PA Game Lands Wander 2

Back out to the game lands for another wandering, looking for sun, exercise, and inspiration. I've lost track of what week it is - for that matter what day it is - but I have enough work to do at my computer that it all runs together anyway, pandemic or not. The local TV weatherperson reminded us four times this week that we've only had five days of full sun for all of April so far. It has been rather dreary, but today offered a nice mix of sun and clouds with morning rain cleared by noon. Off we went to hunt the sun.

Hoping for a break in the clouds on the way to the game lands.

By April all those young beech trees that have been holding on to their paper-thin leaves all winter have let them go as new leaf buds form. The woods looked lighter and greener than ever. Shadbush was still blooming. Wild phlox blossomed along the access road.

Woods road to the bluff

Amos had been very antsy with all the rainy weather so this hike was for him. He snuffled through
every bunch of grass and pile of leaves. He stood with his nose in the air to pull in every scent. He investigated every animal trail that intersected the old road. The road was muddy in spots while  standing puddles filled ruts in other places, but the animal tracks were great. He checked out each and every line, print by print.

At the bluff overlooking the Susquehanna River.

We came to the bluffs that are dramatically visible from the Norman Wood Bridge driving east into Lancaster County. From the bridge you can see the severe tilt of bedrock telling of continental collisions and the raising of mountains further inland. From on top, the view into York County is almost obscured now with the woods finally leafing out. It is a very long way down from here.

Dead Nettle in a clearing

Triple track - White Tailed Deer, Turkey, Skunk

There is a little-used trail that I like to find before the the overgrowth blocks the way but this time I found that it has been well used of late! Seems others have discovered that this game lands tract makes for a nice walk in the woods. I spotted a small patch of trillium and trout lily on the steep pitch many yards away on the slope. The trail slips down to the head of a ravine creek on its way to tumble over the bluff.

Upper reach of a ravine creek.

We were investigating the boggy, mossy hollow when something grunted and squawked higher up the woods. Amos about yanked me off my feet as he pulled up the trail to discover the noise-maker. We never found the source of the sound but his nose was higher than his tail when he reached the gravel road on the far side of the tract. We stood and waited - he sniffed the air and I peered all around. Nothing.

Trillium

While I stood waiting for Amos to do something - I noticed a bunch of trillium almost at my feet.  I don't think I would have seen them had he not stopped at this exact spot. Since this was his hike I let him stand there as long as he wanted while I admired the flowers. After about twenty minutes he was positive that the beasty thing had long vacated the hill.

Successful sun hunt!

The sun shone brightly through a break in a low grey cloud deck and I congratulated Amos on having successfully hunted the sun. He had no idea what I was saying, I'm sure, but he did look immensely proud of himself and pranced up the road to the car where he knew he'd get a treat for such a nice hike.

PA Game Land Wander

Close to home are four different tracts of land under the management of the Pennsylvania Game Commission. These are public hunting lands where we can go to hunt deer, turkey, squirrel, rabbit, and other game animals to put meat on the table. I'm lucky to have Game Lands tracts of  #83, #181, #288, and #136 near by, certainly within my ten-mile-radius of stay-at-home range.

Pincushion Moss

Now and then a relic of an old farm appears and I am reminded of the families that lived on these old roads. Tractor parts, old pails, farming implements - all sooner or later work their way through the leaf litter.  A slender white-walled tire has become a play ground for fox kits. A locust fence post bears the marks of a buck in rut. 

Battered old bucket

Ruin is in place here:

The dead leaves rotting on the ground,

The live leaves in the air

Are gathered in a single dance

That turns them round and round.

The fox cub trots his almost pathless path

As silent as his absence.

These passings resurrect

A joy without defect,

The life that steps and sings in ways of death.

- Wendell Berry, from Sabbaths - 1979, IV

Ground Pine, a club moss

I love coming across the club mosses since it's a plant that vines through all of my hikes from Vermont and Prince Edward Island to New Hampshire and Wisconsin. It's Pleistocene ancestors towered fifty feet above the ground. There are two places north of here where I can go to find fossilized trunks of the tree-form club moss. 

Sharp-shinned hawk feather

Pattern is everywhere in the old pine woods. From the cross-crossed needles that carpet the forest floor to the yellow-on-green veining of the leaves of Downy Rattlesnake Plantain, my eye is drawn to the way lines and colors compete for attention and how some animals and insects adopt these patterns to blend in with them. Though a hawk feather stands out on the ground, I hold it up against the pattern of the pine branches above and almost lose sight of it.

Downy Rattlesnake Plantain

The pine woods were planted in the 1960s when many state agencies were still adhering to the "plantation" model of reforestation - planting in neat rows all of a same species. The woods in this particular game land are way past their prime and were never timbered out or select cut. It's a mix of dark shade, toppled trees aged out, and a persistent thicket of an understory made up of black cherry and beech that will one day replace the pines and allow other species to grow. 

Dried raceme of Rattlesnake Plantain

A concern for native orchids, however, is plant collectors. I was out walking on sunny May afternoon in a distant tract of #136 and found two very nice folks loading their Subaru with two five gallon buckets of Lady Slippers they'd dug from the forest. They played innocent but I had the sense they were pretty good at what they were doing. I took their plate number down and called my local warden when I got home. He was happy to report that this couple were "old hands" at orchid theft and that the plants had probably already been put into containers and sold, but that he would pay them a visit. I learned later that they were fined.

Wild orchids, like the Rattlesnake Plantain, are commonly found in rich woodlands. Pennsylvania has 54 different species of native orchid found in our woods. The little Rattlesnake Plantain makes its presence known year-round by keeping intact its woody-stemmed raceme that stays erect above the forest floor. One tract of game lands that I love to explore has yielded over a dozen orchid species, but it takes a slow, mindful hunt to find them, and a good bit of bog-edge walking. 

Black Puffball

Spotted Wintergeen

After wandering off-trail through the old pine woods we jumped back on the main trail, an old road, and wound all the way around the tract for a three mile loop. Another cold front was building from the west and the woods filled with mist and light rain by the time we climbed back into the car. 

PA Pinnacle Trails: Easter Sunrise

For those working through this pandemic in agriculture, healthcare, essential services, and food access - thank you. Even today, Easter, in the early dimness of morning hours I watched the battered blue van on its way to pick up/drop off the laborers who work at our area dairies and processing plants. Amos my goofy black and tan coonhound bounded out of the car to hike one his favorite places. The Pinnacle is adorned with stone walls which shelter his favorite quarry.

Pinnacle Overlook - a wisp of a sunrise

The morning dawned misty and quiet as we began our trek up the Old Pinnacle Road to reach the overlook by sunrise. There were no planes in the air, no cars or trucks or trains but in the empty space of the lost human soundscape suddenly a chorus of bird song erupted from the woods to take its place. Wild geese trumpeted from down on the river. Cattle from a farm across the valley bellowed on their pastures which shone so brilliantly green on the hillside.

Signs of our times. 

We followed the Old Pinnacle Road around to find no sunrise service at the overlook where on most Easters at least two small congregations gather. There were no cars or vans from the local churches and meetings. No one was setting up the coffee and donuts for after service. There was some trash left over from the day before which I picked up - but not much. There was only the sound of the new day dawning.

Old Pinnacle Road is now a blazed trail.

Amos and I made the circuit around the dome of the Pinnacle and followed the old road back to a section  of the long distance Conestoga Trail. Sunrise filtered through high clouds which were drifting in from the south. The Mid-Atlantic is expecting a strong line of storms and heavy rain to begin within twenty-four hours. The muted light, however, made the colors pop a little more and I was amazed at how much greener that far pasture across the river looked as the light brightened.

Vandalism where there had been none before.

The steep rocky trail seemed a bit tired, even haggard. It hasn't seen this much foot traffic in a while.  I picked up more wrappers, empty bottles, and the cap to a spray can left behind after ruining an outcrop with purple paint. People have gone off trail everywhere. Just like my observations of the Mason Dixon Trail last week, too many wandering people - unfamiliar with trail etiquette - have left disturbed paths of exposed worn, thin forest soils. I worried about the impact the heavy rains tomorrow will have on all of our overused trails.

On the Conestoga Trail

Amos was hot on the scent trail of a ground hog. This is his favorite animal to track but I reined him in to slow down on a particularly steep set of rock scrambles. I knew the ground hog den was somewhere in these outcrops and Amos was very excited to find it, but I was worried about being pulled over two hundred feet of sheer drop-off.  We had to have a talk about his trail manners before we went any further.  Collected and careful, Amos walked slowly down the hill without pulling as long as I reminded him to "gentle walk."  The trail reconnected again to the Old Pinnacle Road and we took the safer route rather than continue down the rocky slide.

Rattlesnake Plantain - a small woodland orchid.

An 1864 map shows that the Pinnacle hill, one of the great river hills of this region, was used primarily for timber cutting during the Civil War. It's thin-soils and loose rock  made it hard to farm and was used for pasturing animals after the woods had been cleared. The two creek valleys that define the height of the hill north and south are Kelly's Run and Tucquan Creek.  Where they emptied out into the Susquehanna there were grist and saw mills but most importantly was McCall's Ferry that carried Conestoga wagons and passengers by large flatboats across the river.

Lancaster County Township Map, Marctic, 1864 

The famed wagons were built here in the Conestoga region and are still an icon of the history of westward expansion. McCall's Ferry even had an inn to house those waiting to cross, with stables for the horses and Fisher's provisioning station for long-distance travelers to add to their stocks for the first phase of going west. We walked the old road up and away from the site of the ferry crossing to explore the hill. In the 1850s and 60s Conestoga wagons would have been streaming the other way to make the crossing at the valley below.

An old  PPL company gate is still locked.

When the building boom of the great dam era began in the early 1900s, the Old Pinnacle Road was "improved"  by steam shovels and bulldozers. Used mostly by power company workers who lived in small temporary hill villages, the "New" Pinnacle Road carried tourists as well who made the bumpy ride to the top for the view.  Seeing an opportunity to draw more Sunday drivers and picnickers, Pennsylvania Power and Light developed the top of the hill with tables and grills and it became a popular destination for Sunday picnics.

Souvenir railroad spike 

In addition to "improved" roads the power companies also built short-run railroads to move building materials to construction sites. Many local factories and mills had their own short lines as well, built long before the power companies came. I like them for hiking. They make for easier walking in rough terrain because they follow a gentler slope and tend to be hard-packed and less prone to wash out.  Some of the most beautiful paths in the river region like the Shenk's Ferry wildflower preserve and the Marctic Forge section of the Conestoga Trail are old rail paths.  In Maryland, below the Conowingo Dam, the beautiful Susquehanna Greenway Trail follows a construction railway path.

Stone walls can still be found in the young woods of the hilltop pastures. 

Our wandering included a two-mile loop on the red-blazed path that follows old 19th century farm lanes and Conestoga wagon roads. The woods here are young, having been pasture up until the 1970s, but the stone walls, some of which date to the 1830s are very visible, including the wall that holds the wagon path to the hillside. Amos was in ground hog heaven and this is where we met the one lone hiker for our walk, an Amish man named Micah. He who was tickled to meet Amos, another Minor Prophet. We chatted a bit about the pandemic and how it is affecting Amish communities. They are following the guidelines for social distancing, he said and finding it not so hard to do, but that it is having an impact on their businesses, especially construction and dairy.  Micah walks every morning on this path that connects his farm with his brother's farm, an out-and-back four miles. "Part of my daily routine, I guess."

Shadbush in bloom.

Amos and I followed the old wagon road, shored up by its impressive stone abutment against the slope.  We stopped frequently - Amos to explore the stone wall for possible ground hog dens and me to enjoy the view of the budding forest over the Kelly's Run valley. Shad bush bloomed along the slope and a bald eagle soared past at eye level beyond the trees. In another mile the old road ended at a park gate on the paved section of Pinnacle Road where a steady stream of cars was then making its way to the overlook.

Back to the car!

Notes:

Conestoga Historical Society  This is where you can see the Conestoga wagon, wagon and wheelwright shop, and museum. These wagons, called prairie schooners,  were built in this area during westward expansion. The wagon roads in the river hills area carried thousands  on their way to the ferry landings.    https://lancastercountymuseums.org/conestoga-area-historical-society/

Pinnacle Scenic Overlook -  https://www.lancasterconservancy.org/preserves/pinnacle-scenic-overlook/  Lancaster Conservancy is asking that those who live farther than a 15 minute drive to please not visit at this time due to COVID-19.

PA Shenk's Ferry Wildflower Preserve

After a night of thunderstorms that cleared early in the morning I had to get out to visit another one of my favorite local preserves, Shenk's Ferry, managed by the Lancaster Conservancy.  The Conservancy has shut down many of its preserves because of social distancing concerns: crowded trails, damage to natural features, and dangerous parking situations. I decided to investigate this preserve early in the morning, park far away, walk in from another direction, and leave by 10am.

Virginia Bluebells

I parked at the Enola Low Grade Rail Trail Coleman Church parking area neat the Martic Trestle and walked a few miles up to the "back entrance" where a tiny little sign on the rail trail, easy to miss, says "Wildflower Preserve" under the power lines. An almost indistinct path leads down into the woods from there. I was surrounded by a bright green woodland sloping down to the Susquehanna River. This is River Hills country and all around were high banks of wildflowers growing on steep sunlit carpets of new growth.  The Virginia Bluebells seemed to dominate at first, but then enormous carpets of Trillium and Dutchmen's Breeches came into view, spilling down the hillsides, overtaking rocky outcrops, and blanketing the creek valley below.

Susquehanna Trillium, Trillium flexipes

Mayapple and Dutchmen's Breeches

In "normal" times, this preserve is crowded on weekends with masses of wildflower gawkers, including gatherings of Amish and Mennonite who adore the wildflower season along the river. It is not unusual to find more horses and buggies in the parking area than cars! But this year is different.  I met only one small Mennonite family and two wildflower photographers, one whom I recognized and whose last name is the target of his shooting session this morning. See notes.

Virginia Bluebell 

This is river hills walking at its best. This bio-region is found on both sides of the Susquehanna and is a designated hotspot for biodiversity in the Mid-Atlantic. Streams that drain the plateau above the river carve steep valleys that in aerial view form green canyons that branch from the river like root systems from a grand old tree. If you do a "fly over" using Google maps in satellite view you'll see what I mean. It's a landscape too steep for farming and too rocky for building and, except for the remnants of old wagon roads carved into the sides of the hills to reach the fertile farmland above the river, these hill-and-ravine sites are interlaced with trails and are for the most part now protected.

Spicebush "in green flame" as tiny leaves emerge above the small yellow flower clusters

The preserve trail empties out on to the old bumpy Green Hill Road, now closed to vehicles since 2019. I remember when we would drive that old road, nearly getting tossed out of our open bed pick up truck as the truck climbed over the steep ledges of schist in low gear. Now it's a traffic-free walk and from the trailhead paring area to the kiosk at the bottom of the valley and beyond. The old road gives plenty of space to spread out (social distancing!) while the narrow preserve trail is trickier. Jim was sticking just to the road for that very reason.

Ore seam draped in wildflowers. 

What is not evident unless you are looking specifically past  the hillsides of wildflowers at the landscape, is that this valley was once the location of a thriving riverside community, Shenk's Ferry. The 19th century town once contained an iron forge, taverns, two hotels, the ferry station, two grist mills, and dozens of homes along Green Hill Road.

Main preserve trail is actually the C.B. Grubb short spur rail line. 

The main wildflower preserve trail is actually the old narrow gauge rail line, C.B. Grubb's Railroad,  built to move product up to the main line (like flour) and connect to roads and other lines that delivered to larger centers of commerce. Iron ore was moved downhill to the furnace from the ore banks at the top of the ravine.

Virginia Saxifrage

Let the snake

Wait under his weed

and the writing be of words, slow and quick, sharp

to strike, quiet to wait

sleepless.

- through metaphor to reconcile 

the people and the stones.

Compose (no ideas 

but in things) Invent!

Saxifrage is my flower that splits

the rocks. 

- William Carlos Williams, A Sort of A Song

Shenks Ferry Hotel  in 1919 where the new preserve parking lot is today. Note lack of woodlands!

When the newer rail line was built along the river, the center of the town was obliterated by construction. The new parking area built by the Lancaster Conservancy is actually the site of one of the larger hotels. Construction of the Enola Low Grade rail line above the river destroyed the sites of outlying homes and businesses, including the residence of the village doctor.

Underpass tunnel today surrounded by rich woodlands absent in 1919. 

Probably the most famous of the Shenk's Ferry industrial sites is the dynamite factory that sat in Bausman's Hollow above the town. Getting to this site takes a bit of dedicated trail work and is not easily accessible to those unprepared for a little wandering in the woods. The short story  is that the factory exploded in 1906 killing 11 men and injuring a dozen others. The Coleman Church graveyard, a few miles from Shenk's Ferry, contains only two graves. One is a mass grave that contains the boxed fragments of ten of the victims, while the only identifiable body is interred in a grave next to it.

Dynamite factory in Bausman's Hollow above the town of Shenks Ferry,  c. 1904

This was a very busy factory at the time of the Enola Low Grade Railroad construction. It fulfilled huge orders of dynamite used for blasting the great cliffs along the river to made the rail bed as well as provided all of the blasting powder for the construction of the Safe Harbor Dam.

Paw Paw flower bud and leaf shoot. 

Once off the main trail, I wandered Green Hill Road in both directions and walked up out of the valley on Colemanville Road, where I had the bright idea to come back another time and  look for the dynamite factory site and visit the graveyard.  But for this hike, a much needed break from online work, I took in the sculptural forms of the hills and the carpet of flowers. Soon these woods will be shaded out by a thick canopy of leaves and it will be hard to see the shape of land.

River hills woodlands

The idea that this stunning preserve really hasn't been a wild and nature-y place for all that long boggled my mind as I walked between the steep ravine hills on the old road. I took a close look at the forest cover and realized there are very few very old trees with most ranging under 50 years or less. This means that in my lifetime this area has grown back from developed use to what is now a treasured wilderness where a profusion of wildflowers blossom.

Dutchman's Breeches

The most common blossom is the ubiquitous Dutchman's Breeches that literally blankets the hills right now. The flowers were said to resemble a pair of white britches hung on a line to dry by their knees, but the pantaloons-shaped flower is actually composed of four petals, two that compose the "pants" and two that are tucked below to protect the interior of the flower. It is such an oddly shaped blossom that only insect specialists with a long proboscis like our native bumblebees can reach the nectar pocket inside. The ground nearly hummed with newly emerged bumblebee queens probing the flower beds for food.

Virginia Bluebells

By nine-thirty I had completed my five mile loop and rejoined the rail trail which after only two hours had become a little more populated with many bike riders, small families with kids, and joggers. It was time to create some distance and head home.


Notes:

Jim Flowers is a noted wildlife and wildflower photographer for the South Central Pennsylvania landscape. I've happened upon him several times in the River Hills area doing what he loves. Heres his blog.
https://birdsandblooms.me/about/

PA River Road and Susquehannock State Park: Close to Home, Week 3

This is the third Saturday of stay-at-home. Early on, I took a tea cup and traced a circle around where I live on a map of York County. This I designated my ten mile radius for a close-to-home range of exploration, food shopping, and farm store. So far so good. As the weeks have rolled by (who staying at home is keeping track of time anyway?)  I am encountering some not-so-nice effects of overuse of our area trails, no matter how remote they may be. There are way more people in parks with some of them coming from away, not so close to home. Crowded parking lots. Some trail damage. Lots of trash, which means litter picking on my daily walks.

Greening up!

One day this week I had a raft of online meetings that started early and couldn't get out for a walk until 4pm. I pulled into my local state park across the river and found this normally empty park now crowded. People flowed up and down the two-mile-long paved entrance road in a procession of families, bikes, joggers, some with dogs on leashes, others with dogs off leashes. Amos is always leashed but I was concerned with walking the road because of the other dogs running free. As goofy as he is, he can sometimes get aggressive/protective when strange dogs lunge or taunt, even when they are leashed.  Instead, I beat feet to the farthest trailhead from the road and hiked a solid three miles without encountering another soul.

Tulip Poplar

As I write this, a friend has posted to the Thousand Steps FB page that her son was bitten today by an off leash dog on that popular hiking trail. Unable to find the owners to confirm that its shots are up to date, she is now faced with having to take her boy into a crowded hospital for treatment. She is pleading online for anyone belonging to any of our hiking groups on FB and other social media to help her find the owners. She posted a picture of the back of her son's arm, bruised and indented with bite marks as the dog came at him from behind. She said the trail was crowded and no one she asked seemed to know who it belonged to.

Bloodroot in the morning.

Mayapple ready to unfurl.

Fiddlehead of a wood fern.

Amos is a big, athletic black-and-tan coonhound. He and I both need our walks. Without a solid few miles each day he gets antsy and sometimes gets in trouble at home trying to work out his energy (i.e. disemboweling cushions and pillows!) Without my own three miles a day, which I consider my mental health medicine, I can get a little down and gloomy. So no matter the weather we've always walked everyday, often out early walking the country roads just out the front door. Lately this has been less dangerous because there has been so little work traffic to contend with. The river is just six miles away as the crow flies and in the predawn I can hear the water flowing over the dam at Holtwood, the CSX train rumbling along in the river valley, and every rooster on every farm around. So that's a plus.

Bluebells.

As the week wore on, however, I was wearing down from so much time attending online meetings, conference calls, and reading the daily deluge of emails. I decided we would get up a little earlier in the dark and drive down to the River Road for our three to five mile out-and-backs on the white gravel road which is easy to see in the predawn light and doesn't have any traffic at all, save for a few joggers.  Not much opportunity for flower photography, but the frogs calling and early bird song were easy trade offs. What I noticed in the light of my headlamp however was an increased amount of roadside trash. Seems a lot of folks have discovered our beloved River Road and feel it is easier to pitch the soda bottles and chip bags out the window than pack it home. I tied a plastic bag to Amos' harness and filled it with snack trash in the last mile back to the car.

Female Bluebird tending her nest.

Male Bluebird guarding the nest box. 

Seems to me there are a lot of folks now discovering these beautiful areas close-to-home who could use a little primer on Leave No Trace. Judging by the number of cigarette butts I've picked up - with gloves on, always - there are a lot of nervous and stressed out people as well. In all my years of walking this road, I can't recall a time when there has been so much litter. I told Amos we would come back prepared to litter pick from here on out.

Lichen woods.

I met up with an early morning jogger who slowed down to say hello to Amos. "Where are all these people coming from?" she asked. I didn't have a clue. When we returned to the car after our out-and-back I found the parking area crammed with cars by 8am - on a Thursday. We litter picked the parking area and placed dropped sunglasses, a dropped cell phone, and a dropped set of car keys on the gate post. People sure do drop a lot.

Bloodroot in bloom.

Today for our Saturday hike, Amos wore his backpack with the two saddle bags. We walked the River Road and litter picked the road filling one side bag, then climbed on to the Mason Dixon Trail at the dam and hiked up into the hills for a short section hike back to the car. By the time we arrived back to the car, his second bag was stuffed full.

Dutchman Breeches 

The Mason Dixon Trail is a designated long distance hiking trail that runs two hundred miles from Chadds Ford, PA, to intersect the Appalachian Trail at Whiskey Springs. There is one "official" wilderness camping spot on our local section at Lock 12 and when Amos and I reached it we found it  trashed. I didn't have another bag with me so I crammed what I could into Amos' now overflowing backpack. Rather than give a disgusting inventory of what we found, let's just say that whoever has camped here this week has an ample supply of toilet paper, cigars, Clorox wipes, and Billy Bob's Beef Jerky.

Litter picking on the Mason Dixon Trail - Amos' backpack is overflowing.

Add to that, the beautiful hemlock gorge has some trail damage as people who have no idea what switchbacks are for have cut straight up and down the steep ravine bypassing the zig-zag trail. Given a hard day of rain, the soft soils of the hemlock woods will quickly wash out and create a gash where people have bushwhacked. With a few more days of heavy rain, which is becoming the norm for this area, the gash will become a v-cut ravine. Our trail club chapter will have a ton of work to do in this one short section just to stop the wash outs and build rails to keep people on the switchbacks.  I need to sign up for some trail crew days...

Holtwood Dam from the MDT

All in all,  I am happy that people are taking walks and finding places that help calm and restore them. Lord knows we need it now more than ever. As we continued along the ridge and met people coming the other way (with their unleashed dogs) I politely asked  them - as I stepped carefully off trail so they could pass six feet away - where they were from. I was surprised to hear not a single local. Instead, I learned that people had come from Reading PA, Baltimore MD, Newark DE, and Wildwood (!) NJ. Wait, I thought, what happened to staying close-to-home?! I wished them all a happy hike and asked if they could remember pack out what they pack in. Everyone was very nice. It was wonderful to talk to folks about how they were spending their time, but one hiker said he is required to go in for work as he is a UPS driver. Thank you! Thank you!

Coonhound on the summit with his garbage haul for the day. 

By the time Amos and I descended the trail back to River Road, there were cars lined up at the trail head parked on both shoulders, and more trash, small things really like juice box straws and candy wrappers.  The small parking area a mile further where I had parked was jammed. Some one else had been litter picking and left their collection bag tied to the gate. I grabbed that too since I know there are no maintenance crews to collect it out here. But I thanked them anyway, whoever they were, for the effort and for caring about our River Road.