A Little Wilderness

A Little Wilderness

You may be surprised to learn there are 8663 acres of land-locked, federally-designated wilderness in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania . . . combined.

That statement needs some explanation.  First, the land-locked part:  There is a variety of federal wilderness areas in the Garden, Empire and Keystone states (sorry Delaware and Maryland).  In the case of New York, it’s the Otis Pike Fire Island High Dune Wilderness and in New Jersey, the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. Pennsylvania has the Allegheny Islands and the Hickory Creek Wildernesses. Of all these, Hickory Creek Wilderness alone is accessible by foot. 

Second, this is it not to suggest Hickory Creek has a monopoly on Mid-Atlantic wildness.  Can you say “Adirondack Park?”  Covering some 6 million acres, New York’s vast mountain preserve dwarfs even Yellowstone National Park in size.  However, with villages like Lake Placid and Saranac Lake – not to mention innumerable “camps” -- something like half of the land in Adirondack Park is privately owned.   Heck, according to that infallible source of information on all things – Wikipedia – Adirondack State Park boasts more than 30 golf courses.

   

There are plenty of other places between Toledo and the White Mountains to get lost in the woods, of course.  But only this tiny chunk of the Allegheny Plateau between Tionesta and Warren, PA qualifies as federally-protected wilderness.  To refresh your memory, the Federal Wilderness Act of 1964 defines a wilderness as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.

Nor is this to say the 8600+ acres bordered by East and Middle Hickory Creeks is, strictly speaking, forest primeval.  The area saw its share of logging in the 1800s and early-1900s; indeed, the principal trail through the wilderness often traces old railroad grades and logging skids.   However, commercial logging in Hickory Creek petered-out in 1920s and the ensuing years have seen the flora and fauna inexorably reclaim their turf, and the oil and natural gas wells that dot the surrounding 500,000 acre Allegheny National Forest are noticeably absent.

Thus, recent imprints of man’s work were largely unnoticeable on the loop trail I recently followed for a dozen miles through Hickory Creek Wilderness.  Well-marked and gently undulating, it passes through stands of mixed hardwoods – black cherry, oaks, maple and beech – with an understory of ferns, along with the occasional cool grove of hemlocks and a carpet of pine needles padding the path.  I also happened upon the odd meadow – whether “naturally occurring,” an old clear cut yet to return to a forested state or a long-since abandoned artillery firing range – where the dazzling sunshine contrasted to the woodlands’ dappled shade.

Although the trail crosses an occasional stream or bog, there are only two substantial watercourses – Jacks and Coon Runs – on the route.  Just beyond the loop’s counterclockwise mid-point, I came to the picturesque ford of Jacks Run, with deep pools along a winding watercourse in a park-like setting with several primo camping spots.  Looking to make a relatively quick exit from Hickory Creek the following morning, I continued on for another mile or two to Coon Run.

Less beguiling than Jacks Run, Coon Run passes through a brushy meadow bordered by a marsh that looked ominously welcoming to mosquitoes, with a couple of serviceable campsites tucked in a stand of oaks just a few paces off the pathway. 

A long day of easy hiking gave way to a languid late afternoon in my Big Agnes Seedhouse, alternating cat-naps with the simple pleasure of lying on my air mattress, gazing at my surroundings through the tent’s fine mesh walls, protected from the buzzing insects. 

At the trailhead I’d seen one fellow heading-off ahead of me and, later, encountered a trio of hikers heading the opposite direction between Coon and Jacks Run.  Camped by Coon Run, the late afternoon and early evening passed without another soul passing by.  And after a hearty meal of freeze-dried mac ‘n cheese and a liberal coating of DEET, I leaned my backpack against a tree and spent the evening reading, turning-on my headlamp as dusk gave way to dark.  Eventually, I repositioned my backpack in the tent to prop-up my neck, read another chapter or two, then turned-in at the civilized hour of 9 pm.

There was no rush for sleep; I was content to watch the night sky turn ever darker and stars begin appearing – Hickory Creek is, after all, not so very far from Cherry Springs State Park, “The Second International Dark Sky Park in the World” as designated by The International Dark-Skies Association.

Nor was the night’s entertainment limited to the visual senses.  As Coon Run relentlessly splashed past, an owl sporadically hooted from deep in the woods.  At times, the sound of jet planes drifted to earth, challenging me to find their pulsating lights among the stars and ponder their possible destinations, recalling how only a month ago I may well have passed over this miniscule spot on a red-eye from SFO to JFK.

Who needs television, radio or a page-turner when nature’s reality show is every bit as entertaining and infinitely more soothing.

The night passed in seamless episodes of slumber/sky gazing/listening.  No worries of insomnia when you’re sure to get your fill of sleep -- for as long as it takes – in the alarm-less morning to come.

Still, after catching 40, then 80 extra winks, the time to rise arrived.  But with just an hour or two of trail between camp and car, I could enjoy the relative luxury of wolfing down a granola bar or two while repacking.  After all, there was no need to cook when a hot breakfast awaited in some restaurant in Tionesta, Cooksburg or one of the other villages I’d soon be passing through on the way home . . . now that I’d had my fix of Pennsylvania’s little wilderness. 

A Highly Personalized Bike Tour of Pittsburgh’s East End

While my preferred form of weekend recreation is hiking and backpacking, bicycling is a close second.  Riding the streets of Pittsburgh has its challenges – potholes, clueless drivers and a total lack of anything approaching level ground – but it’s my favorite way to get around town.  

In some cases, a bike is the quickest way to get from Point A to Point B in the city, especially when you factor-in finding a parking spot . . . not to mention feeding Pittsburgh’s voracious parking meters.  What’s more, there’s no better way to get in touch with the city, its neighborhoods, its people and its history than from the seat of a bike.

Last Sunday was a perfect case in point, as a two-three hour ride around the East End touched a veritable cornucopia of the city’s cultural/historical highpoints in the Highland Park, East Liberty, Shadyside, Squirrel Hill, Oakland, Bloomfield and Garfield neighborhoods. 

All told it amounted to about a ten mile ride, with really only one grunt of a climb up Beachwood Blvd from Shadyside to Squirrel Hill and, on the return leg, up Shady Avenue to Beacon Street, high point of Squirrel Hill.

One of the gracious houses along that slog up Beachwood Blvd was once the home of Fred “Mister” Rogers.  Back in the day, Mister Rogers used to walk to work at the WQED studios in Oakland; not every day, but on a sun-splashed afternoon like this past Sunday, it’s easy to imagine Fred hoofing it – perhaps in his Keds – over to Shady or Wilkins Avenues, down to Fifth Avenue and on to WQED.

One of the neat things about living in Pittsburgh in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s is that we really were part of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.  Just to name a couple of "for instances" -- the cousin of one of my best friends played the role of Handyman Aber, and the father of my daughter’s grade school friend appeared in another show.

Further along Beachwood sit the neo-gothic structures of St. Philomena Academy, used as a setting in 1996’s forgettable Diabolique (starring Sharon Stone, who hails from not too distant Crawfordsville, PA).  And right behind St Philomena’s stands Taylor Alderdice High School where Curtis Martin played football before matriculating at the University of Pittsburgh and, later, going on to a Hall of Fame career with the New England Patriots and the New York Jets.

On semi-level ground now, you wind past the new development of Somerset, rising on slag heaps that are the by-products of decades of steel making.  Soon you’re confronted with a panoramic vista of the Monongahela River valley stretching from Turtle Creek, Braddock and Rankin to Homestead – site of a bloody confrontation in 1892 between the nascent steel workers union and the stooges of Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, the Pinkerton Detective Agency and, finally the Pennsylvania militia. 

  

US Steel’s Homestead works are long gone, replaced by the sprawling Waterfront shopping center.  The only physical reminders of the site’s history is a line of smoke stacks bordering one of the parking lots and, tucked away at the far end, the steel mill’s pump house.  The pump house served as a redoubt for the strikers and today contains a memorial plaque honoring John Faris, killed by a Pinkerton sharpshooter.

The bike path along Beachwood Blvd ends at Brown’s Hill Road, so it’s time for a U-Turn.  Halfway between St Philomena’s and Mister Rogers’ house, a left and a steep climb up Shady Avenue brings you to another modest piece of Pittsburgh’s cinematic history: a row of houses that posed as Motown in NBC’s made-for-TV movie The Temptations. 

Free-wheeling through nearby Schenley Park, you enjoy the downhill run bought and paid for earlier by the slog from Shadyside up to Squirrel Hill.  Work through the Carnegie-Mellon University campus and you emerge on Fifth Avenue, near the WQED studios that were once the destination of Fred Rogers’ walks.  Although the WQED building is a remarkably non-descript exercise in poured concrete, the T-Rex standing out front in the Mr Rogers sweater is dead give-away to what's inside . . . 

Next door to the home of Fred’s mythical neighborhood stands Central Catholic High School, where another local kid played high school football before going on to Pitt and a pretty fair NFL career of his own . . . fellow named Dan Marino.

Pedal a few blocks further along Fifth Avenue and you’ll come to Mellon Institute, whose neo-classical edifice will soon appear in theatres as the stage for the climactic fight scene of the upcoming Batman epic The Dark Knight Rises.  A sharp right on Bellfield Ave eventually takes you past magnificent (but sadly, closed) Schenley High School, alma mater of Matthew and Laura Phillips – not to mention George Benson and Andrew Warhola (aka Andy Warhol).

From here it’s on to Bloomfield – where another local chap named John Unitas played semi-pro ball for the Bloomfield Rams for $6 a game after he was cut by the Steelers -- and Garfield.  Garfield is a neighborhood very much in the midst of a fascinating “transition,” with derelict buildings standing cheek-to-jowel with funky coffee shops, bookstores, art studios, nail salons and store front lawyers.

On one side of the Penn Avenue that serves as Garfield’s main street, stands St. Laurence O’Toole Catholic church where Matthew Phillips was baptized.  On the other side of the street is the Pittsburgh Family center, supported in part by another true Pittsburgher (by choice rather than birth) Mario Lemieux.

Back across Penn Ave from the family center is the St. Laurence O’Toole parish’s social/recreational building.  A close inspection reveals the building is named Laurentian Hall.  Is it mere coincidence that Laurentian Hall stands across the street from a family center supported by a guy who learned to play his incomparable brand of ice hockey in Montreal, not far removed from Quebec’s ancient Laurentian Mountains?  

Getting close to home now, a left on Negley and a right onto East Liberty Boulevard brings you past Peabody High School which, like Schenley High School, is currently mothballed.  In Schenley’s case, the purported reason for its closure was the prohibitive cost of removing copious quanties of asbestos insulation.  Cynics suggest the city of Pittsburgh has an ulterior motive for Schenley’s closing, namely selling the massive structure to the nearby University of Pittsburgh.  As for Peabody, in a scene worthy of Edgar Allen Poe, its graceful neo-classic structure was entombed in bricks in response to the original “energy crisis” and only a few vestiges of its true beauty remain . . . including a remnant of its own neo-classical facade and a monument to the "boys" who served in World War I.

   

It's at least comforting to know Peabody is scheduled to reopen as the “Obama Academy” for gifted students – some of whom may be pleased to learn they are attending the alma mater of another pretty remarkable Pittsburgh artist: Gene Kelly.   

Finally, my free-wheeling bicycle tour of the East End leads down Bryant Street past a blue and gold landmark sign all but hidden by the leafy branches of a maturing sapling.  A close inspection reveals the sign honors jazz great and Duke Ellington colleague Bill Eckstine, who grew up in the house that stands next to the Walnut Market.  

 

Like a lot of interesting facets of Pittsburgh (and other locales), it’s the sort of thing you’d miss breezing past in a car at 25 or 30 mph . . . and just the sort of thing that makes you glad you spied it from the seat of a bicycle.

The Path Not Taken

I doubt Robert Frost ever spent much time in Western Pennsylvania, particularly the outdoor playground known as the Laurel Highlands.  But last Sunday, on the first magnificent day of spring (even though it was a few days shy of the vernal equinox) half of the Mid-Atlantic states seemed to be out and about in Ohiopyle, the region’s recreational nexus.

Although fewer than 100 souls call Ohiopyle home the year ‘round (the 2000 census pegged the population at 77), the hamlet swells to many, many times that size on the weekends in the spring, summer and fall.  A few miles north of town, Fallingwater’s world-renowned beige and Cherokee red cantilevers hang suspended over Bear Run; a few miles south of town Frank Lloyd Wright’s lesser-known  Kentuck Knob is perched near the top of a hill overlooking the rounded mountains surrounding Ohiopyle, including the gorge of the Youghiogheny River – aka The Yough.

There are certainly more savage rivers in the United States, but none see more white water rafting than the Yough.   Even when the water is running high and swift – as it was last weekend – the rapids on the two mile stretch below the falls of the Youghiogheny (overlooked by Ohiopyle itself) are tailor-made for kayakers and rafters of all shapes, sizes and experience levels.  At least half a dozen commercial outfitters ply its waters, giving neophyte river runners a thrill or three, while scores of experienced kayackers delight playing in Cucumber, Railroad, Dimple and Double Hydraulic rapids . . . although a summer seldom passes that some unfortunate soul doesn’t drown after being tossed from his craft and getting stuck beneath the school bus-sized boulder that gives Dimple Rapids its name.

While the Yough has been drawing white water adventurers and entrepreneurs for half a century, Ohiopyle has only recently become a bicycling magnet.  These days scores of cyclists use Ohiopyle as the jumping off point for a day trip along one of the most scenic stretched of the Great Allegheny Passage bike path that stretches from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, MD, where it connects with the C&O Canal Towpath and on to Washington DC.

The path, which utilizes the abandoned railbed of the Western Maryland Railroad, parallels the Yough as it executes a nearly 360 degree loop downstream from Ohiopyle.   Along some stretches the bike path also utilizes (or usurps depending on one’s perspective) a network of footpaths paralleling the river. 

So it was that, on the first morning of DST, I set out on a Great Gorge hiking trail that sometimes runs in tandem with and “under” the bike path from its origins near the thundering falls of Cucumber Run down to Jonathan and Sugar Runs.

For much of the way, the Great Gorge path is delightfully easy walking, as it uses the railroad bed, with its wide, gentle and rock- and tree root-free gentle grades pleasantly meandering through a forest of pines and hardwood, with occasional rivulets plunging down the hillside towards the jade green Youghiogheny. 

About a mile into the trip though, a substantial bridge hoves into view on the right, one utilizing the weather-beaten pillars of an old railroad trestle connecting a spur to this mainline and now reborn as a foot/bicycle bridge for the Great Allegheny Passage.  Here you are presented with a Frost-like conundrum – take the bike path, a veritable forest freeway of crushed stone, gravel and sand, or the uneven, unpaved and less traveled Beech Trail climbing the slope above. 

It took me but a moment to select the Beech Trail, with its slightly more challenging nature and decidedly more intimate character.  Like the Great Gorge trail before it, the Beech Trail contours along the hillside, sometimes dipping under craggy outcrops, other times winding back along bubbling, rhododendrum-choked rills and, eventually, climbing to the point where stream crossings are better accomplished with a hop, skip and a jump than a costly bridge or culvert.

Eventually, however, the Beech Trail goes the way of the Great Gorge Trail, dropping to the level of, and merging with, the Great Allegheny Passage.  So be it.  Having seen just six people – and two dogs – on the bike path in the first two hours of my hike, it wasn’t like I was thrust into rush hour traffic upon joining the path more often taken.

In fact I only saw one other soul – a cheerful woman cruising past on a mountain bike – over the next mile or so, before I followed some wooden steps down towards the river and made my way to a rocky beach alongside Dimple Rapids.

Although I initially had the place to myself, I was soon joined by a rod-less fisherman, scouting the site for a planned visit with his grandson some future weekend.  And before long, one, two, three and, finally, oodles of kayakers paddled past, frolicking in the hydraulics before heading downstream to Swimmers, Schoolhouse rapids and the Yough’s rendezvous with Bear Run.  Several so enjoyed the experience, they paddled to shore, clambored from their kayaks and executed a gingerly portage along the rocky shore in their wet-suit moccasins only to button-back-up in their coffin-sized vessels and do it all over again. 

Before long, a low rumble announced the approach of a train.  Sure enough, a pair of diesel locomotives appeared across the river trailing a mile-long string of coal-laden hopper cars destined for the fossil fuel-fired power plants of the Midwest and what remains of Pittsburgh’s steel industry.

When it comes to Ohiopyle, the Youghiogheny and the Laurel Highlands, it seems there’s no end to the transportation options – be it trains, automobiles, kayaks, rafts, bicycles or the shoe leather express.  What’s more, sometimes those of us using the latter can have our cake and eat it too:  On the “back” part of my ‘out ‘n back hike,’ rather than retrace my steps along the Beech Trail, I stuck with the bike path and got the best of both worlds from my outing . . . even if Mr. Frost is rolling over in his grave!

Canyonlands, PA

Last September I spent a week in Canyonlands National Park, a week highlighted by a day hike to the remote confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers and a backcountry overnighter to Druids Arch mixed with shorter explorations of various slot canyons and archeological sites from petroglyphs and Anasazi ruins to remnants of the early pioneer days. 

Last weekend I visited another remote confluence, two natural bridges and a “slot canyon” all within an hour’s drive of Pittsburgh, all within two miles of a trailhead in the rolling farmland of Western Pennsylvania. 

The particular locale is McConnell’s Mills State Park, home to what after Intercourse and Bird-in-Hand may be the butt of more jokes than any other locale in the Keystone state: Slippery Rock Creek.  The creek – which would qualify as a full-fledged river in many places – got its name from the Native Americans who found rocks near its headwaters quite, well, slippery thanks to the petroleum seeping to the surface; petroleum destined to be tapped by Edwin Drake in nearby Titusville, sparking the dawn on the petroleum age in 1859.

As you might deduce, McConnell’s Mill State Park is best known for the picturesque mill and covered bridge on Slippery Rock Creek just before it carves its way through a 600’ gorge en route to the Beaver and, later, Ohio Rivers. Understandably so.  The mill and bridge are the stuff of post-cards and, with an occasionally rugged trail running alongside the fast-flowing creek, a draw for hikers, canoeists, rafters, anglers, rock climbers and photographers alike.

Four or five miles downstream, Hell Run flows into Slippery Rock Creek after a trip down a less dramatic but more idyllic gorge lined on each side by trails.  The trailhead at the beginning of that journey offers little hint of the wonders to come.  To all appearances, Hell Run is little more (or less) than a stream meandering through a woodsy glen, steps away from farms whose livestock is audible for the first few hundred yards of the hike.  The trail quickly presents you with a choice: bear right to the Hell’s Hollow Trail or left for the very much longer and demanding Slippery Rock Gorge trail leading to the confluence of Hell Run and Slippery Rock Creeks and, ultimately, McConnell’s Mills. 

On the right fork you quickly enter a world apart, as Hell Run splashes over a series of ledges before carving through multiple thin bands of shale in a narrow, if not particularly deep “slot canyon.”  The shiny gray-black walls contrast with alternating carpets of dry brown leaves, brilliant white snow and velvety yellow-green moss decorated with crystalline icycles dangling from the rock layercake.  Further along, the watercourse crosses a broad shelf with barely enough water to dampen the whole expanse, creating a wafer-thin water sculpture in the bargain.

There’s much more to come.  A few yards further along the trail stand the remnants of a 19th century lime kiln.  A nearby staircase leads down to the water’s edge beside Hell’s Hollow Falls, a twenty foot cascade plunging into a shaded pool broken-up by a jumble of fallen trees and boulders – made treacherously slippery this day not by petroleum but a thin coating of ice.

And what of the trail on the other side?  Retrace your steps up Hell Run, cross a sturdy wooden bridge and you join the Slippery Rock Gorge trail, which happens to be a two mile segment of the North Country Trail, a “work in progress” that, when finished will stretch some 4,600 miles across seven states from South Dakota to New York and take its place alongside the Appalachian, Continental Divide and Pacific Crest Trails as one of America’s great long distance through hikes.

It’s hard to imagine any two miles of the North Country Trail will be more delightful than these.  While it’s hardly a rigorous two miles, there are ups and downs aplenty, some fairly steep, multiple stream crossings and not one but two natural bridges created by streams undercutting the limestone as they plunge to Hell Run hundreds of feet below. 

This time of year (and probably deep into April and perhaps early May) the natural bridges do double duty as ice caves, their dark interiors five or ten degrees cooler than the surface world and never seeing the light of day, at least directly.

Pressing-on, the omnipresent sounds of Hell Run are eventually drowned-out by a greater din, the sounds of Slippery Rock Creek.  Heard but not seen, Slippery Rock Creek is directly ahead as the trail makes a sharp left and heads towards Walnut Flats, the Eckert Bridge and, ultimately, McConnell's Mills.  This day, however, my destination is the confluence of Hell Run and Slippery Rock Creeks, a couple of hundred feet down a steep hillside on an unofficial trail.

From the moment I first laid eyes on the point of land between the two water courses several years ago, it’s been my ambition to camp there overnight.  It’s an ideal campsite, a flat, wooded parklet of sorts with lots boulders for shelves and seats around a spot that has obviously been used for many a campfire . . . as it is this day.  A trail of smoke rises to greet me as I clamor down the hillside and spy a man and three boys fishing nearby on Slippery Rock Creek.  Unless they intend to flout Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources rules, however, they will not be spending the night . . . although I can’t say the thought hasn’t occurred to me that it would be worth risking the wrath of the DCNR to slip in here with a tent and sleeping bag on my back just before dark some midweek summer’s evening.

No matter, it’s a perfectly wonderful place to spend an afternoon, lounging in the sun by the rushing waters of Slippery Rock Creek , or exploring the final quarter mile of Hell Run as it ends with the flourish of two elegant little waterfalls.

On a chilly winter’s day though, Slippery Rock Creek is no place for lounging.  It’s not so chilly as to discourage a leisurely lunch of PBJ, apple and Luna bar mind you, but it’s a far cry from the sun-drenched summer afternoons that have seen me doze away the hours listening to the waters hurrying towards the Ohio River.  

So with a wave to the fishermen of all ages, it’s a brisk climb back up the hill, over the natural bridges and through the woods to the trailhead . . . and back to a Pittsburgh few know lies just an hour away from the most beautiful natural bridges and slot canyon this side of Canyonlands National Park.