PA Duncan Run Bushwack

Trails are crowded. Parking lots at local parks are packed. People have discovered the importance of outdoor time and space as the lock-down weeks roll on into months. As some states are beginning to lift restrictions on travel and business operations, I wonder what effect this will have on this new-found appreciation for nature and open space access? Or will everyone just go back to shopping, sports, and eating out?

Metasedimentary outcrop is the bedrock for this deeply eroded ravine creek.

Today I decided to skip the crowded parks and go for a bushwack in one of the nearby PA Game Lands units. I set out to find Duncan Run, a deep-down walled-in river hills creek that I've only seen on maps. It was quite the scramble down and would have been a tougher climb out had it not been for Amos pulling me up the whole way. I had him on his 30' lead with a carabiner attached in case I needed that line for lowering into tight spots or hoisting either of us out. I was nervous about this adventure, I have to admit. It was extreme social distancing to be sure and I did tell a hiking buddy where I was going and how long I'd be there.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

The definition of bushwack is "to travel by foot through uncleared terrain," and I put on my best William Bartram foot forward. Philadelphia naturalist and botanist, Bartram was best known for his bushwack walking through the American Southeast, but his twin sister Elizabath, who died in 1824 is buried just across the river, and was an able botanist herself. She was married to William Wright and lived in the wilds of Lancaster County near the Conestoga River, very close to the last Susquehannock village towns.  Indian Run creek came close to their farm and where it emptied into the Little Conestoga Creek and down to the main stem of the Conestoga River was where the native people of this watershed tried unsuccessfully to maintain their communities. Across the Susquehanna from where I stood on a thin vertical slice of ridge, I could see straight across into Lancaster County while below was the rush of Duncan Run tumbling east to the river.

Striped Cream Violet, Viola striata

Bluets and Stargrass on rocky ridges.

Before descending I checked out the moss and lichen communities and a small vibrant patch of Eastern Daisy Fleabane that grew in a sandy bowl of mineral soil. These rocks are the remains of old sea bottom, metasedimentary rock that is highly contorted, bent, and deformed due to continental collisions. The slopes are full of sharp talus plates, shed like spines, or eroded into stacks.

At the end of a spine, 120 feet above the river. 

Stone stack surrounded by talus scales popped off by tree root expansion

Climbing down into the valley I found several micro-habitats formed in the talus. Small sheltered coves held moist soils where Wild Geraniums grew. Amos found a very old male Box Turtle scooting along a wide mossy ledge. He was completely unafraid and tolerated me posing him for a shell picture. I doubt he's ever met dog or human before. Just as curious about me as I was about him, he never withdrew and instead extended his head out fully to check me out. Off he went in a turtle blur of speed when I set him back on the ledge. I watched him nimbly pick his way up and up until he scooted around a stone stack and was gone. No ropes needed.

Wild Geranium

I butt-scooted about twenty feet down from ledge to ledge, nervous about standing up. I didn't want to slip and fall down here!  Amos was like a mountain goat and made it to creek long before I did. Duncan Run rushed loudly down a series of talus shelves, whisked through slots, and tumbled around boulders. I really wanted to follow it to the river but thought better of it. Best to have someone come along for that bit. This is not the place to go it alone.

Duncan Creek

The air was rich and humid at the bottom. Moss communities smothered every bit of rock.  A fine gauzy green of new growth lay across the rocky banks. A Phoebe darted inside a wide gap between two ledges. No doubt she had a nestlings in there to feed. A family Pileated Woodpecker young squawked for a feeding from a standing dead pine. Amos and I moved upstream to the next spine of rock that towered overhead and climbed up along its side to find a narrow deer path that skirted a cove. We found a nice flat stone stack and scrambled up to enjoy crackers and beef jerky.  The noisy creek tumbled across a set of ledges thirty feet below.

Moss ledges and very sharp seabottom! 

Native Pinxter Azalea.

Virginia Waterleaf growing near the creek.

As I was exploring around the stack literally on my hands and knees - it was too steep to stand - and I gashed my leg on a sharp tree root that stuck out of a crevice. It wasn't a bad wound but bad enough to bleed pretty well, so I slung off my pack and pulled out the water bottle and dug around for my small first aid kit. All the sounds of bags crinkling made Amos think I was getting ready to eat again but when he came over and saw my leg he gave me the most concerned look.

Deer trail across the top of the steep slope.

Amos sniffed the offending tree root, then sniffed the bleeding gash, obviously having figured out what happened.  I'm not sure what the experts say about the cleanliness of dog tongues but I didn't have time to think about it before he started "dressing" my wound. I washed it out with water between licks and held a bandanna, probably dirtier than his tongue, to it to stop the bleeding. Score my first scar for 2020.

Eastern Daisy Fleabane growing on the high spine ridges.

Broadleaved Water-Leaf near the water.

Amos and I had been on our way up and out anyway, but sitting there quietly with the bandanna pressed against my leg gave me a few minutes extra to just listen. An Overbird began to sing, then a Red-Eyed Vireo, followed a Wood Thrush. Surrounded by Waterleaf growing in pockets of damp leaves with the song of Duncan Run below us, we waited a long while before continuing on - long after I'd put the bandanna away. A fine mist of rain started to fall and it was time to head over the height of the hill to the car, a mile through the pathless woods. A good day for extreme social distancing was had by all.

Notes:

Jim Brighton's excellent short-lived blog to the rescue for my violet ID-ing -
http://midatlanticnature.blogspot.com/2012/05/how-to-identify-white-violets-of-mid.html
He went on to create the Maryland Biodiversity Project and can be found there with Bill Hubick, hosting this amazing project online. https://www.marylandbiodiversity.com/index.php

The Spring 2020 edition of Traveller, publication of the Bartram Trail Conference, features the family cemetery of Elizabeth Bartram Wright.  http://bartramtrail.org/resources/Documents/2020_Spring.pdf
(My buddy Dr. Drew Lanham is in this issue, too!)