PA Appalachian Trail Hikes: #3 AT Loop - Old Forge AT / Swift Run Road / Hermitage Trail

 Hike #3: Old Forge to Swift Run Road to Hermitage Trail, 10 miles

This loop contained all the elements of a state forest hike - remote trail, logging road, cabins and camps. Of note today was the announcement that COVID vaccines will soon be made available to front line health workers, seniors, and first responders - something to mark the significance of today's AT Day Hikes During COVID series as I walk the AT in PA through this pandemic. 

A long steep climb up the AT to start

I parked at the end of Rattlesnake Run Road at the upper end of Old Forge and began the day's hike on the AT, crossing Old Forge Road at the bridge over Tumbling Run and continuing on the AT northbound past the Tumbling Run Shelters and camping area to the steep climb up to the ridge. All the exposed rock is Quartzite, metamorphosed and highly resistant sands, sandstones, and beach cobble formed 500 million years ago. This is the predominate ridgetop rock type through Michaux State Forest.

Coarse-grained cobble Quartzite 

At the Chimney Rocks overlook

At Chimney Rocks you can really study the way quartzite fractures and weathers and this gives some hint as to the very cool columnar and rock city formations at the center of today's hike at the Shaffers Rocks climbing area.  Amos scrambled and sniffed under all the ledges. The Waynesboro Reservoir was visible in the vast forested landscape below. 

Amos enjoying rock scrambling on Chimney Rocks, 1900'

We continued following the AT northbound along the ridge of the South Mountain range which extends southward into Maryland. This is young forest as forest age goes, replanted by foresters in the early 1900s and later by CCC men who lived and worked in the first state tree nursery and numerous camps throughout Michaux in the 1930s. I was really impressed by the miles of young forest understory growing beneath the mature trees as the next generation of forest gains hold on the mountain. Disease and fire has impacted these woods, however, as standing dead, dying, and fallen trees are everywhere and the windy ridgetops seem to have a concentration of tumbled gypsy-moth killed oaks rotting away to soil. 

Looking back at the South Mountain range

We came upon a drag where a hunter pulled his harvested Whitetail Deer along the AT to a road crossing ahead. The gut pile was still fresh but it had already been well scavenged. We came upon a fresh, shimmering  twist of Weasel scat left prominently on a rock to mark its territory. Amos was less impressed with the scat than he was with following the hair and blood trail.  He never has shown an interest in predators or scavengers, always alerting to prey animals like rabbit, groundhog, deer, and bear. The coonhound hunting tradition includes  those big coonies who can tree Black Bears and Amos seems to come from that line.  Whenever we come  to a "bear-in-the-air" I keep him on short lead.  As we followed the drag along the AT, a flock of American Crows descended on the gut pile behind us as well as a lone Turkey Vulture. 

A hunter dragged out his harvested deer while...

...a hungry Weasel loved the gut pile he left behind (2" across)

We came down off the ridge and turned west on to Swift Run Road for a few miles. There are a few active logging access roads that feed on to this gravel road, so beware of the logging trucks during harvest time. We passed a hunting camp decorated for Christmas.. It was a nice leisurely walk until a horse and rider came on to the road from a log landing which made Amos loose his mind. So he pulled me all the way to the busy trailhead at the Hermitage Trail.  Lots of climbers and hikers here but horse not allowed on those trails! Too bad, Amos.

Swift Run Road at the trailhead parking. 

Shaffers and Monument Rocks

The Hermitage cabin, managed by PATC

We spent a bit of time just wandering around the rock city where fracturing and erosion has formed tall "monuments," columns, pillars, and narrow passages between. Then lunch on the little bridge that crosses Tumbling Run on to the Hermitage Trail until it connected with the AT. I'm really enjoying these loops as ways to hike the AT and explore the areas near the trail. As an AT hiker so focused on hiking just the AT in the past, I missed so much else that the old roads and blue-blaze trails reveal. These loops have been really fun ways to explore the wider landscapes of our beloved AT corridor. 

Tumbling Run along the Hermitage Trail

Snow is on the way and the next loop may well be in the white stuff. Time to dig out the ice spikes, crampons, tall gaiters, snow shoes and two hiking poles instead of one. My favorite time of year to hike! Thinking of all my first responder friends and family. Light at the end of this dark tunnel and hoping that my next hike marks another milestone in emerging from this pandemic.

 

Old Forge AT /Swift Run Rd/ Hermitage Trail Loop

Notes:

The Potomac Appalachian Trail Club maintains 42 historic cabins along the AT from Virginia to Pennsylvania. COVID has had an impact on rentals and use, however.  But reading about their history and knowing how to rent one in future makes a nice winter afternoon's reading/planning/dreaming.  https://www.patc.net/PATC/Cabins/Cabins.aspx

PA: Appalachian Trail Hikes #1 and #2, Michaux State Forest

The surge in COVID infections this autumn continues to climb in Pennsylvania and one restriction is for out-of-state travel with the exception of commuting to a job. Even though vaccines have been announced and immunization plans are starting to roll out, we have many months to go before we will see a drop in the stats. I figured PA is a big state and my NJ, DE, MD, VA, and WV hikes can easily wait so I decided to make my winter hikes a series of day and overnight hikes along the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania. We'll see how far I get get from the southern border with Maryland at the Mason Dixon Line to border with New Jersey at Delaware Water Gap National Park. 

Hike #1: Mason Dixon Line to Rt. 16, Out-and-Back (5 miles) 11-28-2020 

I had to cheat the restrictions a tiny bit and park just across the MD state line at Pen Mar Park. Within a half mile I had hiked into Pennsylvania. I met a total of four people all morning - everyone masked up on approach. The trail and camping site was clean and it was  wonderful not to find piles of trash and vandalism that has plagued some of my local trails on the Susquehanna.  

Pen Mar Park in MD, just below the Mason Dixon Line.

Looking west across the Hagerstown Valley

In half a mile, hop the tracks and you are in ...

.Welcome to Pennsylvania!

Once in Pennsylvania, the AT begins its way through Michaux State Forest.  During the late 1800s and early 1900s state conservationists and foresters were very worried that this area had been so badly exploited for lumber that trees would never grow back. Joseph Rothrock, our state's first Commissioner of the Department of Forests and Water led a campaign to push legislation to create funding for purchasing heavily degraded land and place it into the protection and management of the state. Michaux became one of the first units of the vast state forest system. 

Footbridge and a mature Chestnut Oak.

Quartzite and quartz banding.

Before land acquisitions, this land was heavily exploited by the iron industry that began in the late 1700s and operated until after the Civil War. Forests were a major commodity, needed to fuel the many iron furnaces and forges throughout these mountains. What had once been old growth Oak, Chestnut, White Pine, Hemlock, and Hickory forests had been reduced to stubble and stumps by 1880 and from the ridge where I stood to look back into Maryland, there would have been no trees in sight for miles. 

Looking south towards South Mountain in Maryland

One of Rothrock's priorities was to establish the first tree nursery nearby at Mount Alto in 1902 and from there, a forest was regrown from seed and saplings planted throughout the Michaux State Forest unit along Pennsylvania's South Mountain range to restore the forests. What I saw today as I hiked was the legacy of that work as there was forest as far as I could see. It was a refreshing and hopeful hike through a second growth, maturing woodland that had once been so decimated that foresters doubted Rothrock's plans would work. 

Trail magic station for hikers. 

Michaux State Forest contains 37 miles of the Appalachian Trail in south-central Pennsylvania and while we muddle along as best we can through this pandemic, the shelters and pit toilets at the backpacker campsites have been closed until further notice. Dispersed tent camping is allowed however. Leave No Trace!  When I reached my endpoint at Rt 16 I had a nice lunch, flipped rocks over in the stream (of course!), then headed back in a nice slow stroll to Pen Mar. 

Mileage marker back at Pen Mar Park. 

Hike #2: Old Forge Picnic Grounds/ Rattlesnake Run Loop (9.5 miles) 12-6-2020

For the second hike the following weekend I started at Old Forge Picnic Grounds and hiked a loop south towards the Rt 16 parking area then back on Rattlesnake Run Road, a dirt track that leads back to the picnic area. This time I had Amos the Minor Prophet with me and he helped me make quick work of this loop. He pulled and sniffed and tracked and trotted the whole time! 

The Old Forge Picnic Grounds were once part of the CCC camp just across the road. Many of its original buildings are still in use as part of a church summer camp. The lay out of the present camp, minus the barracks buildings, give an idea of how well built these 1930-1944 era camps were. I'm a huge CCC fan and I had to tear myself away from gazing across the road in order to start my hike. 

Leave car here for AT-RRR Loop

With Amos along it didn't take but three minutes to be flying down the AT. Man, that boy can really move! He's wonderful for uphill slogs, just hold on to his lead and he'll pull me right up. There was plenty of deer sign (and poop) to investigate though, so it wasn't all clear sailing. There might have been a bear crossing at one point because he really stopped short and spent a full five minutes trying to catch scent and hollered when he had a trail. I had to hold him back and redirect his attention to the trail. Amos loooooooves bears...

This way, Amos!

Almost hidden white blaze

Haul road for charcoal wagons

Evidence of the charcoal industry is everywhere on this stretch of AT. The large flat round "pits" (not really pits at all) that mark the sites of charcoal-making were everywhere. I counted nine in a two miles stretch and the path of AT follows a haul road that connected them. Charcoal was transported down the mountain to the ironworks at Caledonia and Pine Grove where for over a century the furnaces were in blast until loss of resources and changes in iron-making technologies put them out of business in the 1880s. 

Intersection of AT with Rattlesnake Run Road and "Bear in the Air." 

Grey Birch

Our dirt road walk back to Old Forge went through a beautiful blend of tumbling creek valley and rock rimmed talus slopes. Grey Birch, a cool climate tree, began to appear in a transition of woodland from southern deciduous to northern mixed conifer and oak. A Red Fox screamed its weird call from a rocky overhang and Amos, ever on the alert for a reason to yell, bayed at it and sent it running. Only one truck came by and the driver, a friendly deer hunter scouting for next weekend's hunt, loved visiting with Amos. "No better dog," he said. 

Along Rattlesnake Run Road

Rattlesnake Run

Knaub Memorial Chapel

Back at Old Forge Picnic Grounds I took a walk over the to chapel and sat on the steps for a quick lunch break. This beloved little church, managed now by the Methodist Camp Penn church camp, is an iconic little chapel in the woods built in the 1940s after the CCC camp had closed. Though no longer a Sunday-service church, weddings and other special family occasions are still celebrated here.  A nice place to end a beautiful loop hike on the AT in the forest. 

Notes:

Purple Lizard Trail Map for Michaux. I really love these maps put out by Purple Lizard. They make it easy to plot routes that use combinations of dozens of trails including the AT with miles of snowmobile and dirt roads, old wagon and haul roads, and bridle paths. Purple Lizard really does PA hiking maps well and I have many of them.   https://www.purplelizard.com/products/michaux-map

Michaux State Forest  https://www.dcnr.pa.gov/StateForests/FindAForest/Michaux/Pages/default.aspx

PA: Peregrine Landscapes of October

Being stuck in-state with strict travel restrictions due to COVID, it's a good thing Pennsylvania is big. I've been going here and there for hikes, research, staying outside as much as possible, and masked up when close to other people not inside my small family bubble. It's been a little inconvenient and sometimes claustrophobic working two jobs from home, but better safe than sorry. On weekends I am out, out, out! In October - the month when we see many falcons moving south along the Atlantic Flyway, I've had the thrill of seeing Kestrels, Merlins, and Peregrines almost every weekend. 

The Susquehanna River is an important arm of the Atlantic Flyway.

On a recent research trip to Chester for work on air quality activism, I discovered some strange but engaging sites that I had to investigate a little more. The enormous, and I mean behemoth, Chester Waterfront Station power plant is right on the Delaware River, another arm of the Atlantic Flyway. As I was walking the Riverfront Path I stopped a while to watch a Peregrine Falcon hunt from and return to the steel arm of the coal boom as she pursued ducks, gulls, and pigeons.  After several attempts to punch a few gulls out of the air she finally snagged and killed a duck. She landed on a bridge pier,  plucked it, consumed it, and moved back to the coal boom to watch for her next opportunity.

Peregrine perched on the outside corner of the coal boom.

This colossal structure was built in the Beaux-Arts style of the early 20th century which incorporated monumental architectural features including Roman-like columns and massive edifices that, according to historians, was supposed to elicit a grand permanence and strength. The plant supplied electricity to Chester and its massive industrial shorefront as wartime industry was at its peak. The housing boom intensified the need for electricity and at one time this plant was a star in the crown of Pennsylvania Electric Company's network of generation stations.  I learned from a local fishermen that Peregrines may have nested on the Commodore Barry Bridge last summer. Cool beans! He really knew his birds and fish and offered that the duck the Peregrine had killed had been one of Mallards that frequent the old wharf area.  

Chester Waterfront Station and the Commodore Barry Bridge on the Delaware.

I took a mid-month trip to the Quehanna Wilderness Area in Central Pennsylvania to look for elk, and though I heard plenty (boy, do I love that bugling!) I never saw one. But all was not lost because I did see two Peregrines and a Merlin hunting over Beaver Run Pond while hiking the Marion Run and Beaver Pond Loop.  Just after I left the area to continue my hike, I met two other hikers who had observed a few hours earlier, a large bull elk and a harem of seven cows bedded down in the woods where I had been just been. When I told them about the falcons they were so excited and hurried on to the pond, hoping to get a life bird sighting with the Peregrines. I hope they saw them!

Peregrines overhead (but not visible in my cell phone picture)

My October Peregrine sightings continued when a friend and I visited the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. We stood in a wicked cold wind as the bird went into a stoop over the restored wetlands to catch a dove or duck - it was too far to tell what he was hunting. I love this park because of its thousand-acre restored grassland and wetlands, reclaimed from a disused strip mine. The birding here is fantastic any time of year and you don't have to go in through the Visitor Center to access these vast grasslands. There are trails and walkable roads throughout the park. 

Restored Eastern grasslands at the Flight 93 Memorial (Visitor's Center on hill)

My favorite sighting of October happened at Gettysburg National Battlefield, another excellent birding park whether you go for the history or not. I was with family exploring the wide-open valley where Pickett's Charge happened when standing at the edge of the Confederate woods looking towards the Union ridge. I caught sight of a Peregrine wheeling over the field when *poof* there was an explosion of feathers as the falcon made her kill in mid-air. 

Looking towards the Round Tops from Seminary Ridge when *poof*

The thing that all these sightings had in common was wide open sky. The vastness of the autumn landscape includes what is over our heads, spectacular cloud formations, dawns, and sunsets - and - with a little practice - you can spot, hear, and watch those high-up and lightening fast raptors that claim sky as their domain.  Put down the camera and binocs for an hour or so and just watch the stretch of sky for the lone dark silhouette of our fastest hunter or follow a murmuration of starlings or grackles and see if you can't spot the falcon as he whips in and out of the flock.  

Notes: 

Peregrine Falcons in Pennsylvania https://www.pgc.pa.gov/Wildlife/WildlifeSpecies/PeregrineFalcon/Documents/Peregrine%20Falcon%20Management%20Plan.pdf

History of the Chester Waterfront Station  :http://lcweb2.loc.gov/master/pnp/habshaer/pa/pa3600/pa3680/data/pa3680data.pdf

Flight 93 Memorial    https://www.post-gazette.com/news/environment/2020/07/01/Flight-93-National-Memorial-bees-wildflowers-regrowth-Charles-Guadagno/stories/202006260064

PA Donora: An Environmental Pilgrimage

 A friend and I traveled to Western Pennsylvania to visit the Monongahela and Youghiogheny Rivers a few weekends ago and it was a beautiful time to be in the Allegheny Mountains. We spent a day walking the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) Trail that I hope one day to ride from Pittsburgh to Cumberland. But for now, on this trip part research-part exploration, a pleasant six mile walk was enough to absorb the beauty of the valley on an October ay. The area is laced with amazing hiking and biking trails and so full of history, it would take a solid month to experience it all. 

Sandstone along the GAP

The Alleghenies are a little deceiving as far as mountains go because they aren't the result of dramatic continental collisions, faulting, and warping of the earth's crust like mountains are closer to home - the Blue Ridge, South Mountain, etc. These hills are formed by the erosion over millions of years of streams and rivers cutting down through the Allegheny Plateau, that from a height shows the mountains are really pretty much all the same in elevation. It's the valleys and ravines that make the topography so pronounced (and steep!).

Allegheny Mountains

Beneath our feet lay over three miles of sedimentary rock, sandstone, limestone, shale, siltstone, and coal. These layers were deposited in shallow seas and great swamps as sand, silt, mud, and the shells of tiny marine animals. The most important layers economically to the area are the great seams of coal that are exposed on the ridges and flanks of the hills, mined now for hundreds of years. My friend took me to see her childhood home where across the street was the site of a small coal yard.  Families often worked their own seams and, in her neighbor's case, had enough to sell. She remembers the coal tipple and the trucks coming in on Saturday mornings to take delivery of a month's worth of furnace coal. All the houses had coal chutes so that it could be shoveled or poured directly into a bin or hopper in the basement and fed by the shovel-full into furnaces and stoves.

An old privately owned coal yard now reverted to woods and field.

Part of our visit included a stop at the Donora Smog Museum, for research for my book on environmental pilgrimage. I can't say enough about the museum, but for now (COVID) it's only open by appointment during. We really appreciated the many hours Mark spent with us - we didn't leave until after dark! But the day we left for home, we spent the morning driving around this once bustling company town (U.S. Steel) driving slowly through the old mill workers neighborhoods, stopping at cemeteries, driving along the industrial plain where the enormous mills and zinc works once stood. What happened here in 1948 changed forever our approach to safeguarding the lives of Americans against air pollution and the health of industrial workers. Check it out in the link in Notes, below. 

St. Mary's Catholic Church and parish house in ruin.

Donora represents the boom and bust cycle of early 20th century industry. It also represents the beginning of an environmental movement that would define the second half of the century. The Donora Smog event of 1948 killed over twenty people, hospitalized hundreds, and sickened thousands over the course of a five-day temperature inversion. Hundred died in the year that followed due to effects of exposure. It is important to recognize (and teach) our environmental and conservation history so that we learn from it and learn how our own lives have been made better - or worse - by the actions of people who fought for protections and policies. 

Donora Smog Museum, "Clean Air Started Here"

I am well into a working manuscript for my first book, The Uphill Road: Environmental Pilgrimage in America.  It's been great to talk to colleagues who are also doing work in pilgrimage studies and environmental history. But as I travel to sites, many little known or unheard of in the making of our conservation and environmental identities, I am realizing that the stories must be experienced first hand to really understand how these places connect to all of us. Thanks to my traveling companion and fellow pilgrim, Cathy, for the good company on this research trip. 

Donora, 2020

Notes:

Donora Smog Museum https://www.sites.google.com/site/donorahistoricalsociety/

Devra Davis. When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution. Basic Books, Illustrated Edition, 2003.

If you go, please be sure to support local businesses. There are some wonderful eateries, small breweries, and shops. They need you now. 

VA Shenandoah National Park: Nature Diary - October 2020

 From my week roaming the trails of the Northern District of Shenandoah National Park...

I took my phone and a small sketchbook with a tiny watercolor set and pencils/pens. The longer I hike, the smaller (and lighter) my materials become. I carry compact 8 x 21 Pentax binoculars with a close focus setting for observing insects and flowers within half a meter. The birding was great in the thick of fall migration! 

Eastern Towhees in a migration flock at Indian Run Spring.

I witnessed a large flock of migrating Eastern Towhees at Indian Run Spring and found myself surrounded by Wild Turkeys at Snead Farm. Some of my sketched observations were done sitting very close and still near my subject, like the Timber Rattlesnake. I sat with the Towhees at the spring and sketched all their antics in and around the water. The bears, however, were done quickly from memory as there was no time to retrieve my materials from my pack without alerting Amos to their presence and besides, they came and went quickly. 

The fungi were really prevalent this week, despite there not being a lot of rain lately. All the different kinds of fungi represent biodiversity of all those species they depend upon.  The more fungi, the more stable an environment tends to be. It was interesting to think about the past century of Shenandoah National Park as a hundred years of rewilding from when the mountains were heavily logged, cultivated, cleared, and grazed. The presence of many types of fungi represent an environment rich in ecological process and diversity. 

Dyer's Polypore - a great dye for yarn - pick now!

A speaker at the The North American Mycological Association stated in a recent conference that we have only named less that 5% of all fungi on earth! Whoa. I'm not a big consumer of wild mushrooms - I let my cousin Molly handle that - she's an expert. But I did observe how many mushrooms were bitten into, tasted, browsed, chomped on, and chewed through. I noted where entire patches of mushrooms were gobbled up and the ground all around disturbed. I didn't know if SNP is plagued by wild boar, but the amount of ground disturbance to get at those tasty fungi reminded me of hiking the Piedmont in South Carolina where boar are a big problem in some places. This time of year is so important for animals that need to store up body fat for winter so maybe these were bear patches or places where deer have dug.

Clustered Bonnets

I met up with a local hiker who was carrying a basket. She was collecting bracket fungi of different types and showed me a bunch of bright orange-y brown polypore she had pulled off a stump. All of the fungi in her basket were for dying wool. This is time to collect them while the colors are bright. She pointed out a clump of Dyer's Polypore for me to photograph that were too small to collect. She was only collecting a few pounds specimens four or more inches across and just a few pounds.  

Brittlestems

Oyster Mushroom

Spotted Wintergreen, Lands Run Road

The presence of Pines together with Oaks meant the soil was really acidic and this was when I found acres of Spotted Wintergreen, Chimaphila maculata. The flowers are long gone but the creepy eyeballs are everywhere. This was an important plant for indigenous people and still has widespread medicinal use across the Appalachians. The bracket fungi lady also had some of this in her basket.  I didn't take her picture because I wasn't sure of she was permitted to collect in SNP, but she was being very careful about only collecting small amounts of things and only had a few rhizomes of wintergreen in her basket.  Wild collecting is still an important aspect of Appalachia culture and I know it is allowed in many national and state parks with permission. 

Sunroot (Appalachian Jerusalem Artichoke), Dickey Ridge Picnic Area

Another item she had in her basket was very recognizable and she collected it right off the roadside at the Dickey Ridge picnic area. She called it Sunroot - the Appalachian name for Jerusalem Artichoke - which isn't from Jerusalem or even an artichoke. She'd collected only the tubers from the spent plants, however, and not the still-flowering plants. She was going to plant these in her garden, she said. I did that once and now I have Sunroot all over the place, I replied. The tubers of this sunflower are edible but I've never acquired a taste for them. I found them later when I went down to the Visitor's Center to get wifi for a meetint. I also found where she'd dug a few tubers from a frost nipped patch. 

Knapweed, Indian Run Spring

White Turtlehead, Traces Trail

Great Blue Lobelia, Elkwallow 

Blue Wood Aster, Sugarloaf Trail 

Canada Goldenrod, Radio Tower Summit, Hogback Mountain

Silverrod, Hogback Mountain

Common Witch-Hazel, Keiser Run Road

False Solomon's Seal, Overall Run Road

Bluestem Goldenrod, Beech Mountain Trail

Zigzag Goldenrod, Keiser Run Road

American Chestnut, Sugarloaf Trail

Marginal Wood Fern, Sugarloaf Trail

Virginia Pine over Jeremy's Run and Neighbor Mountain

American Salmonfly, Lands Run

If you see someone lifting rocks in a stream with a curious coonhound looking on, it's probably me. We found this handsome American Salmonfly, Pteronarcys dorsata, under a stone and I was pretty stoked about it because this is a prime insect indicator of pristine waters. We actually found several  more nearby. A couple of hikers from Columbus, Ohio, soon joined me and they were amazed by all the aquatic life to be found. We were very careful to lift and replace the rocks gently, but the Salmonfly is known for playing possum so I did poke this one and it dramatically flipped off the rock "dead" into the water and floated to the bottom belly-up before scurrying back under its home rock. 

Caddisfly, larvae encased, Lands Run

More rock lifting revealed entire Caddisfly towns, but I don't know which species these were. Very, very tiny. Amos and I had bushwacked to the headwaters of Lands Run about a quarter mile up the mountain before it tumbles through and over greenstone cliffs into the ravine below.  There had been little rain this week so the headwaters was more like a seepage with some small puddles and that's where we found these tiny constructions. Lands Run would be a great little creek to follow from its headwaters near Skyline Drive to its joining with Gooney Run in the valley and then with the South Fork of the Shenandoah. Of course, flipping rocks the whole way...

Timber Rattlesnake, Overall Run Trail

This was one of the best sightings of a Timber Rattler,  Crotalus horridus, that I had all week (2 more but crossing the road at night). It was just shy of  three feet and while the air was still cool in the early morning it was sitting on the warm, rugged trail to soak up some heat. I asked Amos to lie down and be quiet (treat involved) while I sat down on the trail to study it. We visited for a while. This is when my close focus Pentax binocs are great. I was able to study its scales and eyes and flicking tongue from eight feet away while it was gentle and calm, even turning towards me to "taste" my space. Only three full buttons on its tail so a younger one. 

My sit-down-and-visit-awhile approach to snake observation has worked well since I was a kid. I've "visited" with Hognose, Eastern Kings, Pygmy Rattlers, Copperheads, Black Rat Snakes, Pine Snakes, and Mud Snakes over the years and have had the opportunity to really do some nice life sketches. (The only snake that doesn't permit portrait-making is the Northern Watersnake which thinks the fast moving pencil or pen is worth a strike.)  All snakes know when harm or calm is present and how they react to us is entirely dependent upon our reaction to them. A guy from New York came down the trail and saw me sitting there with the snake and soon he was sitting too. "This is absolutely amazing!" he said. "What a beautiful, beautiful creature!" (Dave M. - he was your stunt double.)  After a half hour the Rattler slowly moved to the side of the trail and curled up under a log invisible to any more hikers coming this way. We all said our goodbyes and continued on with our hike to the falls. 

Hickory Tussock Moth (cat), Overall Run 

I know that these guys will give an itchy prickly rash if handled, so I just took its picture and let it go on its way. It'll become the Hickory Tiger Moth, Lophocampa caryae. Interestingly,  this was the only moth I saw flying in the cool mountain air for the entire week and I came across the caterpillars on every day's hike. 

Northern Two-Lined Salamander, Overall Run headwaters

Amos and I had a lot of fun lifting rocks in the headwaters section of Overall Run to look for "sally" before our steep climb down into the ravine. This Northern Two-Lined Salamander, Eurycea bislineata, squirmed out of a rock-covered puddle and ventured on across some gravel to a pile of leaves where it not only blended in instantly but it chose the yellow Tulip Poplar and Maple leaves to hide under rather than the brown and red leaves nearby. These guys love Appalachian springs and headwaters - anywhere there are tiny pools and rocks. The males have tiny teeth to nip the females with to encourage mating. They do migrate in breeding season, but not very far, so are basically homebodies. We saw a Red-Backed Sally too, but I didn't capture the picture before Amos stuck his nose under my phone to sniff at him. So I have a picture of Amos' nose instead. 

Greenstone quarry, Lands Run Road

I love geology so this week was a great chance to get to experience hiking through ancient lava fields that are known collectively as the Catoctin Lava Formation, a widespread area that runs from north of Gettysburg, PA, to Lexington, VA. This formation is the result of the tearing apart of the old continent Rodinian and the opening of the Iapetus Ocean (the ocean that came before the Atlantic and the break up of Pangea). The tearing of the crustal plates ripped open the valley floors and flooded the area with  molten material. The rift valleys were buried under 1,500 feet of lava and now we hike through its weathered remains in SNP. 

Greenstone, Lands Run Road quarry

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Metamorphosed basalts became greenstone which was used by settlers and farmers extensively for building stone fences, roads, bridges, and foundations. Some historic homes still standing outside the park are built entirely of Greenstone and have withstood centuries of time. It's a mountainous landscape entirely born of fire but with uplift and weathering is at the mercy of climate and water. 

Overall Run Falls runs through a thick bed of Greenstone.

Lands Run Falls, incised lava bed creek.

Columnar jointing, Compton Peak - Catoctin lava formation.

The most amazing encounters I had with the local geology was hiking to and observing cool formations of columnar jointing. Basalt has this crazy way of crystalizing as it cools which results in six-sided columns. This is the same rock type that forms the Devil's Tower in Wyoming and the Sheepeater Cliff in Yellowstone. The formations in SNP however are millions of years older and have weathered a lot so that what you see are large boulder fields of crazy blocks and columns scattered all around. 

Fort Windham Rocks - Catoctin lava formation

The formation at Compton's Peak was a difficult climb down and back up to see, but well worth the effort. The formation at Fort Windham Rocks was an easy find along a trail and afforded plenty of opportunity to scramble around and over the outcrop. Viewing the top of Hogback from an overlook I could see the massively weathered columns broken by freeze-thaw and exposure but that displayed the characteristic six-sided symmetry.

Hogback Mountain basaltic boulder outcrop

American Oil Beetle, Little Hogback

This little American Oil Beetle, Meloe americanus, is best not handled because she can expel a powerful chemical oil that burns like heck. I know this to be true. So when Amos wanted to nudge it with his nose, I gave him a firm "No!"  These little beetles are clever too. When very small, they'll hitch rides on honey bees by staking out in flowerheads and latching on. When the bee returns to the hive, the baby beetle detaches and pigs out on pollen cakes packed into larval bee cells. No harm to bees except for stealing food. I know this to be true, too. 

Carolina Leaf Roller Cricket, Mathews Arm Fire Road

Ever see tender leaves of Spicebush or Witch-Hazel rolled up tight into a tube? Probably the work of the Carolina Leaf Roller Cricket, Camptonotus carolinensis. I had no idea what rolled leaves like that until this trip when I walked through a Witch-Hazel thicket and pulled a few rolled leaves apart, all of them empty except for one that had this incredible pair of hairs sticking out. Turned out to be antennae connected to the Leaf Roller Cricket inside! I left that one intact and found this one on a trail post preening her long, elegant antennae just beyond another Witch-Hazel thicket which I'm guessing is there leaf-rolling neighborhood of choice. 

American Cancer-Root, Compton Peak

I found American Cancer-Root, Conopholis americana,  just about everywhere because there were Oaks just about everywhere, but this parasitic plant was a ways past its creamy-colored phase. In fact, all of the Cancer-Root I found was brown and drying out. Still cool to look at, though. It has nothing to do with cancer treatment so I don't know why the name. It is purely a parasitic plant, thus no chlorophyll of its own and derives everything it needs from attaching itself to the roots of Oak trees. 

Eastern Crayfish, Lands Run

The coolest (and most heart-pounding) sighting I had was a rather close up encounter with a Momma Black Bear and her two cubs. I was taking a break with Amos on a very steep uphill trail and Amos, being tired from the long difficult hike, actually had his eyes closed laying down.  As we rested, the three bears crossed the trail only about 30 yards ahead of us and Momma noticed me standing there. I was praying Amos stayed asleep! His coonhound instinct to yowl and bay would have surely caused a scene. Luckily, he did stay snoozing and the bear moved her cubs quickly and quietly down the hillside. 

  Momma Black Bear and two cubs crossing the Beech Mountain Trail.