No Control Hike: PA Game Lands, Holtwood

Me and my big, goofy coonhound, Amos, have been stuck at home for over two weeks now. Not feeling 100% and a landscape full of ice and snow has made it hard to get out to my favorite hiking places but today I couldn't take it any more. We had to get out. The Game Lands unit near me offers a nice 2.5 mile loop and I thought, surely by now, the parking lot was clear and the trails were squashed down by other hikers. But just in case, I strapped on my Kahtoohla Exospikes. I don't want to break another leg. 

The adventure begins.

We arrived to an ice-covered parking lot. Good thing I had my Exospikes, I thought.  Amos jumped out and saw some small thing running in the distance and before I could shut the door we were off. I realized at that very moment I would have been better off on skis. Hanging on for dear life at the end of his 20' lead, Amos pulled me across a field of sorghum and into the pine woods. Then down into the grasslands. Then up to the powerline right-of-way. Trying to regulate our speed I dug in only to find out that Exospikes collect cornstalks, sorghum leaves, small branches, and pine cones. By the time Amos tired out I had a half-bushel of vegetative matter impaled on my boots.

Pine plantation - home of many deer

While I pulled debris off my spikes, Amos caught wind of a deer. More like a whole herd of them bedded down in the pine plantation. Off we went. They caught sight of us and fled. The whites of their eyes and tails were visible for a mile out. I grabbed at several of the evenly spaced trees as we flew by. Amos was now in full coonhound bay. Every living thing in the woods evacuated. His voice carried across the valley and was answered by every hunting dog within five miles. 

Deer exit strategy trail.

We came out on the far side of the pine plantation and Amos decided it was time for a rest. I was huffing and puffing, almost kneeling beside him trying to say something when he started to roll in the snow, a joyful and playful frolic. How cute, I thought. Until I realized he was rolling in horse poop. Amos has a thing about horse poop. For some reason he didn't consume the flavorful muffins this time, but just rolled around like a fool. I ran the other way, hauling his 90 pound self down a slight slope upside down.  My Exospikes were up for the job, however, biting into each deep snow step. Sliding along on his back he loved the ride, jumping to his feet and flipping over again for another few feet of snow-plowing slide. When we were clear of the horse trail I scrubbed him with more snow. I don't think we had gone a mile yet.

Turkey crossing.

Without any warning two tom turkeys marched across the trail ahead and gave us a side-eye glance. Amos is not fond of big birds. A run-in with a guardian goose at a neighbor's farm when he was a puppy has made him fearful of large feathered dinosaurs. He cowered behind me. He shivered. The big birds strutted away, chuckling. Amos was wary of continuing so he circled back the way we came and led me directly back to the parking lot, looking over his shoulder the whole time. There was my vehicle with the door wide open, just as I had left it. 

Home with Towel.

Home we went and though he had lots to say to the many Amish buggies rolling along on the side of the road, he was tired. At home he snuggled with his tattered towel (I put two drops of lavender oil on it in case of horse poop) and he fell straight away asleep. This was Amos' day to burn off some energy and me to discover how little control I have over my life.  

Notes:

Kahtoola Exopikes - Great for picking up corn stalks and pine cones! They work in snow and ice, too.

https://gearjunkie.com/kahtoola-exospikes-hybrid-traction-road-trail

The In-Between Season

It is late summer and with the barest of hints, the seasons begin to blend one into the other so that when I look up from treading the trail with Amos, I think I notice some small change, a falling leaf, a shift of light. I can see a little more of the scaffold of the forest. The old Dogwoods in the meadow always catch my attention when the crickets go full chorus at their loudest. These are survivors of blights and fungal attacks and so are twisted and gnarly and tough.  

Mennonite couple on a woods walk in early September.

Another week goes by and now I am sure of it - autumn is on the doorstep. Cooler nights sweep in with a cold front that seems to shove all things hot and humid out to sea. The Walnut in the bottom of the yard is simultaneously turning yellow and shedding leaves. Birds begin their southerly migrations. The Catbirds are gone. I already miss them. I'm drawn to almost daily walks on the game lands and my local state park, Susquehannock.

Bjerkandera adusta, a common bracket fungi on hardwood logs.

I was hiking with family this weekend on the C&O Canal, the next section of our end-to-end walk from Washington D.C. to Cumberland, MD. While we chatted about things happening in our lives, we stopped frequently to remark about sounds and colors. "This is becoming my favorite time," said my niece, "the in-between summer and fall."  We noticed low light by late afternoon and by five p.m.,  Barred Owls echoed through the swamps at McKee Besher Wildlife Management Area, our destination for the day.  We slowed our walk to take in the setting sun and the darkening lowland woods  

Turkey Tail, Trametes versicolor, another common autumn bracket fungi. 

The in-between time is subtle yet exciting. The PA Game Commission has turned on its popular live streaming Elk Cam up in Elk County and I bookmark it on my computer anticipating the action of the rut. As I write this post, there is a  streaming chorus of field crickets and conversational crows in a cut-cover corn field and I stop what I'm doing to take a scan of the woods edge. I go back to my writing when a deep grunt erupts from the woods and I quickly switch tabs to take a look as the camera scans the clearing. Elk? Bear? I make my annual vow to get up there and go elk watching on those amazing public lands. 

Old blazes mark a well-trodden trail at Susquehannock State Park. 

Since our treks to Hawk Mountain, I've seen a dozen Coopers Hawks shoot through the woods on my walks.  I've  heard as many Red-shouldered and Red-tailed Hawks. At night Screech Owls whinny and Lightning Bugs flicker their very last. The last flash I noted was Thursday night. None since. Thistles, Fleabanes, and Milkweed have gone to seed.  Sunflower heads are drooping and nodding in the garden and sparkle with Goldfinches picking seeds. I filled my feeders for the first time since late spring. Before I could get to the porch,  a Red-Bellied Woodpecker and her two offspring came right away to investigate. 

Painted rock sits peacefully in a tree cricket-filled forest. 

The Red-Bellied Woodpecker was teaching her young ones to take seeds from the feeder. She was patient and tender and allowed me to stand nearby as she demonstrated how to chose a seed, crack it, and discard the shells. She chittered to them as they perfected their take-and-break method. I could hear the crackle of sunflower seeds and watched white flakes of shell drop to the grass. The scene was not the electric red and yellow of mid-October, nor the sizzle and drench of a hot humid day, but it has a tender energy that defines this in-between time of transition. 

White Wood Aster

Great Blue Lobelia, Lobelia siphilitica

Walking Amos in game lands over in Holtwood, I took in the big view and noted the colors and sounds of the meadows. Grasshoppers were everywhere, rasping and chewing, exploding up just as my boot touched the ground with a startling snap and clatter of wings. There are no complex algorithms or mechanized process to consider, just the shortening of days and the timed responses to shifts in the photoperiod to elicit the first elk bugle of the year, for Fleabane to burst its encapsulated seed head, and to ignite this chorus of insect song and grasshopper profusion so loud I can hardly hear a single bird call. There are no elk here, but I wish there were. I vow again to make the journey north - and soon.

Seedheads burst open, ready to catch a breeze.

The in-between is not all peace and cricket song, however.  Black bears are increasingly emboldened by the quick pickings in the orchard and farm yard. Winter is coming and they are beginning to feed heavily, greedily, on anything they can rustle up - even if it's on the front porch. It's best to bring in the bird feeders at night. Hawks leave piles of feathers where they've picked off a neo-tropical migrant near the feeder station. With each brush of a hurricane from the south or swift moving front from the west,  there are new obstacles to climb over or through as newly windthrown trees and or broken limbs lay across the trail. These are the exclamation points in an otherwise slow turning of September's transition.

In a time that is generally quiet, and for some, spiritual, yet we are challenged to accept the harshness of nature along with the beauty. We live in an altered state of nature, a condition born of hundreds of years of human management and so it's easy to feel settled and peaceful. But the struggle for winter's survival begins now and in earnest, no matter how simplified we've made the landscape. People who live close to the land, however, do not ignore subtle signals and they are busy preparing,  taking inventory, and stocking up. Venison will be in the freezer by Christmas. Canned vegetables are filling the pantry now. Refilled water jugs are stowed out of sight for when the power goes out come winter storms. 

Goldenrod signals the time to prepare.

Most of us live in a de-natured world. We no longer fear our natural environment so it doesn't figure into modern living.  Nothing much is left in our human-controlled landscape that could eat us, so other than threats of severe weather, natural environment is relegated to the background. Here on the game lands, however, I see another subtle sign of a season's turning - the presence of a man and his hunting dog, both outfitted in blaze orange but without a gun for today is Sunday. Soon we are chatting as our dogs sniff and wag and greet. 

Walking Amos in the game lands.

It has become something of a fall tradition that we walk our dogs on Sunday mornings and eventually cross paths.  His yellow lab, Cory, stands patiently while coonhound Amos bounces all around. Cory's dad catches me up on all things Game Commission and he's not too happy about a recent change.  As frustrating as the regulations are to him, however, he says he's glad we have so much public hunting land to use. He volunteers with a fish and game club to help clear trails here and he knows how precious this landscape is. "Seems like every time I turn around, Lancaster County is turning another farm into a subdivision."  

Hairy Thoroughwort and Clubmoss. 

At the end of the 19th century, Pennsylvania's landscapes looked very different. Most forests had been logged off. Farmlands, much of it degraded and exhausted, took the place of the woods. Deer were rare. Elk and bear and mountain lion had been hunted to extinction. The Game Commission formed out of the State Sportsman Association in an attempt to stop the wastage and begin the process of restoring habitat and populations of game.  By 1897 laws and regulations were enacted to protect what little was left but with an eye to the future. Enforcing those new laws was dangerous work. Nearly twenty wardens were shot and killed by 1905. That same year the PGC was given the task to acquire and secure as conservation acreage and twenty game lands were established. Now there are 335 designated conservation areas protecting 1.5 million acres for regulated public hunting, the protection of natural heritage, and the increase of biodiversity. 

From the Hawk Watch Overlook, Susquehannock State Park

After our game lands visit, Amos and I stopped by Susquehannock State Park and wander out to the overlook where a pair of hawk spotters had set up their scopes and cameras. I asked about the early count so far. I'm told there have been a few osprey and quite a few hawks. The spotter showed me her clipboard. I mentioned I'd been up to Hawk Mountain a few weekends in a row recently. "Aren't we lucky?" she says, "To be able to catch the early stream of migrants?" As I look upriver across the Susquehanna Valley I am thankful, too, that we have so much protected land - almost everything thing in my view is conservation land. The trees looked a little yellower and the sky heavy with cold front squall clouds, subtle signs of changes to come. 

Notes:

My niece and I marveled at the past-bloom sunflower fields at McKee Beshers Wildlife Management Area near the C&O Canal. Acres of heavy, nodding heads of sunflower seeds made for the biggest feeding station I've ever seen. 

 https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Pages/publiclands/central/sunflowers.aspx

PA Game Lands Wander 2

Back out to the game lands for another wandering, looking for sun, exercise, and inspiration. I've lost track of what week it is - for that matter what day it is - but I have enough work to do at my computer that it all runs together anyway, pandemic or not. The local TV weatherperson reminded us four times this week that we've only had five days of full sun for all of April so far. It has been rather dreary, but today offered a nice mix of sun and clouds with morning rain cleared by noon. Off we went to hunt the sun.

Hoping for a break in the clouds on the way to the game lands.

By April all those young beech trees that have been holding on to their paper-thin leaves all winter have let them go as new leaf buds form. The woods looked lighter and greener than ever. Shadbush was still blooming. Wild phlox blossomed along the access road.

Woods road to the bluff

Amos had been very antsy with all the rainy weather so this hike was for him. He snuffled through
every bunch of grass and pile of leaves. He stood with his nose in the air to pull in every scent. He investigated every animal trail that intersected the old road. The road was muddy in spots while  standing puddles filled ruts in other places, but the animal tracks were great. He checked out each and every line, print by print.

At the bluff overlooking the Susquehanna River.

We came to the bluffs that are dramatically visible from the Norman Wood Bridge driving east into Lancaster County. From the bridge you can see the severe tilt of bedrock telling of continental collisions and the raising of mountains further inland. From on top, the view into York County is almost obscured now with the woods finally leafing out. It is a very long way down from here.

Dead Nettle in a clearing

Triple track - White Tailed Deer, Turkey, Skunk

There is a little-used trail that I like to find before the the overgrowth blocks the way but this time I found that it has been well used of late! Seems others have discovered that this game lands tract makes for a nice walk in the woods. I spotted a small patch of trillium and trout lily on the steep pitch many yards away on the slope. The trail slips down to the head of a ravine creek on its way to tumble over the bluff.

Upper reach of a ravine creek.

We were investigating the boggy, mossy hollow when something grunted and squawked higher up the woods. Amos about yanked me off my feet as he pulled up the trail to discover the noise-maker. We never found the source of the sound but his nose was higher than his tail when he reached the gravel road on the far side of the tract. We stood and waited - he sniffed the air and I peered all around. Nothing.

Trillium

While I stood waiting for Amos to do something - I noticed a bunch of trillium almost at my feet.  I don't think I would have seen them had he not stopped at this exact spot. Since this was his hike I let him stand there as long as he wanted while I admired the flowers. After about twenty minutes he was positive that the beasty thing had long vacated the hill.

Successful sun hunt!

The sun shone brightly through a break in a low grey cloud deck and I congratulated Amos on having successfully hunted the sun. He had no idea what I was saying, I'm sure, but he did look immensely proud of himself and pranced up the road to the car where he knew he'd get a treat for such a nice hike.

PA Game Land Wander

Close to home are four different tracts of land under the management of the Pennsylvania Game Commission. These are public hunting lands where we can go to hunt deer, turkey, squirrel, rabbit, and other game animals to put meat on the table. I'm lucky to have Game Lands tracts of  #83, #181, #288, and #136 near by, certainly within my ten-mile-radius of stay-at-home range.

Pincushion Moss

Now and then a relic of an old farm appears and I am reminded of the families that lived on these old roads. Tractor parts, old pails, farming implements - all sooner or later work their way through the leaf litter.  A slender white-walled tire has become a play ground for fox kits. A locust fence post bears the marks of a buck in rut. 

Battered old bucket

Ruin is in place here:

The dead leaves rotting on the ground,

The live leaves in the air

Are gathered in a single dance

That turns them round and round.

The fox cub trots his almost pathless path

As silent as his absence.

These passings resurrect

A joy without defect,

The life that steps and sings in ways of death.

- Wendell Berry, from Sabbaths - 1979, IV

Ground Pine, a club moss

I love coming across the club mosses since it's a plant that vines through all of my hikes from Vermont and Prince Edward Island to New Hampshire and Wisconsin. It's Pleistocene ancestors towered fifty feet above the ground. There are two places north of here where I can go to find fossilized trunks of the tree-form club moss. 

Sharp-shinned hawk feather

Pattern is everywhere in the old pine woods. From the cross-crossed needles that carpet the forest floor to the yellow-on-green veining of the leaves of Downy Rattlesnake Plantain, my eye is drawn to the way lines and colors compete for attention and how some animals and insects adopt these patterns to blend in with them. Though a hawk feather stands out on the ground, I hold it up against the pattern of the pine branches above and almost lose sight of it.

Downy Rattlesnake Plantain

The pine woods were planted in the 1960s when many state agencies were still adhering to the "plantation" model of reforestation - planting in neat rows all of a same species. The woods in this particular game land are way past their prime and were never timbered out or select cut. It's a mix of dark shade, toppled trees aged out, and a persistent thicket of an understory made up of black cherry and beech that will one day replace the pines and allow other species to grow. 

Dried raceme of Rattlesnake Plantain

A concern for native orchids, however, is plant collectors. I was out walking on sunny May afternoon in a distant tract of #136 and found two very nice folks loading their Subaru with two five gallon buckets of Lady Slippers they'd dug from the forest. They played innocent but I had the sense they were pretty good at what they were doing. I took their plate number down and called my local warden when I got home. He was happy to report that this couple were "old hands" at orchid theft and that the plants had probably already been put into containers and sold, but that he would pay them a visit. I learned later that they were fined.

Wild orchids, like the Rattlesnake Plantain, are commonly found in rich woodlands. Pennsylvania has 54 different species of native orchid found in our woods. The little Rattlesnake Plantain makes its presence known year-round by keeping intact its woody-stemmed raceme that stays erect above the forest floor. One tract of game lands that I love to explore has yielded over a dozen orchid species, but it takes a slow, mindful hunt to find them, and a good bit of bog-edge walking. 

Black Puffball

Spotted Wintergeen

After wandering off-trail through the old pine woods we jumped back on the main trail, an old road, and wound all the way around the tract for a three mile loop. Another cold front was building from the west and the woods filled with mist and light rain by the time we climbed back into the car.