PA Greenwood Furnace State Park

Whelp. After getting really sick with a bad case of diverticulitis that lasted a few days, I gave up the prospect of continuing my two week Mid-West hiking trip and headed home. To try to salvage the second week, I booked a campsite for a few days at Greenwood Furnace State Park in the PA mountains south of State College, the home campus of PennState (We Are!)

Rothrock State Forest entrance

It was exactly what the doctor ordered. I took Amos, my long-suffering hiking buddy who I left at home during my Illinois adventure. He was mad at me for most of the two hour drive but when he saw the tent come out of the truck, his favorite camping blanket, and his travel bowls, he was all in for a few days in the park.  He's such a great camper.

Hiking around the quarry lake on this cool trail.

For three days we hiked about ten miles a day on various trails that connected to the park including a section of the Standing Stone Trail (which I want to thru-hike someday), and two trails in nearby areas of Rothrock State Forest. The campground was small but nearly half empty. We had the park and the forest to ourselves. Each day walking I felt a little better and Amos was as happy as a clam.

Hardened iron bloom remaining in the crucible.

Ruins of Furnace Stack #1

Looking up at the feedstock inlet, Furnace Stack #2 (CCC-renovation)

The park is the site of the Greenwood Furnace, one of many large iron furnaces in the area that operated to produce iron from the ore-rich banks that run the length of these mountains. Some features of the large 19th century village remain and a trail follows past the iron masters house, church, meat house, stables, blacksmith shop, and wagon yard. The quarry lake is now a beautiful place to fish or swim. We followed the lake trail all the way around and snagged a few miles on the Standing Stone Trail.

Foxglove beardtongue, Penstemon digitalis

Our second day we were a little more ambitious with an eight mile rainy day loop through the forest and later, a visit to the Alan Seeger Natural Area for a mile-long walk through old growth hemlock under cooler and sunnier skies.  This trail intersected a section of the Mid-State and Standing Stone Trail so we hopped on it for another mile or so. All around us were the remains of ancient hemlocks that had succumbed to the Wooly Adelgid infestation. Some of these old giants were five-hundred years old by the time this forest pest ended their lives. Still, there were plenty of old trees still standing despite the outbreak and an interpretive panel at the end of the hike described this old forest as "coping" and not doomed. 

Alan Seeger Natural Area - a 500 year-old giant on the right.

Rhododendron

Ancient hemlock killed off by Hemlock Wooly Adelgid

Someday I'll thru-hike this beautiful long distance trail. 

On day three of my salvage trip into the forest, Amos and I hiked the Whipple Lake Trail (3 miles) and another section of Standing Stone (5 miles) then back to the park to pack up. It was a deliciously cool morning and though we were finished with our hiking in Rothrock for now, we snuck in another 3 miles following the Turkey Hill Road ( a gravel forest road) and looping back on the Lawrence Trail.  Named for a child whose grave is found in the nearby 18th-19th century Greenwood Furnace Cemetery, we stopped in to visit his grave site and the graves of several Revolutionary and Civil War veterans. 

Whipple Lake Trail at Whipple Dam State Park

Gravesite of Daniel Grey, Revolutionary War veteran, Greenwood Furnace Cemetery 

Gravesite of Lawrence Troy, 6 mo, 1881.

Greenwood Furnace Cemetery

Whipple Dam State Park and Greenwood Furnace State Park are a dream for CCC history-buffs.  I spent a lot of time photographing some of the best CCC structures I've seen in a long time. Some of these structures are massive - like picnic pavilions or large cabins - while other structures seem to occupy less space. But are all rustic and built to last another hundred years. 

Ranger's HQ at Whipple Dam State Park. Owls Gap Camp S-60-PA, 1933-1941.

Old picnic day use area, small covered picnic shelter. Whipple Dam CCC, Owls Gap Camp.

Large group pavilion and fireplace, Greenwood Furnace Camp, S-59-PA, 1935.

Greenwood Furnace Stack #2 Reconstruction, CCC 1936.

Notes:

Greenwood Furnace State Park https://www.dcnr.pa.gov/StateParks/FindAPark/GreenwoodFurnaceStatePark/Pages/History.aspx

Alan Seeger Natural Area

https://www.oldgrowthforest.net/pa-alan-seeger-natural-area-rothrock-state-forest

Whipple Dam State Park

https://www.dcnr.pa.gov/StateParks/FindAPark/WhippleDamStatePark/Pages/default.aspx

AT Hike #8: Camp Michaux - Tom's Run Loop

This next ten mile loop hike on the AT started within Pine Grove Furnace State Park which is inside the beautiful Michaux State Forest. Amos and I hiked a half AT/ half forest road loop that started at the parking area for Camp Michaux. I've done a post on this historic site before so won't revisit it here but we did cruise through the old CCC camp and military intelligence camp site before setting out on the AT. We met two Friends of Michaux State Forest volunteers who were busy hacking away at the substantial undergrowth. 

The AT crosses Michaux Road just west of Camp Michaux

Symbolic half-way point (the actual halfway point is south of here)

Since the AT changes a little each year, so does the half-way point. We came across the more permanent halfway marker knowing that the actual halfway for this year is about nine miles south. Due to rerouting, closures, new trail sections opening, and other modifications, the AT can vary in length from year to year by a few miles.

American Toad

This is Timber Rattlesnake country and I kept Amos on a shorter leash until we made it to the forest road, although I nearly had a heart attack when walking through some thick understory of blueberry he jumped up and screamed and tore ahead by a few feet while looking back to where I stood. "OH NO!" I said - waiting to hear the buzzy-buzz next to me. Instead the fattest American Toad I have ever seen hopped out into the sunny trail. WHEW!

Lunch lay-down among the pine needles and dead cicadas

On the trail every hiker we met stopped for a few minutes to pet Amos and chat.  Section hikers Amtrack and Iron Fly were hiking all of PA this summer. Baltimore Jack and Scooch (two old friends) were on the AT for the third time this year doing a few hundred miles of "old men stumbling." And then we met poor Cricket who was having second breakfast at Tom's Run shelter and nearly lost it to always-starving Amos. 

The new shelter and a small pavilion behind it have replaced the old CCC-built shelter.

All that remains of the CCC-built 1935 Tom's Run shelter

The springs at Tom's Run were deliciously cool and Amos spent a long time wading and lapping the water while Cricket told me about her thru-hike so far. "The trail community is amazing," she said. "I can be alone when I need or want to be or walk with people who care about each other and the trail whether day hikers or section hikers or thru-hikers, but I have really loved the trail towns. My gosh. What if all of America was like the AT community?" Well said. Maybe that is why I love it so much, too. Cricket is just out of the military and she's headed to a new job on the West Coast come October. I wished her well and we exchanged FB contacts. Meanwhile Amos was snuffling through her pack having detected turkey jerky...

Steep climb out of Tom's Run to the ridgeline

We hiked another five miles until we came to where we left off last time near the Mitchner cabin haul road and purple gate where we had lunch in the soft pine needles. Extra padding was provided by hundreds of dead cicadas. From here we jumped out on the shady forest road and walked five miles along the breezy ridge to the car. We took our time and enjoyed the ravens calling and all the small birds making feasts out of cicadas dying in the road. 

Eastern Tent Caterpillar 

Fly Poison, Amianthium muscitoxicum

Heading off the mountain to where I parked the car Amos and I finished a week of hiking in PA, unplugged and out-of-signal-range.  It helped too that for some reason Verizon throttled my data use from last week in Illinois so I could only really use the phone and even then it was spotty. I turned on the news driving home and almost immediately turned it back off. Next week is a conference in Iowa and then back to work. But the mountains are calling me louder and louder each time I leave them. One of these times I'll stay.

Forty miles in the PA mountains this week...time to go home.