As I hiked the short loop trail at P. Joseph Raab County Park in southwest York County, I imagined the sounds of this place during its time as a sprawling iron mine landscape, the voices of quarry men, who mostly likely spoke Welsh or the dialects of Northumberland and Cumbria, England. I imagined the sounds of heavy hand held star-bit drills and the clang of metal on metal as the hammermen, who were trusted with good aim, pounded the drills into the hard Phyllite deep enough to make a blasting hole.
 |
| Trench pit |
The sounds of mules and horses whinnying was real enough coming from a farm nearby so it was easy to imagine the sounds of heavy ore wagons being pulled, thudding and creaking, over the rocky roads. These were hand dug mines with their open pits and deep shafts that reached thick veins of heavy Hematite ore. The massiveness of mined landscape surprised me - all done by human hands.
 |
| Milky Quartz |
York Iron Company made a good bit of money off this large mine as it was a very productive site for over forty years. Now grown over into mature Chestnut /Hickory hardwood forest the park still feels busy as if a team of mules pulling an ore wagon could come over the rise of the well-used path at any time. I imagine the smell of black powder and blasted rock and the metallic dust of the ore. Ore delivered to York furances and foundaries during the Civil War was made into the cannons and cannon balls that roared and thundered to life at the Battle of Gettysburg and were used in the fierce atrillery engagements that followed down in Maryland and Virginia.
 |
| Cut-Leaf Goldenrod & Green Metallic Sweat Bee |
Finding big veins of quartz was an indicator of rich Hematite nearby and was often attached directly to it. It was dumped into waste heaps that line the old roads. I kicked a few chunks around and found several Hematite adhesions too small to be worth anything to the mine company but heavy in the hand, rusty black. Lying by delicate fronds of Cut-Leaf Goldenrod sat a big chunk of Milky Quartz and Amos licked a dark adhesion and immediately regretted it. The sharp metallic taste no doubt offended his finely tuned taste buds!
 |
| Rimstones of weathered Phyllite slabs (fortress ramparts) |
Amos and I ventured out to the rim of the largest pit, a deep cavernous trench that dropped a hundred feet at its deepest point from the weathered rimstones on top. It was so deep that I couldn't see the bottom from two different overlooks. The trail was faded and maybe not quite "official" but signs of people having bushwacked up from the creek and across the wooded knoll were everywhere.
 |
| Witch-Hazel |
There were piles of stacked stone, spray painted outcrops, beer cans, trash. I picked up the beer cans and trash and stuffed all of into a trashbag then into my pack. The trail clung tight to the edge of the pit and Amos and I moved cautiously down, me mostly on my arse and him on his haunches, to the creekbed below. On the slide I picked up more trash but admired the fall-blooming Witch-Hazel. At bottom two American Crows swooped down to the creek and began bathe. I watched the sunlight play off their feathers as they stooped into the pools and splashed in the shallow water. There seemed to be an aura around the birds as the water flew in arcs around them in the humid air. Such fun to watch.
 |
| Deep, steep pit! |
Overhead Crows were calling, rallying, gathering in dozens, and soon the woods were full of them. Thinking about Welsh folklore, it was easy to imagine the high cliff walls of mine behind me formed the ramparts of a castle while the Crows that perched and called over the pit became the Dinas Bran, the Fortress of Crows. In Welsh folklore Crows are the feathered prophets to the great kings and Amos the Coonhound, named for the Old Testament prophet ("Let justice rain down like rushing waters!") may have met his Celtic cohorts if he hadn't been so oblivious to the racket being raised all around him. He along with the first two Crows to arrive continued to enjoy the creek bed while the feathered hoard decended into the pit and worked over the ground for acorns which were then raining down from the oak trees where branches bobbed from the weight of birds.
 |
| Phyllite cliffs (Fortress Walls) |
We left the Crows to their fortress and acorn-gathering and walked up the creek until we came to a trail crossing. Floods had ripped an old open-grate fording bridge from its anchor points in the bedrock of the creek but it still served to carry hikers over the water. We walked up the old wagon road past several open mine shafts gated now by the Pennsylvania Game Commission for the conservation of wintering Little Brown Bat colonies. Another hiker came down from the highest gated shaft and happily reported that he was the volunteer responsible for monitoring bat activity.
 |
| Bat conservation cave (Mine shaft) |
"We go in now and then and do proper counts, pick up trash people toss in and whatnot," he said. He was very proud of the fact that this particular mine shaft has been housing upwards of 130 Little Browns each winter. He thinks that number may be increasing and he was looking forward to the winter. He remembered coming to the old mines before it was a park. "Oh the fun we had here as kids! This is where I first encountered bats and have loved them ever since." I agreed! As kids we had an abandoned sand and gravel mine near where we lived and we were always there exploring, playing, riding gravel before gravel riding was even a thing. While we chatted, Amos was luxuriating in the spill of cold air pouring from the mine shaft. Glorious.
 |
| Panicled Aster |
 |
| A cool down for a hot hound. |
Notes:
Jeri Jones is many years retired from York County Parks, but as a geologist and educator, his work on regional geology and industry is found on his website and in local papers. He appears frequently around the region for talks and tours. And he has a good Welsh name.
Jones Geological Services https://jonesgeo.com/
Rock Zoom Room - (which often features my cousin Andrew "Rockhound" Eppig) YouTube Channel (Jeri Jones) https://jonesgeo.com/zoom-rock-room/
York County Parks: P. Joeseph Raab Park brochure
Though some of the trail system in this park follows wide wagon roads, some of the trails are quite rocky and steep. A section of rim trail around the deep pit mine is "sort of" closed off but it is clear that many folks continue to use it, as I did.
No comments:
Post a Comment