PA Spring Valley Park: A Poet's Home

 

Pond basin for several springs

A gentle hike today in the few hours I had before teaching my night class. The class is on complex systems analysis and is somewhat complicated for both teacher and students. It was good to clear my mind before diving into the upcoming lecture meeting and I thought what better place to exhale and wander than at the former home of a poet, now a York County park at Spring Valley.

Chestnut Oak forest on the rim of the bowl

Poet Robert Frost advised his Pennsylvania friend Lee Anderson that living in NYC was not the best place for a creative writer and that he thought poets did their best work while living in the country. So Lee Anderson and his wife Helen heeded Frost's advice and moved back to PA to this remote valley in York County PA, in the 1950s. They lived in a 1800s-era stone farmhouse without electricity or running water but found that oil lamps, wood heat, and abundant springwater met their needs. Anderson opened a publishing business, The Shrewsbury Press, in the nearby town of Shrewsbury. He composed his long poems here and worked on a recording project that featured poets of the day reading their own work.  His friend Robert Frost was glad to contribute. It was the first such project to combine poetry with the author's voice as an audo performance, marking a new genre of spoken-word media.

Ridge trail (marked with purple blazes)

Before his death on the farm at age 76 in 1972, Anderson had composed over 500 poems, the kind that are best read aloud. Several were epic long-form poems. His inspiration for these often came from his walking the old gravel roads and cattle trails that criss cross the valley, preserved as he would have walked them throuhout the park today. I hiked about three miles of trails and walked as many road miles, feeling the calm and quiet settle around me like fallen leaves that Anderson surely appreciated.  

Spring-fed East Branch of the Codorus

Swamp Thistle, a native wetland thistle 

The valley is broad, leafy, and low and the ridges that encircle it are like the rim of a bowl,  topped with limestone outcrops and ridges in forests of old Chestnut Oak. Many springs erupt from the sides of the valley and flow downhill to the creek or gathered into a small spring-fed basin pond which has a mucky, squishy trail around it that leads through seeps and stands of wetland plants. Amos, ever mindful of his work as a turtle-hound, was chuffed to see a small Eastern Painted Turtle basking on waterlogged limb.  It quickly plopped into the dark water and he had no way of getting to it - thus deprived of his prize of turkey jerky.

Fall Phlox

Tall Goldenrod

I walked along Potosi Road and up Blymire Hollow Road and imagined Anderson walking here to ponder how he would compose verses and make revisions. He often referred to his process of composing poetry like that of composing a symphony made up of movements and flowing themes, punctuated by breath stops and long pauses that created tension,  to be read aloud like a spoken opera or a old Norse ballad.  "The Bearstone," (1969); "Prevailing Winds," (1944); "The Floating World," (1954); "Nags Head," (1960) in their pages and pages and pages of verse may explain why his work was less celebrated than his friend's Robert Frost, who got to the point, kept his poems short and pithy, and turn-of-phrase memorable. Yet Anderson was celebrated for his decades-long recording project, housed now at Yale University and the Library of Congress. It became his legacy to American poetry and the spoken-word genre of poetry performance. 

Walnut yellowing along an unamed valley road

LOTR elf or portrait of a full-bearded Anderson? 

From:  Saturday as Usual (1963)

This Saturday    as usual   it had become

a rite     sherry at twelve    then a walk    and home

Past the mallard drakes    forever quarreling over 

One complaisant hen.    Whose turn to be her cover?

Long late autumn shadows forewarned of winter

But the lunchtime gambits had warmth     the banter

Of old-shoe friends     who knew when to praise     or tease

until    a slip of tongue    a turn of phrase     

Potosi Road 

On the Line Road, limestone gravel crunched beneath my boots and Amos decided he didn''t like walking on it. He tugged at the leash to be let on to the shoulder where it was grassy and soft.  Around the bend we startled up a Turkey Vulture and the sound of its enormous wings battering the air for lift made us both jump. It was a fresh death, a young deer,  its eyes just plucked by the scavenger and a feather left behind to ponder.  The experience of the beauty of valley road was puncuated by this young deer's death and I breathed it out like an Anderson poem with inhales and exhales and pauses  that marked our stroll      the sudden stop      our gasp      battering wings    jump in surprise      observe in silence  for a while then walk on. 

Line  Road

Blymire Hollow Road

We wandered on and off the trails at their many intersections with the gravel roads and when I caught sight of a gravel rider cruise by on his muddied Cannondale I got excited to come back to explore by bike.  The rider caught a glimpse of us and swung back 'round to compliment Amos, "That's a mighty fine hound!" he said, smiling and asking if he could "get his dog fix" with a pat and ear scritch for Amos. A lovely conversation followed about the old roads and how lucky we are to live in a county where gravel roads and grassed-over backroads are still found in abundance to walk or ride and think about our poetry. 

Lee Anderson.  Photo courtesy of York County History Center

Notes:

York Daily Record "Lee Anderson Lived in York County..."(2017)  https://www.ydr.com/story/opinion/2017/07/11/poet-lee-anderson-lived-york-county-many-years-column/465886001/

The Poetry Foundation.  Lee Anderson, "Saturday as Usual." https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=101&issue=6&page=34

York County Parks.  Spring Valley Park (named for Anderson's poems referencing  the  "valley of springs")  https://yorkcountypa.gov/701/Spring-Valley-Park

Library of Congress.  Lee Anderson reading aloud "Bearstone" and "Nags Head" https://www.loc.gov/item/94838586/

PA Stony Valley Rail Trail: End Section

 

Lebanon Reservoir 

An early morning ride on the last section of the Stony Valley Rail Trail left little time before the big rains came in order to do some poking around in the woods. Though the whole trail has been beautiful these past few rides, I've spent as much time out of the saddle as in it to explore various ruins and side trails, this little out-and-back section was really interesting for all its railroad and industrial history right on the path.

 

Stony Valley Rail Trail 

When I arrive at Goldmine Road's double parking area - a lot on each side of the road - I encountered a guy who had obviously stealth camped in the furthest parking spot, invisible from the road. I don't think he expected a rider to be pulling in at 7:45am and seemed a little bothered by my presence so I took the signal and moved to the other parking area in full view of the road.  He actually creeped me out and I was glad I had an alternative place to park.

Water Tank platform

An early morning hiker and his boxer dog were just starting out so I waited a few minutes to give them time to settle into their walk while I checked the weather.  A large rain storm was just then pushing through Chambersburg to the west and I had about two hours to complete this section. The riding miles were short so I figured I had lots of time. What I didn't figure on was how much time I would need to stop and explore ruins and other historical features - exactly two hours. 

Evening Branch

Riding towards the end point at the Lebanon Reservoir I thought I'd pass the dog and his human on the way but again, I stopped so much that I actually passed them as they were coming back. I visited the Evening Branch section of the creek that flows into Mill Creek further on and snooped around so many railroad-era foundations that I lost track. (Get it?) Before I even reached the beautiful lake and its enfolding mountains, there was thunder in the distance which complimented the gattling guns at Fort Indiantown Gap Army Base. 

Gattling guns and thunder echoed over the lake 

Beyond the City of Lebanon Water Company gates the railroad grade become something of a rolling trail and I followed this until the rain started to pepper the tree canopy. I turned around and reluctantly headed back - but with lots of additional stops. This is why I could never enter a race or a group ride. I just can't seem to stay in the saddle for long before I find something worth a dismount and look-see.

Railroad grade to single track

I stopped for mushrooms, a county line marker, some pipes sticking out of the ground, a pile of coal, the trailhead for the Second Mountain Trail, a ruffed grouse, some bear scat. I hit a patch of ballast stone that the PA Game Commission used to fill a wash-out and nearly lost control. I got to laughing so hard that I had to stop just to compose myself.  

Schuylkill County Line marker

I powered through difficult ballast in the first parking area to continue towards the ghost town of Goldmine and saw the creep still hanging out at his car. He feigned a jump at me to send me off balance and I gifted him a slew of curse words. He laughed and I flipped him the bird. This  little uncomforable encounter inspired a stop at Bass Pro Shop in H'burg to buy a new can of mace on the way home. In all my years of solo hiking and biking (30+) this was only the second time I'd had a creep encounter that angered me. 

Swatara Furnace Historic District 

After a few more miles (staying in the saddle) I swung back to the truck and loaded up in the rain. Creeper dude was gone. I drove three road miles down the road and stopped to visit the Swatara Iron Furnace on the 200-acre Swatara Furnace Historic District property on Mill Creek just below the reservoir dam. An impressive iron furnace on its own, the property also contains the Iron Masters house (a private home), the breast dam that fed the water-powered billows and its stone lined race, and two workers homes plus stone barn. Now the rain was really tipping down so I hunkered down inside the crucible chamber and waited for a break. 

Swatara Iron Furnace and wheel pit/race

Safe from the storm - crucible chamber

Ducking in right behind me was a hiking mom and her young son, glad to be out of the rain. Looking up into the chimney stack of the furnace the boy erupted in all sorts of "Wow!" and "Whoa!" and the little hiker was absolutely smitten with this magical place. "Mom! This was the best hike so far!" I described what happened in this space back in the 1840s and the stunned look on his face was gold. "You mean this was the hottest place in the middle of the fire? Like hotter than Hell? Like a billion degrees?!"  All I could do was smile as his mom gently scolded him for saying the H-word.

Whoa!

Notes:

Stony Valley Rail Trail:  Schuykill and Susquehanna Railroad -http://www.stonyvalley.com/history.html

MD Palmer State Park - Ironworks Trail

American Beech

 A heavy line of storms rolled through the evening before. With the day off, I decided to take Amos on his favorite kind of hike, a turtle tracking. The ground was wet and temperatures had cooled down from the stupidly hot week we just had, so it was perfect for box turtles to be active. When we arrived, I learned there had been a tree struck by lightening in the middle of Parker State Park area and a field crew was currently deployed to the interior, but, the lone firefighter waiting at the trucks and trailers assured me it was fine for hiking. 

Strike shards at 100 yards!

We followed UTV tracks and soon found strike shards littering the trail. They were long and pointed and ragged, like spears thrown down by some angry forest god. I launched one into the brush at an imaginary mastadon but not being very good at spear throwing, I  missed.  We climbed up the knoll where a great red oak, laid down by firefighters, smoldered and smoked. The soil was grubbed all around for fifty feet in every direction. The smell of acrid oak smoke made both Amos' and my eyes tear up. Back to the trail...

Lightening strike

We headed around the  Hornbeam Trail in hopes of picking up a turtle trail. The smell of smoke lingered the whole way and I began to wonder if there was another smoldering strike site somewhere else. If there was, we never came across it. Soon enough though, Amos began tracking and we were off the trail proper and deep into the woods. 

Jack-in-the-Pulpit berries

White Wood Aster

Blue Lobelia

Groundwort ("wart"), Thelophora vialis

Wrinkled Crust, Phelbia radiata

We came across old quarries cut into the hill where miners extracted iron ore, flint quartz, and ironstone. Scree slopes of waste rock flowed down the sides of the hill but the woods were thick reclaiming the rough ground, burying the scree with leaf litter and puctuating the quarry pits with grand old oaks, stately beech, and enormous tulip poplar. 

Braided bark of an older Tulip Poplar

Furrowed bark of an American Hornbeam

"Fingerbone" bark of a Mockernut Hickory

Checked bark of American Dogwood

Buck-rubbed bark of American Beech

The turtle tracking didn't take long. Amos stood at alert at a small female box turtle which was so well disguised in orange and black that even when I walked right up to Amos I had to wait a second or two to see it. She was maybe ten years old at most and rested, unfazed in the duff. I said "Good boy, Amos! You found a turtle!" while digging into my pack for some turkey jerkey to reward him. Oh the joy! So much joy that the little brave turtle let out a big hiss and fully closed up as Amos danced around her for his treat. 

Success! 

Box Turtle, Terrapene carolina

We returned to the Ironworks Trail and followed the crest of the hill towards even bigger quarry pits, cloaked in forest. Bathed in golden light, the forest seemed to shimmer all around us while some trees let loose a shiver of falling leaves, yellow and brown. Dead wood was speckled with tiny mushrooms, shelf fungus,and molds probably brought on by recent, much needed rains. A patch of Wrinkled Crust fungus was so bright orange I mistook it for flourescent orange spray paint.

Knoll above Deer Creek

Hard to spot the yellow blazes in a bright yellow green woods

Wild Ginger

This was the kind of early autumn day that sweeps your mind clean of all the stupid-hot days of the last month and makes you crave the autumn coolness even more. Still, there's a lot of green yet to contend with and it was practically glowing up from the ferns and wild ginger below to the ceiling of deep green of the creaking old oaks overhead with full canopies of lobed leaves.  

Basidia, spore openings, beneath Bracket Fungus. 

Seed bracts of the American Hornbeam, Carpinus caroliniana

Climbing up on a pile of dark basalt lavastone, Amos sniffed the air again, head held high in hopes of catching another turtle track. Knowing that what he really wanted was another turkey jerky treat, we sat together and shared a snack and some water. From our perch I could see the woods all the way around from knoll to valley  thinking, yeah, this is my element.  Amos kept his eye on the jerky bag, his element. 

Ironworks Trail

Leaving the forest for the meadow walk out, I had to look back to remind myself that the night before was a wild time in these woods - wind, torrential rain, lightening, deafing booms of thunder. And somewhere back there, a forest elder was lying sectioned up and blackened.  Back at the parking lot, the one lone firefighter was still leaning on his fire rake, assigned to monitor the site for the next few hours. He asked about the hike and I showed him the picture of the little female turtle and he said "Good boy, Amos!" at which point Amos began his happy dance for more turkey jerky. 

Notes: 

Palmer State Park, Harford County, Maryland State Parks.  

Palmer State Park, Harford Land Trust.