WV Monongahela National Forest: Cowpasture Trail Loop 8 mi.

Belden Lane writes in Backpacking with the Saints, that in the Celtic tradition of wilderness wandering "I venture out so I can find my way back in again." And, as I left the Cranberry Glades Botanical Area and found the Cowpasture Trailhead nearby, that's just how I felt taking those first steps on an 8-mile loop that would bring me right back here. The trail would skirt the valley-bound complex of bogs, cross three feeder streams, and climb a bit on to the mountain slopes that ringed the wetlands. 

As I started I noted that a few cars had arrived at the parking area so I hurried to get out on the trail before a crowd formed. A crowd for me nowadays is like three people. Soon Amos and I were deep into a Hemlock woods making our way along a rise of land with the bog a distance out. The trail followed the trace of an old road that seemed too wide for an old wagon road. As we hiked deeper into the valley I couldn't shake the feeling that a crowd of people would suddenly materialize. 

AllTrails map of the Cowpasture Trail Loop, MNF # 253

Eventually we came out onto a broad open meadow of Goldenrod. I discovered two species new to me - Flat Top and Mountain Decumbent Goldenrod - and spent a few extra minutes trying to get some good pictures and sketches. Then I saw a sign and at the same time felt that crowd of people even though nobody was there. The open meadow, according to the smallish interpretive sign, was the site of the  Mill Point Federal Prison. I write more about what I discovered there in my latest Uphill Road post.  The wide trail we'd hiked in on was part of the long prisoner-built access road to the prison yards. 

Site of Mill Point Federal Prison (1938 - 1960)

In addition to holding common criminals, draft resistors, and communist party members, the prison prided itself on rehabilitating men through skills training and access to a good education. The prison had no walls or fences as it was surrounded by the huge bog valley and anyone who tried to escape quickly found themselves thrashing through miles of cold water and deep, cold, sucking peatlands. The natural history of the place, however, piqued the curiosity of three inmates who found their love for botany and teaching.

"There were also three naturalists who used their time at the prison camp to document the flora, fauna and wildlife of the area. Worth Randle, Al Simon and Albert Huber were all at the camp around the same time and found a way to “escape” to the cranberry bogs where they did their research. Randle wrote to West Virginia University professor Maurice Brooks about his findings and Brooks encouraged him to create a plant listing of his findings. “So basically, the WVU professor enticed him to escape from prison and do these lists,” Springston said. Of course, the men were soon discovered, but instead of getting punished, they were allowed to continue their research and eventually allowed to lead tours of the area. " - Suzanne Stewart, The Pocahontas Times, Sept 24, 2025

Decumbent Goldenrod

Bushy Bluestem 

After spending some time in the open meadow I continued on the trail and crossed the first bridge, newly replaced and arched high over a stream. The bog was so thick with Cotton Grass it looked like snow. There have been a few very cold mornings here but no hard frosts yet so there was still quite a bit of flowering and green across the valley. I could imagine the interest those inmate-naturalists had taken in doing surveys and tours of this place. Because of their efforts we have a solid baseline of species found here in the 1930s that botanists and ecologists can compare to today to show change in this ecosystem over time. 

Cotton Grass 

I scrambled up a steep hill where the trail climbed a mountain slope. Immense oaks grew along what surely had been an old wagon road and my steps crunched a heavy crop of acorns underfoot. We frightened several deer and a small flock of turkey foraging along the road up ahead. White Snakeroot was still in bloom and it frosted the sides of the path in white.

A newer bridge over Charles Creek

I came upon an older man taking a break from his mountain biking. He was sitting under one of the old oaks catching his breath from having pushed his bike up that steep grade. He was glad for the company and was happy to tell me all about the area as he was born and raised and worked in one of the mountain valley towns a few miles away. He taught in a special ed program in the local public high school for nearly 40 years. He knew the history of the prison, the naturalist-prisoners' story, and about one of the prisoners I was very interested to learn had been held there, civil rights activist and draft resistor James Lawson. He even participated in some of the civil rights events that happened in West Virginia in the 1960s as a college student and remains active in civil rights issues "especially now - something I can never retire from. We always need to stay vigilant and active to protect people." Amen.

White Snakeroot

White Snakeroot continued to line the footpath. This plant was a one of the most utilized panacea plants in the Cherokee and Shawnee forest pharmacy. It was used to treat just about anything related to the lower gut and reproductive organs and used also as a fever reducer. This time of year in early autumn would have been when people collected the entire plant from root to flowerheads to process into a range of medicinal products from tea blends, root powders, ground flower and tender stem poultices. It was even used to treat ailments suffered by livestock and horses when Indian peoples began to farm the valleys in the style of livestock dependent settlers who overran the area in the mid-1700s. 

Red Spruce summit and restoration site

When I was able to get a full view of the valley I saw how the ridge lines were topped with Red Spruce and nearby one viewpoint I could see a replanting effort site mentioned by our project leader the day before. We worked in another site but she circled the place on the map where I might see their work from twenty years ago. The replanted restoration site today is plainly visible from a viewpoint that overlooks an old prison-era orchard slope. 

Flat-topped Goldenrod

Shrubby St Johnswort

The restoration of Red Spruce throughout the Southern Appalachian Highlands is an ongoing multi-partner effort to try and right a century-long series of wrongs that people have inflicted upon these mountainous landscapes. Those wrongs include fifty years of overharvesting, poor forestry practices, massive fires, coal-fired powerplant emissions, vehicle emissions, and introduced disease outbreaks. The restoration efforts are making progress but as our project leader stated, "Our great-grandchildren may ... may ... experience the great Red Spruce forests as they were before the logging era took the first of many swings at this species."

Work site sketches - Project RESTORE

Restoration is both a theme in my hiking as well as in my job. I seem to have found a way to have the idea of restoration cross two areas of my life kind of seamlessly.  I work professionally as an ecological restorationist and when possible I look for places that could use my skills in forest restoration as a volunteer. I've done a few "work-camping" partner projects with USFWS in the great Moose Bog in northern Vermont, on a restoration project with a Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve Grasslands Project in Kansas, and with a survey for American Chestnut in Shenandoah National Park. 

Alder and Reindeer Moss

I find the idea of restoration hopeful and encouraging, especially when I hike into places where nature itself has healed some great destruction and I have observed while hiking some really astounding reintroductions of wildlife that were only possible because vital habitat has been under careful restoration stewardship. I was even an early volunteer for the Red Wolf Recovery Project on the coast of South Carolina and when I return to the southern states and learn that the Red Wolf survives in some places because of that work, I myself feel restored. 

After many miles of hiking on the edge of the Cranberry Glades bog system, we popped out of the woods on to an unpaved forest road that took us on flat land back a mile to where the truck (and lunch) awaited. Looking into the hemlock and spruce woods, speckled in sunlight and shadow, the Glades felt mysterious even seductive. I wanted to plunge right back in. We passed the trailhead sign for the Cranberry Glades Botanical Area where I had walked earlier that day and then came upon the Cowpasture Trail sign where we had started our loop hike.  Amos refused to smile for the camera, looking instead through the woods towards the truck where his water dish and food bowl and comfy camp bed were. It had his rapt attention. 

Let's eat lunch!

The maps of the Cranberry Wilderness Trail system as provided by the USFS are pretty poor. They look like someone made them with a bunch of potato stamps! So I had to dig around the interwebs to find something better and came across this nice USGS-based topo map made by a user on the sub-Reddit "Wilderness Backpacker."  I share both maps here for comparison. I ended up using the excellent trail guide in Notes below, a downloaded map through AllTrails (there is NO signal here at all), and had an okay paper map with me that I picked up at the closed-due-to-government-shutdown Cranberry Glades Visitor Center. It was the last one in the rack and I returned it when I was done no worse for wear.

Sub-Reddit User Map:

USFS Map:

Notes:

I discovered so many great trails with this book that I dog-eared it early on. I hope to return to see more that the Mon has to offer for hikers. The Cowpasture Trail Loop in the Cranberry Glades Wilderness area is a favorite of the authors:  "If you can only hike one trail on a visit to the Mon, this is the one."

Allen de Hart and Bruce Sundquist (9th Ed.) West Virginia's Monongahela National Forest: 40 Spectacular Hikes in the Allegheny Mountains. 

WV Monongahela National Forest: Cranberry Glades Botanical Area

Cranberry Glades Botanical Area, Oct 7, 2025

Cell phones don't work here. Most electromagnetic devices won't work here, honestly. We're on the edge of the Quiet Zone, a huge chunk of the Monongahela National Forest that is radio silent (or tries to be) in order to protect the Green Bank Radio-Telescope and a nearby intelligence agency facility. But even without the National Radio Quiet Zone this high, cold, wet bowl valley of bogs and surrounded by isolated mountains seemed disconnected from just about everything anyway. 

Cranberry Glades Botanical Area

Access to the Cranberry Glades Botanical Area is via a boardwalk loop trail which was breathtakingly beautiful. I was escorted by a pair of American Woodcock for a short way as they walked along the shadow of the boardwalk investigating the mucky leaf litter for tasty worms and bugs. They seemed completely unfazed by my presence and allowed me to watch their bob-walking away into the alder thicket. Beaver activity was all around one section of the boardwalk which Amos the Coonhound found enticing as he checked out their wet paw prints on the wood and recently mounded mud piles for scent marking.  I watched a small school of Appalachian Pearl Dace swim against a gentle current as the boardwalk bridged a small creek. Several big Eastern rivers claim this valley as headwaters and I wondered how the stream's waters would travel by which river to the sea. 

With the government shut-down and the Cranberry Glades Visitor Center closed, there were no people on the boardwalk the entire two hours I sat out there sketching and studying the ecosystem.  Green Darner Dragonflies were droning around the bog catching flying insects on the wing as they migrated south to the Gulf of Mexico. Red Spruce laden with small red cones were hopping with birds, also feeding heavily to fuel their migration journey. I had a particularly close encounter with a Blackpoll Warbler who was also totally okay with my presence. He picked every tiny bug off one spruce bough then moved a step higher to do the same, spiraling around the tree so as not to miss a single morsel. 

Boardwalk at CGBA

Speaking of morsels, as I stood sketching the Woodcock I kept seeing what I thought were snowflakes, but it was too warm! I turned around and saw this mass of Woolly Alder Aphids clinging to a crook in an Alder limb. Every time the cold breeze powered through a few of them would get peeled off and float around on their feathery plumes, thus creating the "snow." They seemed to wave goodbye as I ventured further down the boardwalk. 

Woolly Alder Aphid

I had the time that day to do the long day hike around the bog system on the Cowpasture Trail but I couldn't tear myself away from this wonderful place. I'll save that experience for another post, however. In the meantime I was bathing in the silence and serenity of the place, able to detect without distraction, the smallest movements of animals probing for food - a salamander on the muddy edge of the stream, tiny wood warblers sneaking through the trees. The quiet wind through the Cotton Grass made the entire valley bob and wave with little white moppet tops. 

Though the boardwalk is only a mile long, I went around again. This time I noticed the blaze of Winter Berry fruits that I'd missed while watching the Woodcocks. I loved how the wild Cranberry ran amok here, there, everywhere on the floor of the bog and Northern Pitcher Plants poked up through it. 

Winter Berry, Ilex verticillata

Partridge Berry, Mitchella repens 

Cold-hardy plants included the prostrate woody vine, Partridge Berry.  Found as far north as the boreal forests of Ontario and Quebec surrounding the great northern Hudson Bay, this tough plant can endure the coldest of winters. Close together pairs of white waxy flowers blossom even as the last of the winter's snow and ice are still on the ground, luring cold hardy bumble bees to some of the earliest nectar and pollen resources of the year. Once pollinated the two seed forming ovaries merge to create a double berry. 

Ancient Red Spruce

Along the boardwalk entry path - as I finally decided to leave and start the second hike of the day - I encountered a cold pocket of old spruce forest carpeted with moss and draped with lichens. The ancient Red Spruce were relics of an earlier time and survivors of the logging boom that stripped much of West Virginia's spruce forests off the mountain ridges and slopes. Protected by the deep peat soils and boulder-strewn terrane these trees occupied a throwback to the Pleistocene, a cold, harsh landscape so harsh and inhospitable to people. For a decade now there have been efforts to restore the Red Spruce forest across the Allegheny mountain range - the main reason for my trip to the Monongahela this year as a volunteer tree planter on a project site not far from here.  

* Sketches were started on site and finished when I returned home. They did not look like this when I was walking off the boardwalk, very rough indeed! I do take reference photographs to use later and I  format my pages on site and usually get as far as layering colored pencil and watercolors on to preliminary sketches. When the light changes I move. No, I did not see a Wooly Mammoth but it being my favorite extinct animal I can do his portrait pretty well anywhere, especially in relic Pleistocene habitats like these excellent high bogs and cold forests in the Mon.

Notes:

Cranberry Glades Botanical Area, Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia (USFS)

West Virginia's Monongahela National Forest: 40 Spectacular Hikes in the Allegheny Mountains (2022)

PA-AT Hike #12: Whiskey Springs to Little Dogwood Run

PA-AT Hike #12: Whiskey Springs to Little Dogwood Run O&B 4.5 miles

Rocky Ridge connects to White Rocks like this

This is a tough section of my local AT walk sections and one I've been putting off just because as a day hike, it can be exhausting. But I needed to get away from work and school and take a day, so why not? I plotted a lollipop route using the adjoining PA Game Lands trail system to make it more interesting. Never mind that weird little stabbing headache I drove up with, by the time Amos and I set up the hill, it had faded thanks to a triple dose of Tylenol. 

Push-Pops

Long ago when I was thru-hiking PA with a cousin, this section earned the name The Push Pops that reminded him of the fun summer ice cream treat that emerges from a smooth cardboard tube with a little pressure from the bottom. The whole of Rocky Ridge to its connection with the popular White Rocks Ridge a few miles northeast seems pushed up and out of a slot in the ridge making these angular, almost eruptive formations. Normally I would have walked up to the biggest ones and explored but for some reason I was winded, out of breath, and decided to just sit and admire them. 

Seed capsules erupting on Burnweed

I was feeling a little light-headed, even dizzy, but still wasn't connecting how I was feeling with the latest spike in Covid cases happening at the college where I teach night classes. I had four students out with Covid last week and never thought I'd be next - until this hike. By the time the AT intersected with the old charcoal wagon road for the nearby Boiling Springs (Carlisle) Iron Furnace (1760) I was two miles in and feeling rough. I took the old wagon road up into the rugged woods of the Game Lands and followed it across a knob of quartzite and sandstone. Here we met a gorgeous Black Rat Snake who seemed just as curious about us as we were of him. A real beauty! 

Black Rat Snake

I had planned a short bushwack to connect the two trails and was checking an app that uses LiDAR to identify old industrial sites nearby when a stunning Red Tailed Hawk flew past at eye level at twenty yards. As I  looked up from the phone, the hawk angled its bright iron-red tail with its single black band towards me and swooped around in a half circle.  It's that time of year when hawks are spilling out of the northern woods along the Appalachians to ride the mountain ridge currents south. This beautiful hawk arced upwards into the light breeze and pivoted above the trees towards the south. Safe travels, hawk!  

AT along top of Rocky Ridge

AT near bottom at Little Dogwood Run

Old charcoal wagon road (PA Game Lands) 

Charcoal pit! 

As we hiked off-trail between the old road and the AT we encountered two charcoal pits worth exploring. These broad flat areas were used to stack and burn oak and chestnut logs to make charcoal fuel for the furnace nearby and were often connected by faint traces of roads that fed into main haul roads. They show up clearly on LiDAR as pock-marks along sides of hills. I explored one of the pits and found a fine patch of Burnweed growing there, thriving even in this sudden onset drought at the end of summer when not much else is growing. Burnweed has its tough little cylindrical flowers held tight with no flashy petals to observe but it is a nectar haven for late season butterflies and beetles who can probe deeply for a rich reward. They grow in places where fire (like charcoal burning) has made soils poor for most other plants, but they thrive here,fixing nitrogen and stabilizing ash and char with their deep tap roots.  

CalTopo LiDAR layer 

We stopped for a break at the intersection of the AT and the old charcoal wagon road to complete the lollipop section of this hike. I studied the Lidar app some more and realized just how many charcoal pits were in this area - dozens and dozens. At one time this entire forest was reduced to charcoal to feed the hungry iron furnace at Boiling Springs, which is still in good form at a small park in town (minus its wood outbuildings and sheds). The forest we hiked through today was the second or third version of woodland after the furnace ceased operations in the early 1800s. 

 Virginia Pine

When I stood up from our break, Amos was eager to get going but my head was spinning. He nearly pulled me over (but not on purpose) as I tried to steady myself upright, knowing  now that I was coming down with something unpleasant. Trying to steady my steps with hiking pole and tree holding, I made my way back up and over the Rocky Ridge section of the AT until we came to the long steep way back down to Whiskey Springs. I hated that I felt so bad and wanted to get off the trail as quickly as I could. It was a beautiful day with lots going on, but my body was not having it. 

Heading home

Notes:

CalTopo App - well worth having on your phone if you love exploring landscape history and getting off the beaten trail. 

The Boiling Springs Furnace (Carlisle Furnace) is not far from this section of the AT and later the AT will pass right by it. 

PA Youghiogheny Floodplain Scours

There is no better time to visit the Youghiogheny River than early fall when water levels are lower, giving access to the scour zones of the river's hard-washed edges. These are banks or ledges of stone that for the most part are underwater during the rest of the growing season, but come early autumn they become great places to botanize. It takes a tough group of plants to call the scours home.

Most rocky rivers have some version of a scour zone, especially if winter ice plays a factor in scrubbing these fragile habitats clean just ice-out and spring floods begin. The Susquehanna has its most famous scour banks close to where I live. I am always in awe of the persistence and beauty of plant life that erupts there at the end of each summer.  Exploring such a place puts you literally on the edge of where life is possible. Add to that, scours are relatively rare in Pennsylvania. When I saw the rocky ledges along the Youghiogheny full of prairie grasses and wildflowers I knew I had to get down there to have a look around. 

Late-season Boneset, Blue Flag Iris, Goldenrod, and a heathy stand of native Switchgrass greeted me as I waded into the waist-high meadow that for most of the year is underwater or ice. St. John's-Wort a stand of low-growing Silky Dogwood seemed to go hand-in-hand, where there was one, there was the other. Cockle Burr and Cardinal Flower added a contrast of growing types, from low-to-the-ground then spiking high above the competition. For all the variety of plants found on this long, low bench of exposed sandstone exhibited every growing strategy for this here-and-gone-again meadow.  

Silky Dogwood

At the edges of the scour zone, where flooding is more frequent, little else grows on the hard rocky bank. High waters have scrubbed the flats clean of any soil pockets. But nearby, where a skim of soil survives, a riot of plants occupied the edges. Steeple Bush and Silky Willow held the soil flats in place while all manner of neighbors filled in. It was hard not to find a square meter of thin soil that didn't have a dozen or more species growing in it! 

Scour stripped to bedrock

As I expected there was significant competition with a raft of non-native species. Japanese Knotweed threatened to take over an entire section of scour ledge while a healthy and prickly stand of Common Teasel scraped at my legs and arms. A few garden-variety Hosta lined the faint outline of a trail - as did a scattering of summer's trash left over from river visitors. 

Early Goldenrod 

Soon the first frosts will take their toll on the flowering plants leaving the Rushes in all their glory. Spiked Rush, Canada Rush, Sharp-Fruited Rush, and Creeping Spike Rush were waiting for their moment to overtake the scour land. The Purple Top Grass was in full color and set against the yellow of Goldenrod, put on quite a show. 

Common Teasel

"Bearded" leaf node of Purple Top grass

My favorite find is the bearded leaf node of the Purple Top Grass, where the leaf sheaf unfurls along the stem and reveals a bristly, pink patch of hairs. This is an easy way to identify this native grass but also one of my favorite ways to entice students to look closer and any native grass stand for this singular and sometimes dramatic (who wouldn't love a pink beard?) identifiers. 

On my way out of the floodplain scour zone I met up with a family coming in. They were trying to access the river for a less-crowded experience compared to what they encountered just downstream. "This is beautiful!" their mom exclaimed, so I took the opportunity to explain what made this area so very special. "Well," said their dad, "We will leave this place alone and not wade here - but let's visit with the flowers before we go."

Notes:

Youghiogheny River Scour - Western Pennsylvania Conservancy

PA Laurel Highlands: Indian Creek Valley Trail

 

While I had hoped to walk the full 8-mile out-and-back on the southern-most section of the Indian Creek Valley Rail Trail (ICVRT), Amos and I had two close calls with falling trees and honestly I didn't want to test the old "Three Times The Charm" rule. Had we made it through the trail would have taken us to the terminus at the Youghiogheny River, but the walk above the noisy waters of Indian Creek Gorge was wonderful and six miles O&B seemed all my coonhound wanted to do anyway.

The Steyer Bridge 

The Indian Creek Valley Railroad (see Notes) was once a very busy industrial line hauling coal and lumber from mines and mills from the heart of the Laurel Highlands. At only twenty miles in length and with several spur lines, the ICVRR was the connector for many bustling coal patch towns, resorts, and lumber yards. Abandoned in 1969 it began its conversion to a recreational trail in the 1990s and is close to being finished. There are still a few miles left to connect it all up and all but a few traces of its hard-working past remain. 

Mill Run Reservoir 

My original plan for the day was to hike to Cucumber Falls in Ohiopyle State Park where we'd been camping, but two nights before a wicked bad storm crashed into the great bend of the river and demolished trails as well as damaged the beautiful river path in town. Downed trees were everywhere in the valley. The storm was described later as a microburst and had left the park and town without power, crushed some cars under fallen trees, and destroyed several trails. So, I decided the ICVRT about ten miles out seemed like a safe option. Welp... 

Mississippian sandstone

What a beautiful trail! It was great to spend time in the railroad cuts to study the stacked layered beds of sandstone for who and what might be living among the cracks and crevices. A fence lizard! This rock was formed as shallow sea bottom some 340 - 320 million years ago and it is the most common rock type found in the Laurel Highlands of SW Pennsylvania. Associated with Carboniferous sandstone types are veins of coal and knowing their geology, those ICVRR speculators connected the start-up coal towns with their small pit and shaft mines with rails along the most prominent coal veins that followed the creek valley. Although considered a small coalfield by Pennsylvania standards, this field provided lots of coal, jobs, and community for almost seventy years. 

Tick-trefoil 

Two miles into our walk I was feeling pretty confident that the storm hadn't impacted the area as badly as it did Ohiopyle. But then while admiring a patch of Woodland Sunflowers and Trefoil, there was a familiar and terrifying sound - POP! Crack! .....  Pop pop pop! It seemed the falling tree was not too close so I kept walking albeit a little more slowly while still admiring the flower glades. A bicyclist who'd passed us at the start came cruising by, returning from his ride. Over his shoulder he called "That was a short ride! Be careful - the way is blocked. You might be able to get through but I couldn't - and it's still coming down." Uh-oh.

Woodland Sunflower

As is becoming more and more common in our state, episodes of heavy, heavy rain (even without the wind) in summer and fall cause flashfloods and forest damage. Woodlands on steep slopes are particularly vulnerable. Heavy rain adds tremendous pressure to full canopy forests and these take the brunt of monster downpours. Inundated steep slope soils slip and fail. The weight of water begins to affect the integrity of the tree causing limbs to droop and sag and leaning trunks to dip beyond recovery position. A water weighted tree can fall slowly over hours or days as parts of its structure, unable to rebound after the rain event, begin to release under the pressure.  

Boulder glade

Delayed treefall can happen hours or days after such an event. Hikers walking through areas that have experienced heavy, sudden rainfall events like this should be on guard. Watching for slope failures, landslips and slides, and arched, leaning trees over trails is more than precautionary. Knowing when to leave an area by reading the land and forest is a skill much needed in our heavily wooded state. 

Before long I came upon two areas where the trail had washed out, one a landslip and the other a weakened culvert drainage that had recently been repaired. We were able to skirt around each safely but as we got closer to the river there was more storm debris to step through and around. I started to have teenie tiny flashbacks of when once a trail gave out under me on a high bluff and I tumbled twenty feet down a slope, breaking my leg. Hmmm...

Indian Creek Gorge

Then I started to hear the popping, groaning, creaking, and crashing. We walked cautiously along with me literally talking to the trees "You all don't get any ideas!" or "Stay where you are!" and Amos looked at me with a worried look on his face - easy to do for a coonhound - floppy ears way back, bushy eyebrows up, jowly head a-tilt.  I observed how many oaks and maples were bent heavy over the trail head. A few freshly snapped hemlocks trunks and pitched over pines were evident on the hillside below. Maybe about now would be a good time to ...

Mountain Angelica

...when the popping trees were too close for comfort. I held on to Amos' leash tightly as he was more curious and wanted to go see just what was causing that sound. Instead, I talked him into backing up while keeping my eyes on the stretch ahead of steep sloping woods. I saw bunches of leaves begin to flutter down and some movement in the canopy as a tree slowly leaned into its neighbors. Pop! Pop! Groannnn! Then - CRASH! 

Glade Fern

Like dominoes, the neighboring trees caught in the fall, a dozen mostly smaller oaks and a few beech, began to slip and tumble. We backed up with a bit of a jog and with the first blockage now in sight behind us, I decided now was the time to turn the hike around. Stuck between the two blocked sections, I felt a little (actually a lot) uneasy about getting trapped on the trail. With the sound of yet another tree somewhere on the steep downslope beginning to creak, we quickly threaded our way back through the first tree jumble and kept up a quick walking pace until the sounds were far behind. 

Tree fall

Not until we were back to the flatter valley of the Mill Run Reservoir did I feel like we were clear of the gorge and its restless trees. We sat along the shore and had our snack. Mallard ducks with nearly full grown young popped in and out of young willow branches that brushed softly on the water. As my mind is apt to do, I thought about all the "hiker killed by fallen tree" stories I'd heard this year - and there were a lot - including three incidents in PA. A flash of cobalt blue shook me out of my thoughts as a Kingfisher swooped my and landed on a limb over the water. Monarchs and Tiger Swallowtails drifted over a tall stand of Joe Pye Weed nearby. 

Snack stop 

The O&B for six miles was just enough for Amos who seems (like many of us) less and less able to deal with high heat and humidity. How much of our hiking experiences in summer nowadays are affected by changes in our summer weather patterns? Here in PA it has been a summer of intense and frequent storms, tropical deluges, and stupid hot and humid weeks on end. Sound asleep in the shade, I watched his chest rise and fall with rapid breaths. It had gotten hot again. The breezes had disappeared and big storm clouds were building again on the horizon.  Know when to go!

Our hike section in RED

Back at the truck where I had parked in the new-ish gravel lot across the road from the large Camp Christian grounds, I helped Amos up into his backseat and put the AC on high. As the truck cooled down I read about the camp having once been the site of Killarney Park, a hugely popular day retreat for residents of Pittsburgh. 

The ICVRR built a spur line with a station to accommodate several trains a day filled with visitors out for amusement rides and picnics. By 1910 the park had added overnight lodging (cabins and an inn), two large lakes for boating, and a dance hall. Having grown up on a summer church camp property that had also once served as popular retreat park, it was fun to drive around Camp Christian and felt like I'd come almost home. Plus, it felt safer to be inside as the next round of afternoon storms began to roll through! 

Notes: 

Mountain Watershed Association  Indian Creek Valley Rail Trail

Killarney Park/ Camp Christian From Park to Camp