boulders. I can see why ravens would like such a spot and want to keep it hidden from human interlopers. In fact, I can see how anyone would like this place, and that's exactly why I'm coming back...ravens be damned.
The skies grew grayer and angrier as the day progressed. When I reached the East Branch of Hickory Creek, inside the Hearts Content Recreation Area, I turned back and made for the car--at Sand Springs. I did stop along the way to run my hands over the rough bark of this exquisitely textured tree... Black cherry, I think. It feels so good to touch a tree. It's a tactile pleasure that I never take for granted. We live such sensorily-deprived lives. I did about 4.6 miles on the Tanbark that day, but it was an out-and-back, so I only covered 2.3 miles of trail.
It was a cold and extremely windy night. Back at the house, the electricity went out at about 7:00pm and stayed out till 4:30am. With the furnace out, I heated one room with this weird little indoor fireplace that my hoarder-wife brought home. It burns rubbing alcohol! This was only an emergency solution for the short-term. When I woke up the next morning, my sinuses were filled with soot. I've got a rusty old Franklin wood-burning stove down in the basement, waiting for renovations to be completed so that I can install it for just such occasions. It was kind of fun, too, lighting the place with candles from the local Dollar General--Saint Jude and Mother Mary prayer candles. The woods and skies surrounding us were darker than a coal shaft.
And on the morrow, I decided to start at the south terminus of the Tanbark Trail and hike northward to the place where I turned around the day before. I fell just about half a mile short of that goal, but still, it was a nice hike through hemlock forests on icy trails. This is where the Tanbark crosses Forest Road 119 and briefly enters a section of the Hickory Creek Wilderness Area.
Oh, the hemlock forests all around! I've been hearing for years that our hemlocks are endangered because of an invasive "hemlock wooly adelgid." But the extremely cold temperatures help to beat back the adelgids' advances, so I'm grateful for the climate-change sub-zero temps we've had. There are few things lovelier than a hemlock forest in the winter. Hemlocks have fewer industrial uses than pines and hardwoods, so their bark was used for tanning leather...hence the name "Tanbark."
I was off to a late start for my second consecutive day of hiking the Tanbark Trail. And so, at the end of the hike, when I reached Hearts Content Road, near the parking area for Hickory Creek Wilderness, I decided to do an easy road-walk back to my car. I did this in part because I didn't want to get stuck under the dark hemlocks in the falling night. I also wanted to get a closer look at a few of the cool hunting camps that line the road from the wilderness area to the disappeared ghost town of Dunham Siding, where I'd parked. I mean...just look at this place! Looks like it might have started life as a farmhouse. Someone clearly spends a lot of time here, maybe with extended family or some kind of large sportsmen's club.
This little one-room cabin is the kind of thing I originally had in mind when I went looking for property up in the North Country. It has no electricity, no running water, no bathroom...just a wood-burning stove and an outhouse. You collect your water at Sand Springs, about 2 miles away.
This older camp used to be a Watson Township schoolhouse.
This newer camp puts me in mind of places I've seen in Northern New England and the Pacific Northwest.
Back to Forest Road 116, also known as Mayburg Road. It forks here with the legendary Forest Road 119, which goes on to form the south border of the Hickory Creek Wilderness. Both roads were sheets of ice and very difficult to navigate with a regular Honda CRV. The second day's hike was only about 6 miles.
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