Horse-Shoe Trail Section 4

French Creek State Park to Maple Grove Rd
December 28, 2012
section miles:  14.9    total miles: 56.1

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With a fair amount of snow headed our way in the near-term forecast, Rene and I decided to squeeze in one more hike, even though the temps were expected to hover around the mid-30's, a bit lower than we had hoped for.  I want to say that this section of the trail is "nondescript"... partly because I'm having a  hard time thinking of anything to write, but mostly because I want to crawl back in bed and recuperate.  UPHILL is the first thing that comes to mind.  You'll climb several times from valley floor to ridge top, the latter affording some nice views of the surrounding landscape once you can stand up and breathe again.  Along the way you'll pass mostly through woods, but there are a couple of miles of road walking through a totally ridiculous subdivision perched on top of a hill (I take it they really enjoy wind) dropping very steeply (and sledding too) down to Buck Hollow Road, which leads you into Plowville and across I-176.  Our understanding is that the Horse-Shoe Trail organization is working to get this part of the trail rerouted.

Gone are the genteel horse stables and country mansions of the first part of the trail.  Here you'll be walking past more typical Pennsylvania country livin', ranging from neatly kept homes to the occasional survivalist encampment deftly camouflaged with spare tires and abandoned vehicles.  We had no issues with dogs, but they're clearly around and worth keeping an eye on.  I did have an issue with ducks, however. We passed through one homestead that appeared to be conducting breeding experiments with geese and pigeons, the giant, mutant offspring of which chased roosters around the yard and stared at us with a hungry, meat-eating gaze. I later learned, courtesy of Google and my highly-descriptive search term "ugly black duck", that these were Muscovy Ducks, which apparently have a small but devoted following in agriculture.

We did come across one very interesting historic home - the Mary Miller House, ca 1745, shown below.  And that's all I know - the name and date, because it's posted on the lamp post. No luck finding any other information.

This is hunting season, so we adorned ourselves with blaze orange for safety, and good thing too, having met two hunters in the woods.  I was concerned that we might be interfering with the hunt, but one guy said, "No problem.  Keep 'em moving.", meaning we would stir up the deer for them.  And that we did, kicking up a half-dozen or so on a couple different occasions.  We only heard a few shots ring out all day.

When I asked Rene for her opinion on the hike, she said the first thing to come to mind were ferns and mosses. "Oh", she said, "and a lot of elevation change."  The further west you go on this section, the more rocky the trail becomes.  It is not debilitating by any means, but in some places there are enough rocks to noticeably slow your pace.  These rocks are the red sandstone and conglomerates of the Triassic Hammer Creek formation, and all along the trail they are covered with a verdant carpet of moss.  In the nearby communities it is common to see old stone barns, houses and walls made from this red sandstone.

I'm thinking that's probably gonna be it for a while.  It's looking like we may have an actual winter this year, which means we may not get out again until March.  In the meantime, back to the gym.  Happy New Year to all!

Horse-Shoe Trail Section 3

French Creek Elementary School to French Creek State Park
December 23, 2012
section miles:  15.4    total miles: 41.2

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Rene and I were eager to complete a few more hikes while the weather still permits, and this section of the Horse-shoe Trail fit in nicely on a crisp, sunny Christmas Eve Eve.  We were accompanied by our trail mentor, Dean, who lives in the area and has hiked the entire HST.  Dean was a wealth of information on the trail and the surrounding area, all of which I promptly forgot once he mentioned that there was a great bakery in town but it closed at 4:00 pm.  The rate-distance calculations filled my head immediately and remained stuck there, crowding out all other ambient mental processes (according to Rene, this is no big feat).  Dean had to peel off after a few miles, but while he was with us it was like having our own personal guided tour.  Thanks, Dean!

We also brought along our neighborhood friend, Tim, for comic relief and to set the pace to something resembling a real hiking experience for a change (just kidding, Tim... great to have you along!).  Tim is one of those wirey, terrier-sized guys with way too much energy for their age, but Rene and I were determined to keep up. A few furlongs down the trail we came to French Creek, and Tim casually sauntered across on a conveniently downed tree trunk, never even bothering to take his hands out of his pockets.  Rene, naturally, had to give it a try since Tim did it, whereas I employed actual brain waves and opted for the less-likely-to-wind-up-on-youtube, rock-hopping route.  She made it a good third of the way across and promptly froze, legs quivering in rather impressive harmonic motion and eyes glued on the log with the water rushing below.  An hour later - or so it seemed - she made it safely across and Tim and I collectively exhaled. "Does she always challenge herself like that?", he asked.  Um, no. Thankfully.

About five miles into the hike we picked up an odd sound in the distance. At first I thought it was a kennel with a gazillion dogs barking at the top of their lungs, but the noise never ceased, just faded and came back, faded and moved on.  Tim, who grew up riding dirt bikes, announced that it was a motorcycle race, and we all agreed that made total sense, largely because none of us has ever found themselves embedded directly in the middle of a fox hunt.  Tim scaled a ridge at his springy pace while Rene and I stopped for one reason or another... probably to breathe... and while he was up there a pack of hounds crashed through at a full fox-crazed sprint.  "I saw them dogs comin' and I thought I was a goner", Tim would later recount. Not far behind came two beautiful and very pleasant ladies mounted on chestnut horses, perfectly appointed in their riding gear.  They explained that two clubs were out hunting, with about fifty dogs in total.  They also made sure we understood that they don't hurt the foxes.  Call me a genius, but I'm thinking there's probably a connection between the mansions we saw on the last hike and the people we met on this one.  And after thirty some miles, we finally met a horse on the HST.

This part of the Horse-shoe Trail is essentially all woodland hiking, with just a few hundred yards of road walking here and there.  The trail itself is often wide and well groomed, and along certain sections you can clearly see that you are navigating along an old wagon-road: straight, level and elevated above the surrounding forest floor.  The Horse-shoe trail had its origins in the roads that connected the various 18th and early 19th century iron furnaces of this area, and it is on this section where that history comes immediately to the forefront.  You'll walk right through the vestiges of the early charcoal industry used to fuel the furnaces (keep your eye on the ground for evidence) and continue on to Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site.  We spent a fair amount of time milling about the site, outside buildings, inside buildings, everything open and completely accessible.  Surprisingly accessible, actually - there were no workers or rangers or volunteers to be seen anywhere.  Granted, it was two days before Christmas, but still, it was sort of like visiting a ghost town, with the occasional disembodied recorded voice thrown in for good measure  (who knows, maybe that's just the way it is).

The iron ore in this part of Pennsylvania is the product of a subsurface volcanic intrusion which took place some 170 million years ago, give or take 30 million by my watch.  The associated volcanic fluids were rich in dissolved iron, among other things, and where they contacted and dissolved surrounding carbonates (limestone  or marble), iron-ores precipitated.  But this intrusion had other historical consequences as well. Seams of magma found their way into (or induced) fractures in the Earth's crust, slowly solidifying and creating sills and dikes of finely-crystalline, hard, dark rock known to geologists as diabase.  This igneous rock is more resistant to erosion than the surrounding sedimentary strata and as such has a notable influence on the geography of the region, even playing a part in the civil war at Gettysburg, where it crops out in a rocky soldier's hell known as the Devil's Den.  Locally the rock was quarried and marketed as "black granite" for use as decorative building stone, and in the 1950's it even found a place in the space program as an industrial surface material for the manufacture of high-precision parts. Keep an eye out for bluish diabase boulders strewn across the landscape for a few miles east of Hopewell Furnace. One interesting  characteristic you might notice is a "turtle shell" appearance (see photo) which are shrinkage cracks produced as the rock cooled and solidified.  

If time permits, be sure and drop by the historic site of St. Peter's Village, where you can see the remains of a  black-granite quarry and related historic buildings, and more importantly, feast at the St. Peter's bakery.  And yes, thanks to my constant urging, we made it there with plenty of time to sit and enjoy a good cup of coffee and dessert, but still late enough to go home with freebies as they closed.  Perfection, I would say.

Horse-Shoe Trail Section 2

Brightside Farm to French Creek Elementary School
December 2, 2012
section miles:  14.0    total miles: 25.8

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Our second section on the Horse-shoe Trail covered 14 miles - a little more ambitious than we originally planned.  We wanted to end this leg at Welkinweir gardens (12 mi), but a special event was taking place and the parking lots were closed when we arrived, so we drove on another couple of miles and dropped the second car at the elementary school. Welkinweir looks very interesting, and we made a note to come back and visit in the spring. If you plan to park there, you may want to call in advance.

The first 8-10 miles of this section were mostly road walking, with a quick-dip into the woods for respite here and there. But this is not lets-hurry-up-and-get-this-over-with road walking.  This is a touring amble through miles of beautiful horse-country and gorgeous estates, with some historic homes and architectural gems in the mix.  Granted, there was the occasional McMansion lawn-farmer and a few subdivisions here and there, but the overall walk was exceptional. Each bend in the road seemed to bring us a new favorite, but hands down by the end of the day was a garden cottage that looked like a hobbit home from Lord of the Rings, round doors and all.

Postscript: a couple of weeks after completing this section, we saw the following article posted about the hobbit house: http://news.yahoo.com/far-shire-hobbit-house-pa-country-225634144.html 

Here's another link which takes you directly to the architect's page: http://www.archerbuchanan.com/portfolio.asp?isection=3

At one point Rene commented that she felt like she was on a "home and garden tour."  She also  did her best to impress me with her knowledge of the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

"People who live in homes like these have house managers."

"I have a house manager."

"Very funny."

The road walking was gentle, with relatively modest ups and downs, the traffic was light, and there was often plenty of room to walk off the side of the road in the grass if you so desired.  The occasional loose dog announced his presence, but all were well behaved and did not leave their property.  Beyond 10 miles you begin to spend more time on trails than on roads, navigating across some farmland and hills which become significantly more challenging.  You will traverse several ridges as you pass through the Welkinweir region and arrive at French Creek Elementary.  The good news is that the trail tends to switchback or climb gradually up the steeper hills, but there were a few sections that headed right-on-up and left us gasping for breath.

I'm writing this a week in arrears, as we're stuck at home with rain moving through on the day we planned to hike our third section. I believe that is where we will start to pick up more trail than road, and we're looking forward to the challenge.  In the meantime we're working hard at the gym to get ready for the hills that are looming in our future.  Sadly, gym attendance appears to stimulate the body's natural need for cheeseburgers and french fries, so I'm not entirely sure we're making any real progress here.