Maybe you've noticed that I get on "kicks" and then abandon them as quickly as I started them. I went on an Oil Creek State Park "kick" recently, where I spent all my free time exploring Oil Creek and blog-posting about it. Years ago, it was the Standing Stone Trail or the Roaring Plains Wilderness. But this is the painfully underrated Hickory Creek Wilderness in the Allegheny National Forest, and it's my current obsession. Who knew you could find clear, open views like this at Hickory Creek?
You have to go off-trail in order to find the good stuff in Pennsylvania's only true "wilderness area," and going off-trail is no easy task in a place like this. (We have areas that are actually wilder and more remote than Hickory Creek, but none that are federally designated.) It's swampy, and there are soooooo many streams and tributaries that simply following a watercourse--in the absence of trails--can be tricky. Pictured here is Camp Run, which is just deep enough to make crossing it a hassle. Plus, when you arrive from some directions, you might assume it's East Branch Hickory Creek or Middle Branch or some tributary. Follow the wrong stream and you can get very lost in these 13.5 square miles of wilderness.
Camp Run again... There are just so many beautiful and confusing streams here. Going off-trail is further complicated by the fact that there are lots of blown-down trees. They seem to fall like dominoes up here on the Big Level--the plateau on which the ANF finds itself. I take comfort in the suggestion that such has always been the case up in these parts; high winds come tearing over the plateau and take down hemlocks, which lack a tap root.
It's especially disconcerting because many of the fallen trees are not old and dead; they've still got lush green needles on their branches. They were living and seemingly healthy trees that succumbed to the fierce climate change winds of spring. Hikers and campers know to avoid dead or dying trees--known as "widow-makers"--but what if you can't even trust the healthy ones not to fall on you? I did not take any photos of the fallen trees because they depress me, and the purpose of this blog is to lift my spirits by revisiting moments like these...moments of discovery, usually (but not always) in the forest. Pictured here is Middle Branch, flowing west and south toward the Forks. More about that below.
Ah, but Gentle Reader! Hickory Creek Wilderness delivered once again. What it lacks in grand, sweeping vistas it makes up for in streamside beauty and deep, unvisited woods. I found a place on the map where the East Branch and the Middle Branch of Hickory Creek meet. I dubbed this place "The Forks," but I don't know if anyone else out there in the world calls it that. Someone seems to have claimed the Forks with one of those annoying campsites where they stash a lot of personal belongings, seen here with pans and spatulas hanging from trees and a rock with their initials painted on it. (I first got called "Gentle Reader" by the narrator in Howard Pyle's Merry Adventures of Robin Hood when I was 7 or 8, so I thought I'd pass it along...)
This is the same campsite as seen when I approached it from the stream--which I'd crossed at a shallow spot in fishing boots. Oddly, there was only just this one campsite there.
In most places, the creek is deep and wide just below the Forks, with the united force of the East and Middle branches.
At the Forks, there are big streamside meadows like this one. I suspect these glades are tick-laden and difficult to traverse in high summer, when the grasses stand tall and thick. Or maybe not. I'll have to come back to see. Okay, so see that low wooded ridge on the horizon in this photo? It's up there that the 13-mile Hickory Creek Trail makes its undramatic loop. It's nice enough...lots of trees and a few brook-crossings. No views up there, but plenty of water for camping, even if there are only a few scenic creeks or runs. The terrain along that trail is mostly gentle and...unglamorous.
What's that famous quote about meeting your destiny in the very paths you took to avoid it? Both the month of April and Hickory Creek Wilderness have been trying to kill me for years--with their own individual vendettas. But on one occasion, they ganged up on me. Back in April of 2017, the Hickory Creek Wilderness punished a friend and me badly for going off trail. We were using an ancient guidebook that spoke of an alternative trail down into the valley of the East Branch, little knowing that said trail had gone out of existence when this area was declared a "wilderness." It was an almost-harrowing experience--getting drenched in the marshlands along the creek, falling into the stream on several crossings, hearing very strange noises at night, and getting slapped in the face by springy beech saplings as we hunted for a path. We finally used a compass to go crawling back repentantly to the established loop trail up on the plateau. But yesterday, as the beech saplings reached up to slap me in the face, I couldn't help but imagine what they were saying to each other in their mysterious tree talk:
"Hey beeches! Look who's back! It's this Bozo. What, you're back for more, are you? You didn't learn your lesson last time you came down here? Sure, we got more to give ya. Take that! (Thwack!) And that! (Choff!)"
The forest had a clean fresh scent today--a fragrance of evergreens, and cold water, and wet earth. So, at the risk of leading hikers to a campsite that someone clearly treats as their own private property, I'm gonna tell you how I got to the Forks at Hickory Creek Wilderness.
Entering Forest Road 119 from the west, just after the big creek crossing where fishers like to camp, there's a parking area on the left with a clear trail going off to the right and parallel to Hickory Creek. This is an old railroad bed, and it runs a clear (if overgrown) course 1.6 miles northeast to the Forks. I think this early water crossing, seen here, tends to thin the crowds--which are already small to begin with.
So, what lays eggs that look like jellyfish in stagnant ponds?
I was out there just to discover the area, but also to do some research for a backpacking trip later this spring. This trek began in the southwest corner of this map at the yellow area labeled "West Entrance" and it followed the yellow railroad bed to the confluence of the two creeks, which is circled and labeled in pink as "The Confluence." (That was my name for this area before I started calling it "The Forks," which is more poetic, I think.) I've actually gotten lost at Hickory Creek on a few occasions. I got lost in this area again not too long ago because one of the unnamed tributaries tricked me into thinking it was Hickory Creek, and it led me far from where I expected to be. This place is strange...dark. It's very wet and appeals mostly to fishers. But it reveals its costly and subtle charms to those who persist.
