Approaching Altoona on I-99, the villainous Brush Mountain came into view, mocking me from afar. "So you've come back to try again! Bring it, you weakling, you puny old man! Twice have I turned you back." The imperturbable mountain sneered, "My glorious rocky heights are off limits to the likes of you." It was then I made my solemn vow: This is the day I conquer you, Brush Mountain! This was indeed my third attempt to summit the elusive peak. It turned me back twice--not because it was hard to climb, but because it was hard to find a way up. But this? This is the view from the top of Brush Mountain looking west over Sinking Valley.
So yes, a referee probably would have called the match in my favor, but it was far from a knockout. I did reach the crest of the mountain, but not at its absolute highest point. These Central Pennsylvania mountains are not conical mounds, like the Adirondacks, with a single high point like the top of a tepee. Instead, these are long, sharp ridges that extend over many miles. On a map or aerial photo, they resemble the formation of ocean waves all in sequence. The best way I could find to reach the summit at any spot at all was to follow an electric line easement--which made the feat a little less romantic...
This is the neighboring peak to the east, Canoe Mountain. See the tantalizing boulder fields along the pinnacle! I must make it there someday! The valley of Canoe Creek runs between the two hills, Brush Mountain and Canoe Mountain. All of this is public land, State Game Land 166, which is deeply wooded, scenic, and open to explore! I was amazed at how little evidence there was that anyone had ever climbed Brush Mountain on the trail that I had found by poring over maps. It wasn't a footpath; it was a "gator" path. A "gator" is like a golf cart, but more powerful. Gators are used by the guys who go out regularly to inspect and maintain the electric lines that have been strung across this low mountain range. Farmers and ranchers use them, too.
From this gate on Beaver Dam Road Extension, it was exactly 9 miles out and back. What with all the lingering here and there and the aimless exploring, the whole trek took four hours from the time I left the car till I got back. The forests were fragrant with Japanese honeysuckle. Call it an invasive species, but it sure is pleasing to the nose and eye.
It was a sunny, cool morning in the mountains with mature gallery forests on both sides of the road. The creek chattered unseen and to the left, and the valley grew more and more lovely the further I wandered away from the car--with frequent meadows and smaller brooks and the forest floor bright and clear and inviting--unobstructed by the jaggers and vines and undergrowth that you so frequently find in the compromised woodlands nearer to big urban areas.
By the time I made my slow trudge back toward the car, four hours after striking off, the skies were gray and spitting rain. I felt privileged to have seen this place in both the bright morning light and in the early gloom of a spring afternoon.
This is where the easement crosses Canoe Mountain, making a trail all the way to the top. As I hiked the gated road through Canoe Creek Valley in State Game Land 166, workmen riding in gators zipped past twice. I'm not sure what they were doing out there. They seemed to have some business near the electric line swath, down by the creek, which made me nervous because the swath was to be my trail up the mountainside. I wondered if there would be signs to ward off hikers or if the workmen themselves might try to stop me. It's about 2.5 miles from the gate to a wide place in the road where the electric easement crosses the valley--providing clear ascents up to the tops of both mountains!
Google seemed to be of the opinion that there was a restaurant or some sort of bar out there at that spot, where the power swath met the forest road. It even named the establishment "Stingers in Paradise." Look it up. It appears on Google Earth, with a little fork and spoon to indicate what kind of business it is. I doubted the possibility of Google's accuracy when I saw the gate across the roadway leading out to the bar. And once you get to the spot where Stingers in Paradise ought to be, all you see is a birdhouse and...this. The phantom bar with the intriguing name was nowhere to be found. Here's the same swath as it crosses over Brush Mountain, on the other side of the valley. Brush is taller than Canoe.
Beaver Dam Road does indeed lead to a beaver dam and a beautiful marshy area where Canoe Creek runs slow and deep. It would be fun to explore these still waters in a kayak.
Almost three miles from the gate, there's a fork in the road. The leftward way leads to the electric line easement and a long, muddy ascent to the mountain's peak.
The electric lines make an evil sound--a buzzing, and a snapping, and a sizzling. They hiss like vengeful serpents as you make your climb. But once I had the summit of Brush Mountain in view, real serpents could not have stopped me. After two failed attempts, I NEEDED to make it to the top. Here again is Canoe Mountain as seen from its neighbor.
Canoe Mountain actually proved quite photogenic on this trek, though nothing disrupts a good photograph like electric lines. There were wildflowers abloom on the long upward climb and a certain weed that smells like crayons, which I recall from childhood. The dogwood were in flower, and it reminded me that my grandmother never allowed my brothers and me to climb dogwood trees. Although she was a hinterland Methodist with a revivalistic bent, she believed the cross of Christ was made of dogwood, and so the tree was too sacred for climbing. I've never seen a dogwood tree tall or straight enough to provide planks for a crucifixion.
And finally, the summit! I made it to the top of Brush Mountain...on my third attempt. If I'd failed this time I was going to concede defeat and stop trying. (It's a 3-hour drive after all.) The gusts up top were strong and cold, and a few of the evergreen trees up there were flagged toward the east by constant winds. I was glad I'd brought a hoodie to the top, even though I had no need of it in the valley. It reminded me of a time in the Adirondacks. My friend and I would sweat and toss all through the hot nights in our tents down in the valley. But when we climbed to the windy mountaintops in daylight, we needed windbreakers and hats. To be sure, Brush Mountain is no Giant Mountain, which is the unimaginative name of the chilliest peak we climbed in New York. And the so-called Giant Mountain is no Mount Rainier. But this is a mountain all the same--certainly by the standards of, say, Belgium.... And unlike Giant Mountain and Rainier Mountain, I had this pinnacle all to myself.
Aside from the electric lines and towers, it felt like no one had ever been up there before. There were no beer bottles, no soda cans, no cigarette butts. There was no graffiti! The entire mountain was pristine, even the peak! Why don't kids from Altoona come out here? I mean...aside from the 3-mile walk to the trailhead and the steep, muddy climb up the mountainside.... I suppose the mountain is protected by the paucity of spots where you can legally climb it. I believe the the pinnacle on the horizon in this photo is the far more accessible and popular Tussey Mountain--which I've also summited and documented on this blog.
I had also seen on Google that if you follow the ridgeline either north or south you quickly get away from the manmade horror of the electric lines and into the mountaintop boulder fields--where views would be just as good and unobstructed by power lines. I made for the north and found my way to the nearest of many such barren spots on the mountain's heights. So beautiful. If this place were any easier to reach the stones would be absolutely covered in spray paint.
This is the view out toward Sinking Valley.
I maintain a page on a certain website where people put up photos and descriptions of the mountains they've climbed. The peaks range from Campbell Hill, which is the highest point in Ohio--where you can walk to the top from a parking lot--to real mountains that require icepicks and climbing gear. I'm the first person on that site to claim a lot of the peaks in West Virginia and Pennsylvania--though I know they're laughable to real mountain climbers. One of the reasons I absolutely HAD to reach the summit of Brush Mountain was that no one else had ever claimed or documented that mountain yet, despite the fact that it's visible from an interstate highway and looms over one of the larger towns in Central PA.
What a beautiful day--well worth six hours in the car! If my day in the forest last week felt unsatisfactory, I can see now that it was a reconnaissance mission which led me to today's success. You know, I speak about this grand old mountain in vaguely military terms, as if reaching its pinnacle was a conquest. But I do hate violent communication and ought to find gentler language to describe the joy that the mountain gave me. The mountain's ruggedness and beauty and solitude were not a victory as such; they were a gift that the mountain shared with me only after making absolutely sure that I was willing to work for them, that I was dedicated to achieving them, that I was worthy of their rarity. I'm grateful to this lonely, lovely mountain for opening her wonders to me at last. I could almost imagine living in Altoona just to be close to this place, to come here often and see the world from up here in every changing light and season. I ask it again, why do we spend our lives in ugly places?
Just to provide documentation for my forgetful future self, here's the trail I took. Park at the gate on Beaver Dam Road Extension, where the red line begins. Walk about 3 miles to the power line swath--which is shown in blue. Then up the mountain you go. I hope to return here to take the same route up Canoe Mountain.
