PA King's Gap State Park - Circling the Summit

Amos and I circled the 1,300' summit of the small mountain that has at its highest point an impressive 32-room fireproof mansion built in 1908.  Designed and constructed by James McCormick Cameron, who, besides being a political influencer in Harrisburg, owned a lot of land in the the Kings Gap region including farms, equine facilities, and a mountain full of cut-over, charred remains of a forest. He was considered one of the "cultivated men" of the turn of the century, self-named "conservator of the family fortunes."  This is a good first stop to visit the local geology, since Cameron had the stone quarried and dressed from nearby. Richly hued pink Antietam quartzite shimmers in the sun and is the same rock that caps ridges throughout the South Mountain complex from the Maryland Line through South Central PA.

I'm counting this ankle-buster as #6 of our 2022 52-Hike Challenge and look forward to coming back to hike the lower trails through the valleys and shoulders of this steep-sided landscape. Using a combination of trails, Amos and I hiked just below the summit for about 5 miles through forests that have been cut over repeatedly since the mid-1700s. Many of the trails including Maple Hollow and Forest Heritage are underlain with quartzite cobble so it was slow going - a real test for balance and ankle stability hiking without poles. But there were long patches of mossy carpet as well and after scree and cobble, it was nice to have such lush cushioning underfoot.

A welcomed mossy trail!

The forest has been extensively used over hundreds of years so there were no massive oaks or stately pines to admire. What was evident everywhere we went was the spindly nature of the next generation of hardwoods growing across the slopes where trees shot straight up in a race to capture light. A few stump-sprouted elders could be found and give an idea of the massive girth of the ancestors. Most of these had a diameter of six feet or more so I imagined a landscape of forest giants including the once-dominant Chestnut before the cutting began.

Stump-sprouted from a 6' cut base.

Chestnut Oak

Black Gum

Pitch Pine

The soil up here is high in tannin, a chemical produced by oaks and pines to fend off insect pests. Decaying wood leaches tannin back into the soil and makes it very acidic. After generations of logging, wood slash left to decay on the forest floor not only added to tannin levels but fueled the massive fires that occurred in the dry years after a cutting. Lowbush Blueberry Wild Azalea, Mountain Laurel, and other heaths dominate the understory. 

Wild Azalea in bud

A new forest - ready for the next cut?

As we made our way around the height of land I wondered why Mr. Cameron built his fireproof mansion? I tried to imagine this place in 1908 and how, after a hundred and fifty years of repeated cutting to make charcoal for the iron furnaces downhill near Mt. Holly Springs and Boiling Springs, the mountain must have seemed like a wasteland to someone in the market for an estate on which to build a summer home. The clues to the fire history though weren't hard to find. As is common for hiking in these parts, one not need go far to find a charcoal pit or hearth site, and there were dozens on this five mile circuit. Even the soil along Maple Hollow Trail, once a charcoal wagon road, was blackened with charcoal dust from spillage and fire.

Amos sits in a charcoal hearth...

...that at one time looked like this.

Just years before Cameron purchased the mountain, a historic fire ravaged the landscape in 1900, one of a series over time that ravaged the South Mountain region  for two hundred years. Some of the darkened soil underfoot was surely from that fire. The summit was consumed leaving a bald where who wouldn't want to site a mansion with a view? Old photos of the just-built mansion show a treeless summit where one could easily see the massive water tower behind, its brick base topped with a still intact wooden tank. Besides providing water to the mansion and caretakers home, the water tower was an important addition for fire suppression. The pump house is still standing down mountain and was used to pump water from Kings Gap Hollow Run up to the tank.

Leaky water tank makes for impressive ice!

The original tank 10,000 gallon atop the brick-built tower. (Photo credit: 

After purchasing the whole mountain, about 2,000 acres of burnt over land, Cameron got to work replanting the wasted slopes and consulted with foresters, fresh from the new Pennsylvania Forestry School at nearby Mount Alto,  about how to manage the landscape for regrowth and fire resistance.  Walking up through the original estate, we looked at the carriage house, generator house, icehouse, caretakers house, stables, and outbuildings - all still standing - and each was made of nonflammable materials like concrete, brick, stone. He was serious about fireproofing! 

 

The view from the mansion - Blue Mountain in the distance.

What were these newfangled forest management practices that Cameron had invested in?  Young foresters graduating out of Mont Alto were scientists and technical men. They applied scientific skills to ensuring that Pennsylvania's devastated forests could recover, albeit with time and careful management. How much time it would take to fully restore the state's forests was wildly underestimated, however. Cameron didn't live long enough to see his forest fully recover. Chestnut Blight, two world wars, economic crashes, and near constant assault by invasive plants, fungal disease, and insect invasions were just a few of the serious challenges forest managers faced for the next century. It wasn't until 2000 that Pennsylvania forests had been successfully restored to over 60% of its former range and was declared healthy enough to show resilience against the challenges they continue to face. 

Mont Alto Forest Academy 1911 - the only prerequisite  was to bring your own horse!

I asked a park ranger upon our return to the education center what she though Mr. Cameron might think if he were to show up today to inspect his estate.  "I don't think he would recognize it, in a good way. I think he would be astounded, honestly.  Although, looking at those old pictures of the mountain the year he purchased it, I don't think we can fully appreciate just how bad it was. He put his faith and family fortune in the hands of those young foresters fresh out of the academy!"

Our rambling 5-mile circuit hike using seven different trails

I've already mapped out my next hike at Kings Gap of about 8 miles to explore the lower flanks of the mountain, to get down into the hollows, and and maybe  hike the Buck Trail all the way to Pine Grove Furnace State Park within sight of Pole Steeple. I'd also like to learn in more detail about those "modern" forestry practices that the young foresters from Mont Alto applied to Mr. Cameron's estate. I'm thinking a weekend camping to take in both the next hike and a visit to the old Mont Alto campus. 

Here's the video I made of this hike (with Amos). Be sure to subscribe to my new YouTube Channel Roamin' Bones which I've started as a new-ish way to journal about my hikes and adventures. Hug a forester! 

Notes:

James McCormick Cameron in: Pennsylvania Center for Culture Studies  https://harrisburg2.vmhost.psu.edu/hum/McCormick/jamescameron.htm

Pennsylvania's first school of forestry, the Forest Academy,  was establish in Mont Alto in 1903. https://montalto.psu.edu/information/history#:~:text=Penn%20State%20Mont%20Alto%20was,in%20the%20Michaux%20State%20Forest.

MD C&O Canal Section 6: Brunswick to Bolivar Heights

 After many months of "too busy' to return to our ongoing C&O Canal Towpath section hike we said "Dammit!" and unbusied ourselves from teaching, office work, and communicating scientifically to walk this next section from Brunswick MD to Harpers Ferry WVa. Counting as #5 in my 2022 52-Hike Challenge, it was a great hike of about 10 miles total with 6.5 on the towpath and a little over 3 up from the lower town to the upper town of Harpers Ferry and Boliver Heights back to where we left a car at the National Park shuttle and parking area on top of the mountain. 

Picking up where we left off in Brunswick MD

The day was cloudy, a little blustery, and typical for February in the Mid-Atlantic, but walking kept us warm and happy. There were lots of people out biking, hiking, backpacking. With the Potomac on our left, ice-free and running fast, the low woods were full of vernal ponds - some frozen, others not - where soon there will be wood frogs barking, spring peepers peeping, and leopard frogs growling. I think of the C&O lowlands as one of the richest amphibian habitats I know about and this is due in large part to the river's penchant for heavy flooding and our neglect of the canal.

Tulip poplar shelter in a gullied flood landscape

Culvert collapse

When the canal was built, it was designed to allow streams and rivers to flow freely under the constructed canal bed, to keep it safe from flooding, and the canal watered. We've walked over impressive aqueducts and examined beautiful stone-built culverts, marveling at the ways water was engineered. In this section however, we observed many places where flooding has resulted in the loss of some of this historic passageway but big gains for wetland habitat. Now we are in the Appalchian mountains and the steepness of the terrain adds to the speed and force of runoff towards the river. Things wash out. Sometimes the river inundates the canal and the path. In many places we observed wash-outs of historic walls, two-hundred year old culverts ripped apart, and smaller feeder canals erased near abandoned locks. This is not a bad thing if you are a wood frog. 

Canal towpath trail

Lockhouse No. 51

Birdsong has returned to the river woods and we have now walked the C&O in all seasons. Hints of spring's return were everywhere. Titmice, chickadees, white-throated sparrows, Carolina wrens, cardinals, goldfinches, woodpeckers, kinglets, and juncos all had something to say. Red-shouldered hawks are returning to nesting sites in the heavy white limbs of sycamores and poplar. We checked for owls nesting in holes and snags. Great horned owls should be on eggs. Bald eagles and ravens are courting. 

Potomac River (pic by Amy)

MM 57 stands on a culvert over a local stream

Great white sycamores were really beautiful against the pewter hills.

As one of the last great water-engineering projects of the 19th century, the Army Corps of Engineers planners had envisioned that the canal would connect Pittsburg PA to Washington D.C. but their staggering estimates for over $22 million to build forced President John Quincy Adams in 1826 to turn to private canal building companies instead who low-balled Army estimates and won contracts to build it in sections. It may not have been the wisest investments considering two of your competitors the Potomac and the Shenandoah, which are famous for their flooding.

The AT shares a few miles of the C&O

See the AT? Hello AT! 

By the time the canal was completed to Cumberland in 1850 it had already exceeded original Army Corps estimates and canal transport companies entrusted to operate it were saddled with enormous debt. Flood repair was an expensive fact of life on the canal in this section. Marked by many historic flood disasters, we observed dozens flood-carved gullies and scoured stream beds from historic floods of the 20s, 50s, 60s and even Tropical Storm Agnes (1972).  Older flood gullies are sealed by more recent floods against the river by silt and sand deposits and are now vernal refugia awaiting the emergence of masses of migrating frogs and salamanders. Wood ducks, once considered uncommon, are now common here as the wooded wetlands offer plenty of hollow trees to lay (many) eggs. Herons have several impressive rookeries over the canal and turtle will soon emerge to breed and lay eggs in the soft sandy bottom woods. We can't wait for our favorite snakes to emerge - we love snakes. But it is still quite cold for them, though I was keeping an eye out for the cold tolerant garter snakes.

 The bend of the Potomac at Harpers Ferry and layers of flood repair to the canal wall.

Harpers Ferry Lower Town comes into sight around the big bend

Inside a giant sycamore snag

 Maryland Heights crossing, iconic B&O Railroad Tunnel, and faded 1920s toilet powder ad (!)

Crossing the bridge over the Potomac!  (pic by Amy)

We were awed by the massive Maryland Heights cliffs where Union troops were dug in on top and where enormous Navy siege cannon emplacements and tranches can still be explored by hiking up a side trail off the C&O. A lone solo climber was skirting across the faded 1920s painted ad for toilet powder. 

Union forces were entrenched with huge artillery pieces up there. Whoa. 

Maryland Heights from West Virginia. (Pic by Amy)

We hiked into Harpers Ferry,  where the U.S. Army maintained an enormous armory that manufactured over 600,000 rifles and muskets. It was a Confederate target and prize in the early years of the Civil War and lots of military engagements, including the build-up of troops and supplies for Antietam just upriver happened on the hill above us. John Brown carried out his famous raid here in 1859 and was captured and hung for his abolitionist activities that sought to arm slaves with weapons captured from the armory. They failed but his actions stood to fire up the anti-slavery movement that launched the American Civil War. This is what most people coming to Harpers Ferry National Military Park come for. But there is so much more.

Armory Provost Office

Storer College and Niagara Movement Museum

Walking up High Street to the Upper Town. 

Walking up the steep hill to the Upper Town Harpers Ferry and Boliver Heights we lost the park crowds below and learn more about Storer College and discovered Civil War sites that we'd never visited before. We picked up a map for the African American History walking tour and checked out some of its rich historic locations along the way. My sister and I have been coming to Harpers Ferry all our lives but only to the National Park location at the confluence and this walk up the hill opened a whole new history for us so we are excited to come back and explore some more.  Add to that Smith Mountain, our family roots in Appalachia, was visible to us from up here so we did a lot of reminiscing. 

Early caddisfly! Time for fly fishing! (Pic by Amy)

Smith Mountain was where uncles and aunts had their cottages and cabins, did their hunting, tended to their orchards and bees. We remembered those glorious summer reunions on the Shenandoah and (for me) adventurous winter visits to our beloved mountain family. We remembered drinking homemade sassafras beer, fly fishing, and arrowhead hunting. We learned to canoe on the Shenandoah and how to make the best chili dogs with venison sausage and long-simmered venison chili. It's where I learned to keep bees. I started hiking the Appalachian Trail with my uncles when I was very small and still hike it today in my 60s. 

Appalachian Trail Conservancy HQ (!)

Cannonball damage to St. John's in Boliver Heights (October 16, 1861) 

A peek of Smith Mountain to the left of the entrance sign!

We rounded the bend on Washington Street and began our slow road walk past the Boliver Heights Battlefield. It was the location for so much military action during the Civil War but few people come up here from the popular Lower Town attractions. We stopped to gawk where a cannonball pierced the wall of a hilltop church. We took a look at Stonewall Jackson's headquarters.  We said hello to the boneyard folks sleeping under the boxwood and cedars. We stopped at the wonderful Boliver Bread Bakery and snacked out on the last of the day's fresh baked cookies and scones. Soon we were back at the National Park main gate on top of Boliver Heights, back to the car, and in full view of Smith Mountain across the river. 

Here's our YouTube video for this hike:

Notes:

Army Corps of Engineers Vignette #70 "Early Army Corps Plans for the C&O Canal" https://www.usace.army.mil/About/History/Historical-Vignettes/Civil-Engineering/070-C-O-Canal/

The U.S. Armory at Harpers Ferry is what puts this formerly small Appalachian industrial town on  the map for Civil War historians - Historic Resources Study/NPS http://npshistory.com/publications/hafe/hrs-armory.pdf

Storer College celebrated its 150-year anniversary in 2017. West Virginia Public Broadcasting story - listen here:  https://www.wvpublic.org/news/2017-11-15/storer-college-celebrates-150-year-legacy

Boliver Heights Battlefield - so few people come up here as it seems the Lower Town gets all the tourist attention, but this is where repeated Civil War battles were fought for control of the armory below and served as a massive encampment for troops on their way to fight at Antietam.   https://www.nps.gov/places/harpers-ferry-bolivar-heights.htm

MD Rocks State Park, White Trail Loop, Cousins Hike 2022

Close to home for our 2022 Cousins Hike at Rocks State Park in Northern Maryland for a short but entirely fun "romp around the ridge" on the White-Blazed Trail for 3.5 miles. My daughter Emily, two of her kids, Cousin Amy and I had a fantastic outing. Rocks State Park is where I served for some years as park ranger and where Amy and Emily had many outdoor adventures as children. It was a great day for hiking - sunny, highs in the 20s - with a solid trail except for the south slope of the ridge where the frozen ground gave way to slick mud.  This my 2022 52-Hike Challenge Hike #4.

All kinds of erosive features are found on the hike up from Deer Creek. (Pic by Amy)

"The Rocks" is named for a large, high outcrop of exposed metamorphic rock  (Pic by Em)

The rock formations at Rocks State Park are very, very old. Made up of metamorphosed ocean bottom sediments and some igneous intrusions, the ridge is part of an upthrust belt of metagreywackes, quartz, and gneiss - very hard stone indeed. It is a popular spot for rock climbing with a number of routes and pitches that cover the southern (warmer) exposed face. I learned to climb here when I was younger and served as a member of the high angle rescue team when I worked here.

Mairin "walks the plank" and stands 100' above Deer Creek (Pic by Amy)

 

Aiden was happy to go not so far but loved it immensely. 

I won't go into "King and Queen Seat" stories as all are ridiculous legends about indigenous people created by the tourism industry in the early 1900s, but our hikers did enjoy exploring the exposed clifftop for a long time and even sitting in the "throne seats" (actually half-potholes created by running water) before setting out on our loop hike around the ridge. Once on the trail, we made good time through a mature red oak forest that was blanketed in mountain laurel and studded with small outcrops that the kids loved climbing over. I was inspired to start taking more video in order to practice video editing and maybe creating a YouTube channel for our outdoor adventures someday.

Aiden and Amy in the "King and Queen's Seat"

The valley cut by Deer Creek.

Cousins Amy and Emily had many adventures in this park when they were young!

Around the ridge we spotted a few charcoal "pits" or flat oval ground hearths where the fuel was made to fire the iron furnace (now gone) at the base of the north side of the hill on Deer Creek. Rock hopping our way around the slope on a bouldery section of trail, we could make out the sparkling water of the creek far below us and hear its rushing waters. Like many Mid-Atlantic parks, this one was once the scene of heavy industry that has been reclaimed by nature. The still-standing (and lived in) iron master's house and company store were visible across the creek. These are privately owned and not part of the park.

The White-Blazed Trail Loop on the north slope.

Beech leaves still clinging until budburst (Pic by Em)

Here's our video to celebrate Cousins Hike 2022. This was my first attempt at using Kinemaster and I need to learn more about all its features, but it was really cool that I could do it all from my phone from pics, videos, editing, effects, and music to uploading to YouTube. I'll get better at it with more practice!

Not a very long hike, but one that was kid-explorer-paced that brought the kid out in all of us. This whole family is outdoorsy and loves talking about adventuring and I am chomping at the bit for semi-retirement to share more adventures with them. Standing at the base of the climbing cliff I could still see our climbing group in my mind like it was yesterday, everyone in their harnesses, belayers watching those on the pitches, and climbers working their way up the grey wall of stone. How time has flown by! "What's our motto?"  "Onward!"

 

"The Rocks"  (Pic by Em)