Hawk Mountain Sanctuary - River of Rocks Circuit Hike Part II

Leaving the North Lookout I headed across the escarpment on a route less a path and more a selected arrangement of half-ton boulders that afforded some sort of  footing. Still, the way is marked with red blazes painted on key visual points - large rocks and trees. The trick was to look up. It was way too easy to become engrossed in rock hopping, missing a critical turn or switchback. I tumbled once and luckily landed in a sweep of rhododendron which happened to bring every smallish flighty thing in for a look. 

Black and white warbler wondering what all the thrashing was about.

Hiking across the top of an escarpment is akin to being in the treetops as the canopy is not above you but below. My landing in a rhododendron thicket gave me an eye-to-eye view of some curious canopy-loving warblers hanging out in the stunted oaks on the ridge. A black and white warbler interrupted his whispering song to come see what bugs I'd stirred up. He got right to work. These tiny feathered migrants are making their way through the Appalachian Highlands to stake out a canopy claim. In spring the diffuse migration of wood warblers happens in bursts of song and flitting shadows. I love to catch a wave of warblers, a mixed up collections of energetic color and call. Come autumn, their breeding colors fade into browns and tans, so this is the time of year to watch for the brilliant blues, greens, yellows, orange, rust, and iridescent purples.

Black-throated blue warbler checking me out.

Back to my feet, wobbling along on sharp tips of rock wedges, I sensed I was being followed. I kept stopping to look back, expecting to find a much more able and faster hiker gaining ground on me, but instead all I saw were warbler shadows flitting along. Lots of warblers - hoping, I imagined, that I would catapult again into some bug-infested bush releasing a buffet of insects. But I kept my balance for the rest of the trip, and my following of tiny birds passed me off from the group at the top to the group along the apron of rock that slid into the quiet forest below.The stunted black oak gave way to maples, hickories, ash, and white oak that towered overhead. The rhododendron passed into mountain laurel. Wildflowers began to appear in abundance.

Bellwort along the path, a sign of richer soils on the shoulders of the mountain.

For a while the path opened up and became more of a trail. Almost a road. Maybe it had been a road. A way for oxen, mules, people, and wagons to move sand and lumber. The soils, enriched by detritus, were thick and springy, unlike the sandy dry skin of dirt at the top.  Stump-sprouting chestnuts filled the understory alongside sassafras and young oaks. What the widened path had once been -what it had been used for - was all a secret now, but it awaited my steps nonetheless.

Chestnut stump-sprouting in a new kind of forest.

This woods, as much as I wish it to be the Appalachian forest of my grandparents and great-grandparents, is a different kind of forest today. When the great chestnuts died away, an entire ecosystem died with them. What stands now as our Appalachian woodlands is a forest changed by their absence. Trees create an underground network with each other, sharing nutrients, communicating, offering support, and forming a web of life unseen and  unknowable to those hiking along the surface. The American chestnut was giant voice in the language of trees. Their strength and brawn is surely missed.

Clouds overhead and a light shower darkens the old woods road, lit only by borders of moss.

The old road wound gently through the valley and I forgot to look up. I wandered along the old road for quite a while not realizing I'd missed a red blaze and I was now climbing up.  I turned, walked back until I found a dogleg marked by a double blaze to the right. Down to the River of Rocks I went on what was now not a pleasant old woods road but a jumble of rocks that slid into the crux of the valley. Now the trail earns its name and its reputation!

The infamous River of Rocks Trail earns its 'Difficult' rating for the next two hours.

These slides are what make the River of Rocks. They can be found all along the Kittatinny Mountain, but nowhere else are they as visible and as dramatic as here in the  Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Pennsylvania. These are freeze-thaw slides, cascades of rock ledge blown apart by freeze-thaw cycles during the most recent glaciated period of 15,000-8,000 years ago. The rocks are really moving, millimeter by millimeter each year, the force of gravity inching them downhill. If you sit along a slide on a very cold winter day you can hear them pop and crack, even rumble a bit as they creep ever so slowly along. These were once exposed ramparts of sandstone where wooly mammoths and ground sloths once roamed. I reckon one day to bring my toy plush mammoth and photograph him walking sure-footedly across his ancestor's domain. Just for fun. But then - out of the corner of my eye, in a place I recognized where several boulders are spaced farther apart than all the others - voila! Pink lady's slippers!

In this pocket of leaf litter a patch of a dozen or so pink lady's slippers grew heartily, a tough bunch of flamboyant orchids, their maroon basal leaves pointed outward as if balancing (like me) between boulders. I was overjoyed to see them again and took off my pack to walk carefully around them. I'd been introduced to this patch, not quite on the trail (another delightful product of forgetting to look up for the tree blazes), by my friend Steve many years ago. He was just graduating from Rutgers with a doctorate in botany, on his way to a new university position in Virginia. That was almost twenty years ago. Steve is still there. The orchids are still here. I am still working on that doctorate but that's another story.

Yellow pollen packets are seen at the two escapes.

The clasping petals enclose a trick, not quite a trap, scented with perfume and made alluring by bright pink shades of bee-love color. A woodland bee slips inside the heart pouch through a slit between the petals and finds - nothing. No nectar. No reward. So in making her way back out the bee must pass between rows of guard hairs that direct her up through the two possible exits. Capping each exit are two heavily laden pollen packets stuck tightly to the stigmas. The bee must push and squeeze to get out and in doing so the flower transfers pollen to her back. Off she flies, lured by another orchid nearby, and the transfer of pollen is complete.

I believe each place has its own natural history, its own unique story, and that there are so many histories to know that it is impossible to know them all. The Endless Mountain contains thousands of unique places, each with its own special tale-to-tell.  This tiny patch of flowers tells its own story of survival in a room sized opening between house-sized boulders. The seeds of the lady slippers, like many orchid seeds, have no food storage and rely on soil bacteria to coat them and help process nutrients for their growth. Unless this particular bacteria exists in this particular place, no seeds will germinate. Here, however, the pocket of leaf litter and debris must contain exactly what the plant needs to increase its colony size, for there are twice as many plants here as there were so many years ago.

A spring bubbles up from the forest floor in a bog-like hollow and quickly disappears back underground.

The trail opens into a broad ledge of sloping ground where for the first time I hear the sound of running water. A spring emerges from the sidewall of the valley and trickles out into a shallow bowl of ground, staying long enough to grow some tadpoles, then dropping out of sight in a jumble of boulders. From here to the base of the trail, some two miles away, the spring is joined by dozens of other underground streams that tumble and gurgle under the River of Rocks.  It is a river flipped upside-down, the boulder fields on top, the river below. At times the river emerges, flushes over mossy mounds of rock and disappears again below an ever widening plain of shattered, sharp sandstone.

One of several broad boulder fields that make up the River of Rocks.

It was still somewhat cool and not much before noon when I reached the main river of rock nearing the valley bottom. I had hoped to see timber rattle snakes as I have in the past, sunning themselves lazily on the boulders, but it was still too chilly.

My lunch companion, a Ruby-throated hummingbird. This is a female (no ruby throat).

I stopped along a warm edge of the  boulder field and had my lunch. I suppose my red Keene State College baseball cap attracted a friendly ruby-throated hummingbird. She stayed the entire time I rested and lunched, even buzzing my cap a few times!

Rushing springs pop out of the forest floor to join the underground river below.

After lunch I made the loop around the bottom of the boulder fields and began the long trek back up the mountain, this time on the north-facing slope that forms the south side of the valley. Rhododendrons are king here, and the trail winds in and through tunnels of  rhodie forest. In their shade, trickles of springs popped up and rambled downhill to the valley bottom.

Recent heavy rains have redirected many small streams. Come summer these will be dry.

After noon, heading up to the Visitor Center, more people started appearing. I no longer had the mountain to myself. It was hard to hear the warblers and springs babbling for the people talking loudly. They were coming down, I was heading up, so I stood aside as each party passed. Only one hiker, aware of the 'Hiker's Rules of the Road' thanked me for the right-of-way. On the AT this is a much appreciated courtesy and everyone gets a thank you for stepping aside. But I guess this is not the AT, and these day hiking folks were not aware of the custom.

White trillium in the rich bottomlands of the River of Rocks.

The hour-long trek up the north slope revealed many wet meadows and though I didn't see more pink lady's slippers, I did see flowers new for the day. Pocket meadows of just a few dozen feet across contained a stunning variety of wildflowers giving me pause, and much needed breathing breaks for the climb-out.

Wet meadows humming with bees and hummingbirds at the bottom of the valley.

Nearing the top of the trail, things got very steep. No people were headed in my direction but for one elderly woman with a full backpack on! She climbed slowly and took lots of breaks, but I didn't want to pass her, so I kept a distance and slowed way down. She had bear bells attached to the hip belt of her pack and as she started up after each standing break, she gave them a jingle. This had me looking nervously around for bears. I had observed earlier in the day several foot to two foot rocks rolled easily out of the way - a bruin looking for ants, salamanders, and beetles. Bears love bugs. But no bears all the way to the top of the mountain where the elder hiker continued ahead to the lookouts and I veered left to the Visitor Center and my car, Angus. A beautiful hike - I found the lady's slippers, and so much more. Slow, but steady, an amazing spring hike!

Hawk Mountain Sanctuary - River of Rocks Circuit Hike Part I

On this gorgeous spring morning I set out to hike the River of Rocks Trail in the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Pennsylvania, with stops at the North and South Lookout. The six mile circuit hike took me a tad longer than most folks because I stop for everything - I mean everything. In all it took me about six hours to go six miles. My goal today was to find a patch of pink lady's slippers I knew bloomed on the southeastern side of the escarpment, a patch I'd visited with friends for years. But make no mistake - this is a challenging, rocky trail. I took a set of well-worn hiking sticks for the trip and used them almost the whole way.

Hawk Mountain holds a special place in my heart, having learned of the efforts of Rosalie Edge from my Grandmom, an enthusiastic birder herself. Edge was a fighter for causes she felt needed a firebrand. She was an outspoken and vigorous suffragette for women's rights and when the job was done, she turned her sites on conservation. Literally. During the interwar years 1918-1940 she was considered a militant of the conservation movement exposing to the embarrassment of many established conservation groups such as the Audubon Society hypocrisy and inept practices she felt duped not only American wildlife and the public, but especially dues paying members and major donors. 

A large feisty eagle memorializes the fierceness of  Rosalie Edge and her efforts to preserve Hawk Mountain.

When I was old enough to drive, Hawk Mountain was one of my first long distance trips from home, although today the route is familiar and doesn't seem quite as long as it did then. In the past I guided adult nature trips for a local nature center and state parks, but no longer in the guide service, it has become refreshingly new to me as I walk at my own pace - like a slug along the edge of a leaf - enjoying aspects of the mountain that were hidden to me earlier. Like pink lady's slippers. You can't hike very fast and watch for delicate spring wildflowers while distracted with keeping your balance on sharp rocks and five ton boulder ledges all the way down a mountain.

A geology panel greats the hiker before you set foot on the challenging trails ahead.

Because Hawk Mountain is privately owned and operated as a conservation non-profit, they ask a trail fee to help support their efforts. I am happy to pay it each time. The fees go towards the excellent work and programs HMS offers. I was the first one there in the morning and waited as the Visitor Center was unlocked for the day. The air was crisp and still. I could see my breath! Ah, spring in the Appalachians. An attendant greeted me and suggested I make a quick trip to the North Lookout as the indigo buntings put on their best show before 10 a.m.  Great advice, since I had planned to do the circuit down the valley first and would have missed these bright blue showmen!

From the South Lookout the parallel ridges come together at this valley to form the funnel through which migrating raptors travel by the tens of thousands in the fall.

Upon reaching the South Lookout on a very nice hard-packed trail, the bowl of the valley spreads north eastward along the front range of the Appalachians of Pennsylvania.  Some places are like old friends, and the long mountain ridge on which Hawk Mountain Sanctuary sits is one of the oldest friends I have - pushing 500 million years old since laying down the first ocean sediments that now crown the escarpment with Tuscarora Sandstone.  Named the Kittatinny or Endless Mountain by the Lenape People, parallel ridges arc along the Front and come together here, creating a natural funnel for migrating raptors in the fall.

A beautiful set of engraved metal panels greets the South Lookout visitor. From here out the trails are difficult and steep.

Going by the beautiful bright green woodlands and vibrant warbler song on the hike to the North Lookout, it was hard to imagine that this escarpment was a killing ground for hawks. There are plenty of places to view the old photographs - at the Visitor Center, in books, online. I won't spoil this blog post with these, however, except to say what a gift this place is considering its history of hawk hunting and industry. Like many places in the Mid-Atlantic, extractive industry visited even these difficult ridge lines with sand mines, quarrying for sandstone, and logging to fire the nearby furnaces.

Pits, quarry banks, and mule cart roads are all but obscured by a nearly recovered Appalachian forest. Missing, however, are the great chestnuts many of which continue to stump sprouting and are seen only as gangly saplings in the understory. I saw plenty of chestnuts only a few feet high and wondered at the great roots below that once supported these massive trees and all the animals dependent upon the great mast.

Hikers are guided through an old sand quarry and up the steep front wall of sandstone to the North Lookout. Sand still spills from the Tuscarora ledges, a valuable commodity in the 1800s for the glass industry.

Americans enjoy their mythologies in politics, history, and social movements. We tend to agree with what fits neatly into our belief system while pitching fits at the possibility that things may not be what they seem. Conservation history is part mythology and part belief system, sprinkled with facts interpreted by people (you, me, historians) long removed from a particular place in time. Preserving large swaths of disappearing wilderness is seen as good, while utilizing wilderness for resource extraction is seen as bad. Saving rare and endangered animals is generally understood as a good and noble cause, while conserving common species and everyday landscapes usually thought of as a waste of time and money. This may be one reason Rosalie Edge sparked such furor: she turned conservation thinking on its head and declared all species worthy of protection, especially while they were common and well before they became rare.

North Lookout with its famous owl-on-a-stick (lure)

Edge entered the conservation movement at age 55 after a privileged life traveling the world and enjoying the comforts of wealth. She pivoted into the movement by reading an article detailing the slaughter of 70,000 bald eagles in Alaska and equally appalled to learn of typical migratory hawk hunts staged closer to her home in New York City. She was as sharp as the Tuscarora Sandstone that lies tumbled across the North Lookout - a force unstoppable, and justifiably feared by some in the conservation community she sought to clean up. Learning of the localized hawk hunt atop Hawk Mountain, she bought the land outright and quickly declared it a sanctuary in 1934. The hunting stopped and her story spread. Soon, societal disdain for other local hunts brought these affairs to a quick end (Wagoner's Gap, PA; Rocky Ridge, PA). An old friend of mine, Charlie Gant, would often recall for me the days of the early hawk watches and his sixty years participation in the annual fall and spring counts. I dedicated my hike today to his memory, and sat for a time at the North Lookout imagining the young men and women returning from the War, finding solace and purpose in the conservation of this land, gathered in celebration and anticipation for the fall counts.

Looking to the northwest, towards the coal fields of central PA on the horizon.

From the North Lookout, the view to the Great Coal Fields in the far distance can, with binoculars, include the hulking silhouettes of old coal crushers and breakers. With a little squinting, you can also see a new generation of energy - the slowly spinning blades of the ridge top wind farms near Hazelton, Wilkes-Barre, and Scranton. The Little Schuylkill River cuts a zig-zag path through the Valley and Ridge Province, an aptly named section of the Appalachian Mountain complex. Open farmland provides critical open space to many nesting raptors who call Penn's Woods home: kestrels, barn owls, red tailed hawks, red shouldered hawks, northern harriers. The Sanctuary is a partner in the Pennsylvania Farmland Raptor project that encourages landowners to  create and maintain habitat for open land raptors with emphasis on barn owls, kestrels, and northern harriers. 

Indigo bunting declaring territorial boundary on the North Lookout

While contemplating the mountain's history I was reminded of the Visitor Center's attendant's advice for coming here first with a territorial dispute  between four male indigo buntings. The ruckus was intense as they declared exactly where the boundaries were for multiple territories all across the boulder field.  But it was a musical ruckus and a very pretty sight too. Wouldn't it be great if humans settled their disputes with singing instead of military invasions?

No one else up here but me and two birders! In fall you would be hard pressed to find a spot to sit with so many people coming up to watch the hawk migration.

Wild azalea blooms inside the protective cover of a wind-sculpted rhododendron on the North Lookout.

The boundary song battle continued for some time, offering me plenty of opportunity to photograph these spectacular little birds and rock hop over to take some snaps of some beautiful wild azalea blossoms. I was gone so long in fact, leaving my backpack on a boulder back by the treeline, that upon my return I found my trail mix bag neatly removed from an outside pocket, sitting on an adjacent boulder. Hmmm. I waited a while longer near my pack until the deft expert reappeared. She noticed me before getting too far into the bag, then quickly backed out. A lesson learned the hard way on the AT - micro bears more trouble than big bears.

Micro-bear: Chipmunk with a mouthful of my trail mix.

As I resumed my circuit hike, I thought some more about Rosalie Edge. In my opinion, she's been sadly forgotten in our nation's conservation history. Maybe because she stirred too many pots with too much fire that many established conservation histories choose to leave her out, or maybe because she doesn't quite fit the nature-benevolent stereotype of the period. It's not nature-y to be angry. There is one biography by Dyana Z. Furmansky (2009). Rosalie Edge, Hawk of Mercy: The Activist Who Saved Nature from the Conservationists. University of Georgia Press. A good read, but better to visit Hawk Mountain Sanctuary for a full appreciation of what she gave us, and the hawks, and the indigo buntings, and the chipmunks. 

Notes: 

The year I was born, one of my favorite people of all time, Rachel Carson, visited Hawk Mountain. I found the exact place she sat to watch hawks and I watched indigo buntings instead from that rocky seat!  http://explorepahistory.com/displayimage.php?imgId=1-2-449

Here's the HMS website - a nice read, but better to go there yourself!  http://www.hawkmountain.org

Part 2 of my River of Rocks Circuit Hike will post next week: Did I find pink lady's slippers? Did I fall and break anything? Did I feel I was being watched? Stay tuned...

This hike dedicated to the memory of Charles H. Gant, Jr.