PA The Great Bog Mothers Day Muck, Black Moshannon State Park

For Mother's Day I decided to make the long drive to Black Moshannon State Park in the middle of the state for a wet and wonderful muck (wet hike) through the Great Bog on the Bog-Indian-Moss-Hanne Trail. It's a seven mile point-to-point trail that follows the edge of the spectacular wetlands of the Black Moshannon Lake that, if you had all day to do, would make a nice 12-mile loop with park roads and other lakeside trails. But I only had a half day so we set out to do what we could. Keep in mind, Amos does not like deep water...

 

We made it as far as the airport three soggy miles in where Amos stood on a strip of high ground and refused to go any further. So after a snack under a shady Hemlock and a good lay down, we headed back for an out-and-back muck of six miles. But on the trail, no matter which direction we were headed, the bog and wetland plants were something to behold. Add to that, a beautiful cow elk on the trail, a flock of wild turkey blasting out from an open glade, perfecto.

Dry start but not for long!

The trail

The Black Moshannon Bog or The Great Bog is one of the best examples of northern bog ecosystems in the state. Spring is a fantastic time to muck. The bog encircles the sphagnum moss lined lake making a wide border of marsh and upland bog. Wood frogs bounded out of our way as we forged into the flooded trail. Surrounded by the songs of Black and White Warblers, Scarlet Tanagers, Blue-Headed Vireos, and Chestnut-Sided Warblers, the wooded bog sections with their moss-hummock islands of High Bush Blueberry and Alder were beautiful.

Wet glades

The trail became a slog through marsh grasses and deep mud. We startled a sunning Garter Snake on a section of boardwalk, which itself sank into the mire under our combined weight. Bog plants were everywhere and while not yet in bloom, the buds of Pitcher Plant were plump and ready. I was definitely getting my northern bog fix as we followed the flooded trail between hummocks and grassy meadows. I good mucker never hikes across the hummocks as these are important islands of plant, insect, and animal diversity so I was glad to see that this trail stayed off these mounds of high ground. Instead, a black ribbon of tannin water marked the line of trail.

Pitcher Plant

High Bush Blueberry

Pitch Pine on its hummock

With binoculars I could see a stand of Black Spruce, a rarity this far from the boreal northern bogs of New England, but the climate here is much more like that of northern Vermont where I once lived. The trail crept up from the bog into a higher stand of forest composed of hemlock, birch, oak, and pine and strung zig-zag around a series of vernal pools still standing full of snow-melt water and spring feeds. Frogs were hopping everywhere and in the closer pools I could see tadpoles drifting here and there until we frightened them to the bottom. If there was one Fringed Polygala there were thousands. I have never seen so many of these bog plants along one trail.

Fringed Polygala

Edge of a beaver pond

Banks of Red Chokeberry

Red Chokeberry

Sinking almost to his knees, Amos began to prefer the slightly drier edges of the trail though his attempts to hike dry were thwarted by dense banks of Red Chokeberry. These shrubs provide very nutritious berries for birds in the summer and fall and are especially important for migratory species that require fats for fuel. Painted Trilliums were everywhere on the drier edges so I had to make sure he didn't  tread on them by shortening his leash. 

Painted Trillium

The trail through bog hummocks

Northern Starflower

Cucumber Root

The trail wound around the edges of the Great Bog then suddenly plunged right in. Up to my calves in tannin-colored water, Amos was plopping and plodding ahead of me on a now longer leash. We slurped through gorgeous grass glades lined with northern Balsam Fir (another rarity!) on mossy islands above the water. A stand-alone Pitch Pine marked a rise in the trail towards the edge of the municipal airport. This is when I noticed the first yellow blaze! It's an easy enough trail to follow, though, and on the way back I saw more blazes that were visible only to those hiking back. Oh well. It was good to have this trail map downloaded, however, since so much of it was flooded and it would have been easy to get confused on the interlacing water paths.

Pink Lady Slipper

Lunch tree

Appalachian-Barrens Strawberry

 

On the way back I discovered a patch of Pink Lady Slipper orchids so I stopped long enough to ooooh-and-ahhhhh while Amos stood impatiently by. We flushed a flock of Wild Turkey off a dry grass glade. They looked to be mostly young hens or jennies. And soon after that we came around a bend to see the backside of an Elk trotting through the uphill through woods. The Moshannon State Forest surrounds this state park and although "official" accounts will state that elk are not found here, I can now affirm along with many locals and other hikers that there are. Amos, of course, lost his mind and filled the forest with his signature squalling, baying, howls, and yowls. 

Fiddlehead (fern)

Dry glade of Birch

Seeing the Elk, I was reminded that in pre-settlement times Moose and Elk were common in these high wetland areas along the Allegheny Front. Moose would have been abundant throughout the wetland complexes of central and northern PA but Elk would have visited the wetlands only spring for fresh emergent, herbaceous plants including juicy moss after a long cold winter of little or no fresh browse.  Moose are long gone from these environments, but it was so nice to see an Elk on the edge of the bog doing what Elk used to do here before they were hunted out. The return of Elk has been one of PA's great come-back stories and the herd continues to grow. My first PA Elk spotting years ago was not far from here in the Quehanna Wilds with several since then. This makes five trail sightings I've had while hiking in backcountry areas of our state.  

Looking back...

We met up with a muddy couple back at the parking lot who'd made almost the full loop.  They were camped at the campground here and got an early start but with another two mile road walk to complete their walk, I offered them to ride them back on the tailgate. They happily accepted.

Happy Mother's Day from Moshannon State Forest

We shared notes to include the Elk which had been standing in the water munching on plants when they saw it. So it had moved upland by the time Amos and I got to her. Covered in mud and happy as clams, these folks do the muck every year on Mother's Day weekend as a way to celebrate all the new life, sounds and sights "reborn every year" in the Great Bog. This marks their seventh year on their Mother's Day Muck. What a fun tradition! Amos hollered the whole slow two road miles which had people walking along the road waving and laughing. The tailgaters had a good laugh, too! 

Notes:  

Black Moshannon State Park - https://www.pa.gov/agencies/dcnr/recreation/where-to-go/state-parks/find-a-park/black-moshannon-state-park.html

Moshannon State Forest - https://www.pa.gov/agencies/dcnr/recreation/where-to-go/state-forests/find-a-forest/moshannon.html

I downloaded the map of the Moss-Hanne Trail to have on my phone but this is the best regional map to take along if maps are not available at the office (it was closed when I stopped by) Purple Lizard Moshannon & Quehanna 

 

PA Black Moshannon State Park: Wandering

On a recent professional training visit to State College, PA, I took a few hours before heading home to enjoy one of my favorite PA State Parks. Black Moshannon contains over 3,000 acres of Allegheny Front wetlands and forest.  Once the setting for multiple lumber camps, lumber mills, and a thriving 19th century village the main area of the park in the early 1990s had a large hotel-tavern, dry goods stores, post office, a bowling alley (!) and a school.  Now only the school remains while equally historic CCC structures replace the structures of Antes, a ghost town with only an historical marker to remind us of the busy logging town.  

The lower section of Black Moshannon Lake is marshy and fringed with bog habitat.

When the lumber ran out in the early 20th century (of course, no one ever believed that could be possible in the 19th century) the landscape was littered with the remains of forest and subject to frequent wildfires. I've lived in northern Vermont where the forest history is much the same. The devastation of slash fires, too frequent to allow the forest to recover, kept the landscape deprived of its pioneer growth. Erosion scarred the land and silt built up behind old mill dams. What is now Black Moshannon Lake is the silted-in expanse of mill ponds now covered in shallow freshwater marsh.

Button Bush, Cephalanthus occidentalis

During the 1920s, former Chief of the U.S.Forest Service, Governor of Pennsylvania, Gifford Pinchot tried out a new idea on this and dozens of other deeply damaged landscapes across the Commonwealth.  He and fellow Governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had devised a work-to-restore program that in both states served as the model for the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Present camp store was built by CCC and used as a park residence. Built to last!

When FDR became President, he made the CCC one of the premier New Deal programs that brought employment and much needed recovery to both people and the land. Black Moshannon though, was already under restoration thanks to 200 men encamped at the former Beaver Mill lumber logging camp site.  As one of the first official CCC demonstration projects in Pennsylvania those boys had a bit of a head start first fighting fires then replanting the forest. They went on to build park structures and develop the trail system.

A juvenile Eastern Phoebe hanging out in the shade of hemlocks.

I had no destination in mind as I wandered around the park, sampling this trail then another, in all about five miles. I walked a few miles on the Mosse-Hanne Trail, did the Bog Trail coming and going, then did the 1 mile loop on the Sleepy Hollow Trail. I made a mental note that the Allegheny Front Trail, a 40-mile circuit around the park through the state forest might make a great off-season multi-day hike. I checked out the cabins, available year-round for rent. Oy - I need to come back!

A bouquet of carnivorous plants - Pitcher Plant.

The Bog Trail boardwalk was a nice but short excursion into the acid tannin water bog of a side cove and there I observed pitcher plants, lots of flycatchers (Wood Peewee, Phoebe, Kingbird, Great Crested) all diving and zooming around catching winged things.  Hidden from view but startling me on the way out was a Great Blue Heron hunting just beyond the cattails. He didn't go far, however, and stalked along parallel to the boardwalk making short work of fish who thought they were safe beneath the lily pad cover.

Wood Peewee.

Returning to the forest, I wandered down a trail with old plantation pine to one side and thick maple/beech/hemlock woods on the other side. Red-eyed Vireos followed me along above in the maple canopy while Chickadees followed me through the pine woods. My escort kept up until I came to the trail intersection with the Allegheny Front trail when - tempted as I was to go farther - I turned around to head back the way I came. I noticed all the mossy stumps of harvested trees scattered throughout the older forest.

Skid team at Star Mills. 

Lumber camp near Beaver Mill, later the site of a  CCC camp. 

Pine plantation.

I walked a shady lane lined with old cabins and cottages, a car pulled up and a nice lady asked if I was there to lead a group of kids from a summer camp. Now, I had had an experience with another nice lady in State College who, just hours before who - for the life of her - could not figure out my front registration plate as the Scottish national flag. She kept insisting it was a southern confederate flag - a symbol of racism. The nice lady at the park was insistent too, so naturally I was a little leery.  "Certainly you are our tour guide! You are!" I quickened my pace and she rolled along in her car behind me. "Where should we meet you?" Seeing another trail ahead, I politely explained I was there for a few hours hike and that I was sure a park ranger or naturalist would be by soon. She looked defeated. I ran for the trail head. A park ranger did drive up and a busload of LOUD kids invaded the bog trail. No wonder the nice lady was so insistent!

Woods minus the gypsy moth oaks. 

As I fled the scene, I entered another landscape transformed - Sleepy Hollow Trail - where once giant white oaks towered the valley. What was missing, however, were the oaks. The gypsy moth infestation of the mid-century had resulted in a massive salvage harvest of dead oaks in the 1990s.  A new forest of spindly maple and stick-wide hickory is taking their place.  A very nice ranger supervising a trail crew spent some time explaining to me how the loss of the white oak forest has taught him to see the woods in new ways, but he was worried. "The combination of losing our oaks, increasing summer temperatures, intermittent drought, and a longer growing season means we really don't know how to plan for new pests and invasions. If the gypsy moth taught us anything it was to ready for surprises." A few old oaks and giant pines persisted along this trail, however, and they sheltered tiny ecosystems in their root pools, stem hollows, and canopies. 

Mayflower and Partridge Berry in a pine stem hollow.

White oak offering space for a small fern and a carpet of moss. 

Back to my wandering, I tried to focus on the quality of the forest floor. Indian Pipes grew in clumps among the singular leaves of Mayflower and Partridge Berry.  A wounded but open and healing forest enclosed the trail but there was such vibrancy of birdsong and the mosaic of color in the leaf litter,  that when I happened upon a singing brook I looked up and saw such a beautiful glade of young hemlock that it almost took my breath away. The glade and the little brook seemed to hold each other in dappled sunlight, deep shade within a sun-filled forest of new growth.

Indian Pipe.

How can you not think of Gibran?

Think not you can direct the course of love, for love, 

if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart 

and a song of praise upon your lips.

- Kahlil Gibran, from The Prophet (1923)

Black Cohosh, Actaea racemosa.

Kahil Gibran, 20th century Lebanese poet, came to mind as I sat on the shady bank of the small brook. The little stream had a song of its own that I hadn't been aware of while hiking down the path through the cut-over woods. Listening closely, I could make out verses and refrains, music of  water over root and rock so sweet that Gibran's poem came to mind of  "a brook singing its melody to the night."

White Oak stump crowned with moss.

I left the beautiful little glade and passed a final White Oak stump along the trail, crowned in moss like a bird's nest in which acorn caps were nestled along with the brown, thin leaves of black cherry. I stopped by the CCC-era camp store, once a residence and general store. The very sweet staff person at the counter shared her knowledge of the history of the place. She cooked a few hot dogs, one for me and one for herself. I love log cabins from that era, built tight, bright white chinking contrasting with dark stained logs. Just outside was the old school, its bell on a stand in front.  I walked back to the Bog Trail where I had parked along the road lined with tidy cottages.

Bullhead Lily, Nuphar variegatum.

Fragrant Water-Lily, Nymphaea odorata.

Rounding a bend in the road, Black Moshannon Lake came into view spanning the horizon from near to far, blanketed with pond lily and cattail. What great bass habitat - but not so much for fishermen who often grumble at having their lures tangle in the tangle of stems and roots below the surface. There were quite a few Great Blue Herons hunting! Mallards and Canada Geese paddled purposefully through the carpet of round leaves and blossoms, pulling up juicy bits and pieces of stringy roots. Among the white blossoms that were fully opened a riot of bees and flies hummed busily. 

Pond lilies as far as the eye can see!

Yellowneck Caterpillars snacking on blueberry leaves.  

Meadowsweet.

Counted 12 Great Blue Herons for the day, many of them juveniles.

Wandering back to the parking area via the Bog Boardwalk one more time (I walked it three times as I love bogs so much) I met a young herpetologist and his dad enjoying the bog together. He had just seen and photographed a  Smooth Green Snake - a lifer! Hurray! So many Great Blue Herons along the way and a beggar of a Red Squirrel who was convinced I was about to share my trail mix with her. When I didn't I got scolded for being a rude human.

Red Squirrel

Not a very high mileage day, maybe four miles. But I do plan to go back with more than a few hours to spend in this magnificent area. The Allegheny Front highlands area has so much to explore, not to mention several multi-day backpacking trails and the large state forest that surrounds the park. Pennsylvania has a few ghost towns and Antes is one of a dozen lumber town sites marked. The park office has many historic photographs inside - worth a stop in to take a look.


Notes:

Field Guide to PA Pond Plants http://wcdpa.com/wp-content/uploads/Pond-Field-Guide1.pdf

Black Moshannon DCNR
 https://www.dcnr.pa.gov/StateParks/FindAPark/BlackMoshannonStatePark/Pages/default.aspx