Beam Rocks and Laurel Mountain in the Winter

This is Beam Rocks, just about half a mile off Laurel Summit Road in the Forbes State Forest.  It's a relatively unremarkable view unless you look past the rooftop of the forest and into the middle distance of the picture.  There you can see the snowy fields of the farmland east of the ridge.  This place was lovely in the wintry silence and the deep solitude that only the snow can lend it.

These rocks are right along the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail, but their proximity to the road makes them a favorite for people who would never expend the energy needed to go even just one mile further into the woods.  And of course they often bring their spray paint along to deface the rocks.  Last time I was here, there was a teenager carrying an actual old fashioned boombox and blaring The Beatles as if he'd discovered them.  Why would anyone go to the woods with a boombox?  And The Beatles, really?

I like kids these days.  I do not typically find them whiny or entitled--though guys my age love to say otherwise.  But it's funny how a 15-year old will look at you with a straight face and ask, "Have you ever heard of a band called Pink Floyd?"  To them, it's all so new--the tired old music that feels so much to me like the day before yesterday.  There were lots of cross-country skiers up on the ridge, and this little warming hut was open.

On a Wednesday morning, of course, the woodstove was cold.  But it's a pleasant space.  I love holing up against the winter in a cabin with a woodburner. 

It was such a joy to have a few days of real winter in January and a few again in February.  It definitely thins out the crowds and casts an all-noise-absorbing muffle out over the hills and fields.  I got a little turned around while hiking from Beam Rocks toward Wolf Rocks.  I never did make it to my destination and instead circled back to Laurel Summit Road.

My own children have so little experience of snow!  They've never dug a snow tunnel--though they have made snowpersons.  They're girls, so when they were little I used to tell them it doesn't have to be a snowman; it can be any kind of snowperson they want it to be.  My brothers and I used to build such elaborate snow castles--based on photos of ruined Scottish castles that I saw in the old Tree of Knowledge Encyclopedias long ago.  I would read through encyclopedias as if they were novels.

It was a real joy to see the Laurel Mountain Ski Resort up and running!  And there were plenty of skiers considering that it was the middle of a weekday.  Last time I came here, it felt like the spooky set of a Scoobie Doo cartoon--abandoned and overrun with tall grass.  That was seven or eight years ago.

To see what I found last time I ventured there, click here.  I love it when things get better... Also, to see another bright, sunny interlude in South Florida, click here.  Not sure how I got to Florida twice in one winter, but these are the days for a little extra self-indulgence.  (It's just that Florida would never be my first choice.)

Sprocket Trail, Hillman State Park

Another unexpectedly happy day at Hillman State Park. It seems that a place will give itself to you anew when you return to it after a long absence. This time around, on a Wednesday afternoon, I found two cars parked at the trailhead for the Figure 8 Trail, which I explored on my day off last week.  Instead, I made for a once-anonymous trail on which I'd gotten lost plenty of times--back before the park service put up blazes and signage: the weirdly named Sprocket Trail.

Nothing that has the word "sprocket" in its name has anything to do with sprockets.  I offer as evidence for that claim the old 90s pop band "Toad the Wet Sprocket" and, well, the only other thing...the Sprocket Trail.  What exactly is a sprocket anyway?  Unless I'm mistaken, it's the raised teeth on the rotor where a bicycle chain connects to the rotor...or anything like said teeth.  Hardly an item worthy of a one-hit-wonder band or a humble trail through the reclaimed strip mines of Hillman.  

Sprocket Trail is more of a trail system than a single track.  And like most of the paths through Hillman, it is circuitous and beset with many, many sidetracks which lead nowhere but which are fun to ride on a mountain bike.  Ah, but if you press on far enough, it does lead through some lovely evergreen forests, blessed spots of silence and serenity, where tall, straight tree trunks rise above the mossy forest floors like the pillars of some woodland temple.  The forest floor here is scattered about with soft pine needles and very little underbrush, creating a warm, hushed feel, as if you were strolling in a carpeted gallery.  The winter sun streams through the high canopy and gives the whole place a golden hue.  

Thankfully, the ground was frozen solid.  If it hadn't been, then parts of these trails would have been pure muck and very hard to hike.  Nothing tears up a trail like horses.  The northernmost reaches of the Sprocket Trail offered these modest vistas again and a sense of deep solitude.

For years now, my wife and I have been buying our own Christmas presents, putting them away until Christmas morning, and then showing each other what they got us for Christmas.  In my case it was a pair of Vasque St. Elias hiking boots--a really good quality boot and pretty expensive.  When I tried it on at the new Public Lands store in Cranberry, the 10.5 felt comfortably snug, whereas the 11 felt like a clown shoe.  I chose snugness...but now, after having worn them out on the trail twice, I wonder if it's not always better to err on the side of the clown shoe?  I love the boots, but they do cramp my feet.  I've probably scuffed them up too badly to take them back.  I refuse to believe that our feet grow bigger as we age; I'm only 15 pounds heavier than I was when I graduated high school.  I think I'd almost rather hike in boots too small for my feet than consent to wearing an 11.

I believe that you can make economies with almost anything in life EXCEPT shoes.  It's certainly true of clothing: buy some cheap brand of socks, underwear, shirts even.  Yeah, sure, you'll always feel the difference between the cheap stuff and the quality stuff, and if you need the sensation and the look of a really good shirt on your back, then you'll have to pay for it.  Good pants are especially nice.  Who cares?  But when it comes to your shoes, you need the good stuff.  Always.  

Colt Trail & Figure 8 Trail, Hillman State Park

Had a beautiful day at Hillman State Park, surprisingly nice, replete with new discoveries and the traditional Hillman-hour-of-being lost—frantically, irritatingly, circling round and round lost!  That part, the thing about being lost, is classic Hillman. Hillman is a place I used to visit when I didn’t have time to go anywhere better. It was a total crapshoot, since the trails were laid out for mountain bikers, not hikers, and they zigzagged over the strange terrain with no real purpose except to create an exciting ride with lots of ups and downs. 

Also, the trails were unmarked, so even though I only went there for a quick trek, I’d always end up getting lost—which takes a lot of fun out of hiking and ends up taking more time than anticipated. 

On top of these frustrations, the place was just not much to my liking: poison ivy, tree-strangling vines, ticks. It’s entirely reclaimed strip mines, so the topography is great for mountain biking, but strangely alien to the hiker. Plus, the thinnish soil makes for a less robust forest. There are lots of big, grassy meadows. But I returned to the southeastern quadrant of the park today and—much to my surprise—I found the trails named and blazed! Look at this signage. 

Not sure why I went back to the southeastern part of the park. It’s always been the area with the most tree-cover. But at Hillman, the more trees you have, the more lost you can get! It was such a joy to see that someone is putting a little effort into making this park usable. Although it’s almost as big as its more-glamorous neighbor, Raccoon Creek State Park, it’s always been administered as a sort of disreputable younger sibling to that park and by the same over-worked rangers. I mean, there’s only so much you can do with reclaimed strip mines… It's mainly the domain of mountain bikers, as I said, and hikers. There's also a model airplane runway. But no restrooms, no benches, no amenities of any kind, which is nice.

Despite my longstanding disdain for the park, it was such a pleasant place to be in the climate-change January mild chill. The Colt Trail especially passes through some nice scenery with a sense of varying elevations. The views out through the bare trees are not striking or dramatic, but they do give you a sense of a larger world beyond. The panoramas, humble as they are, help to renew your sense of the bigness of the world—and that is a renewal that all of us need from time to time.

The Colt Trail and the perfunctorily-named Short ‘n Sweet Trail form some nice loops just north of Knowlton Road. They’re prettyish, they run along steep drops, and largely follow broad old mining roads. The walk here was everything I’m always looking for in a hike: solitary, silent, meditative, full of new discoveries to delight the eye. I’m not sure that they’d be quite as nice in high summer, when greenery obscures the views, but maybe.

After getting back to my car, parked on Knowlton Road, I got ambitious and decided to look into the oddly named Figure 8 Trail, which runs through the forest on the opposite side of the road. Not exactly a mistake, but it was a bigger venture than I’d expected.

There was some lovely country in there: tall pine forests like these, fragrant and serene. There were a few more views out through the naked trees onto the farmlands below. Billowy groves of evergreen saplings run like hedges along the trail in many places, giving the otherwise gray light of day a green and lively hue. Of course, this being Hillman, the trail also passed through ugly blow downs, where you have to climb carefully among fallen limbs, and big swaths of wasteland where the forest had been strangled by ugly vines. 

Here’s a map of just the southeastern segment of the park—which is the smallest portion. (Click to enlarge this and any photo.) In the extreme southeastern corner you can see the so-called Figure 8 Trail. I should have known by the name that this trail would have some potential for misdirection, but without a map I was unprepared for just how senseless and convoluted this “figure 8” would be. I assumed a central axis someplace where the trail would cross itself, joining two loops. That would have made sense, right? But alas. Who draws an 8 like this? Who knew that this figure 8 would have an inner loop and an outer loop on its western side and a variety of smaller trails crossing the larger one, creating unexpected junctures to imitate the one you’re looking for? Now that there are maps of Hillman online, it would be wise always to have one with you when you venture to that place. I ended up repeating the eastern loop twice and frantically searching for a connector trail to lead back to the road. All in all, a good day in the woods though. It’ll be nice to have some real winter in the near future. Let’s hope.

Grindle Ridge and Pritts Distillery Road

There's a nice view from the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail as it passes through the Seven Springs Resort.  This shot is taken from the trail about half a mile north of Pritts Distillery Road, which has the most wonderful name of any road, and which is little more than a trail itself--narrow, muddy, a little treacherous.

Of course, in the Laurel Highlands, the woodlands are so dense that you almost need a pipeline swath or electrical easement to get any kind of view out over the lovely hills beyond.  Here's a view from Pritts Distillery Road as it ascends the mountainside and approaches the summit where, unbeknownst to me, the famous resort sat perched in all its great glory.

I did find a nice little acre for sale right on Pritts Distillery Road, and I told myself I'd pay almost any sum to own a piece of property with an address like that: "Pritts Distillery Road."  The owner had put up a sign with her phone number and, frankly, it looked like the sign had been there quite a good long while.  I gave her a call when I got back to Pittsburgh, but she wanted too much for such a steeply sloped property with water and electric but no sewer.

I looked on a map to see where the Laurel Highlands Trail crosses the terrifically named road.  The trail does not announce itself except for the yellow bands of paint that mark the trees just where it crosses over the unpaved track.  This is standard form for the LHHT--it only announces itself at designated parking areas.  Otherwise, you have to look for the yellow bands around the trees where it crosses a road.  If you follow the trail half a mile north from its crossing, you'll travel entirely on Seven Springs property and come to this monstrosity--a ski lift.

There's something strangely Scooby Doo about a ski resort in the off-season.  But it did open up some impressive views out over the Laurel Highlands.

I know people who love this place as a skiing destination.  It's apparently got many trails down the mountainsides; this is only one of dozens.

Which is not to say that Seven Springs sleeps until the snow flies.  It's an active place year-round, with condos and restaurants and I don't know what else.  They kindly allow the LHHT to pass on their property, and they even offer potable drinking water right along the trail.

But!! But...they also have an extremely NOISY shooting range, which is active year-round, and the southbound trail passes uncomfortably close to it.  Before you discover that it's a clay-pigeon shooting area, you hear the endless gunshots from afar and wonder if it's just a whole lot of really trigger-happy hunters in the woods.  Truly, it sounds like a Gettysburg reenactment, and it can be a little intimidating.

I went both directions on the LHHT at Pritts Distillery Road: north to see the view and south to visit the Grindle Ridge shelter area--where my friend and I were supposed to stay for our second night on the trail.  And I gotta say, Grindle Ridge was nice.  It's actually on a ridge with a visual sense of the land falling away through the trees.

Click on this photo to enlarge it; that's ICE on a log at Grindle Ridge.  Ice....

I did the most childish thing.  I saw pretty leaves on the ground and I told myself, "I'll just take one to use as a bookmark."  Of course, when you decide to choose ONE solitary leaf from the autumnal forest floor, it really slows you down because you're forever finding one you like better than the one you already chose.  It was an exercise in stupidity.

Ah, but the leafage was lovely.  

And here is the shelter we reserved but did not use.  It's got its back to the world and sits facing the steep drop out into the valley below.  This would have been a very nice place to spend a night, but it will still be there in the future, I hope.  We did enjoy the spot we had, especially with its excess of firewood.  The spot where we ended up staying two nights was noisy with traffic sounds; this spot sounded like it was in the path of an invading army--with the shooting range so nearby.  But both become quiet at night, I'm sure.  

I do wish I could find an affordable plot of land down here!  It's only an hour and a half away from town.  It's so very beautiful and so much cooler than down in the city.  This is not a lofty elevation, just about 2,700 feet, but it does make a noticeable difference.  And what could be the story behind that name, "Pritts Distillery Road"?  It's got to be a vestige of Prohibition and mountain life.

Two Nights on the Laurel Highlands Trail

Fall is here at last...visiting like a ghost in its transient, autumnal way.  It'll be gone in no time. We've endured the dullest, ugliest, hottest, most summerlike October I've ever experienced--aside from the Africa years.  I wanted to enjoy the belated autumn as much as possible, so a friend and I decided to do a quick two-night trek on the Laurel Highlands Trail.  

Work has been stressful.  The endless heatwave summer has been frustrating.  The woods beckoned.  We stayed at the shelter area close to PA Route 31 for a rainy Thursday and Friday night.  October is one of the busy seasons for the trail, but no one else was willing to brave the wet weather, so we had the small, primitive campground to ourselves.

Actually, the reason we chose the Laurel Highlands Trail--despite my blogging a lot about it recently--is because it was going to be chilly and wet, and our tents would have provided too little shelter from the weather.  But the LHHT has Adirondack shelters with fireplaces!  

The remote shelter # 5 was perfect.  We saw not another soul on the trails in the two days of damp hiking that we enjoyed.  A ranger did come by the first night to see that no one was squatting in any of the cozy shelters.  I saw his headlights through the gathering gloom and went down to meet him at his white forest service pickup.  As soon as he got out he called my name and told me that the whole park, which stretches 70 miles from the Johnstown area to Ohiopyle, had only 5 registered campers that night.

Yes, you do have to reserve these shelters online.  And you're not [technically] allowed to stay two consecutive nights in any one camping area....  Isn't this a beautiful setup?  The first night was windy, and there are large openings on either side of the chimney.  Fortunately, my friend thought to bring a tarp to close the gap on one side, and he found an old, singed tarp in the garbage bin that we used to close up the other side at night.  

The colors were so lovely and bright, with intermittent moments of sun and lots of clouds and rain.  But not so much rain that we couldn't put on our raincoats and hit the trails.

The LHHT and environs are beautiful, but I must say, if you're looking for silence, pick a more remote trail!  From many of the shelter areas on this trail, you can hear trucks, and cars, and construction vehicles from early morning and into the night.  There are better trails in the state for silence and solitude, but let's just be honest...life in the Keystone State is LOUD.

The Roaring Run Natural Area was scenic if unexceptional.  And one noise I did not hear was a roaring "run"--which means "arroyo" in most places, but which means "stream" in parts of PA, WV, and OH.

It's the silence that I love the most--maybe even more than the beauty of the forest, I come here for silence.  The best thing about Roaring Run is that at a certain point you do get out of earshot from all the clamorous traffic.  Its ugly screams and drones are silenced, and all you hear is the gentle breeze.

I used to take a volume of A.E. Housman into the woods with me in October to memorize a different poem or two each fall.  I haven't done that for a few years, and so I find myself mentally revisiting the poems I memorized in years past.  It's one of those things where I tell myself that it's just what I do:  "I memorize Housman in the fall.  It speaks to my natural melancholia."  But if I go without doing it for two pandemic falls, will it still be a tradition by the time the leaves turn yellow for the third turn since the pandemic struck?  We're losing so much...and not even noticing what we've lost because we promise ourselves that we'll get back around to it next year.  But I fear that we will not.  

What will life be if this pandemic ends, if the selfish, shortsighted θ-damned Republicans ever deem to get vaccinated and stop visiting new variants on the world?  Bigger picture, come to me!  God, let me see the bigger picture out onto history, and life, and the living world!  There were few real vistas in the area we visited.  I wanted to take my friend to see one or two of them, but time didn't allow.

One of my joys, as I walked through the woods, was simply to look at the leaf-mess on the ground.  So colorful, such vivid tints and tones, so easy to miss.

It's been about 10 years since I'd been back to the Roaring Run Natural Area--where no camping is allowed and where interesting trees try (a little unsuccessfully) to make up for the absence of long views.

You can almost see a bit of a vista through these trees.  The hillside opposite is bedecked in its fading rusty hues.

The beeches still clung to their brilliant yellows and their rapidly fading greens--now so yellowed as to be more acid-green than forest-green.

I know it's a lot to ask, but why can't I just have the month of October off--the way French people all take the whole month of August?  Of course, this climate change October was the worst, and I imagine November will be the new October moving forward.  But this is what I love, what I need--trees still in leaf, bidding their glorious farewells to the summer, casting their earthy scents out into the chilly air, creating an inimitable living tableau for the eyes!  There's not a stained glass cathedral in all of France that can match the beauties of October (or maybe soon, November) in a Pennsylvania woodlot.