Scenes along the Upper Allegheny...and the Grievous Death of a Porpentine

PA Route 227 makes its eastern terminus in a wooded area in Forest County.  Near that spot, you'll see a sign pointing toward Trunkeyville.  Another sign will warn you "No Outlet."  I'd always been curious about this Trunkeyville, on the banks of the Allegheny River, and so I finally followed the long, rough dead end road that leads steeply downhill to the village and the river.

Trunkeyville itself is just a small gaggle of cottages, fishing camps, and summer homes with more "No Trespassing" signs than houses.  It's pretty clear that if you don't own property there, you're really not welcome.  But the views of the river are nice.

I don't know if there are any year-round homes in Trunkeyville, but some of the "camps" are quaint. 

Surprisingly, there's a free little lending library, stuffed with popular fiction and paperbacks.  Not much that I'd read, but it helps to make Trunkeyville feel a little less...hostile.

It would be nice if the Tidioute Rec & Trek Trail (a rail trail) went all the way to Trunkeyville, but it does not.  On the map, that trail appears to peter out at 7 miles south of Tidioute, just a little before the inhospitable hamlet of Trunkeyville.  But I wanted to spend a day with the river, so I left Trunkeyville and went to Tidioute, where I followed the rail trail the furthest I'd ever taken it, about 3 miles.  

I'd rarely seen another soul along this trail, though I did meet a fellow hiker here who told me it gets busy with people letting their dogs run off the leash.

Just after the 2.5 mile marker--if I remember correctly--there's a rocky little outcropping of land that juts into the river, pictured here.  I sat there and read for a while.  It would be best to get here at sunrise, bring food and a thermos of coffee, and make a day of it.  Just spend the day with a book and maybe a bag chair, sitting in the shade and watching the great Allegheny passing by--the river of my life.

Look closely.  Porcupine quills.  Some hapless porpentine met its sad fate on this spot along the trail.  I have mixed feelings about that.  On one hand, I love porcupines and never want them to come to harm.  They're gentle, slow-moving creatures with cute faces and an ingenious defense system.  Plus, they're just rare enough to feel almost exotic when you see them in the wild.  But where you find the quills of a porcupine spread like leaf litter on the forest floor, it probably means there are fisher-cats nearby.  Fisher-cats are neither fishers nor cats.  They're even more uncommon than porcupines and just as fascinating.  A fisher-cat is one of the few creatures that has figured out how to get past a porcupine's defenses.  They reach under a sluggish porcupine, grabbing it by its furry stomach, and flipping it on its back to attack its defenseless underbelly. 

I wish it weren't such a hard world for small things, and gentle things, and slow moving things....