PA Mason Dixon Trail -Map 3: Codorus Furnace to Highpoint Overlook

Saturday February 27, 2016: York County, PA, 13 miles 

Today Kim and I switched our direction north to south, starting this section at Codorus Furnace in Hellam Township and walking south along the river to the summit at Highpoint Overlook just south of Wrightsville, a very pretty river town. Besides being an absolutely perfect day for a long hike, it was important section for me as I was carrying a full pack using the Gregory 38L Savant I plan to use on my Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in May and June. 

The oldest iron furnace in York County. 

We started our section hike at Codorus Furnace in Hellam Township. The oldest surviving pre-Revolutionary iron furnace in the York County, it was built in the 1740s as a pig-iron production furnace but when war between England and America broke out it quickly transitioned to producing cannon balls and shot. This is the western reach of the Iron Hills region of South Central Pennsylvania where during the Revolution every furnace (and there were hundreds!) were put into service to supply Washington's Army with munitions. It also produced cannon shot for the artillery during the War of 1812. Like most of these hill-built furnaces, it was retired in the mid-1800s replaced by new technologies.  I love the furnace history of this region and were it not for having to start our hike, I would have liked to explored this old site for more of the ruins and remains that were scattered through the forest.

Codorus Creek on our left was flowing fast and rapid filled with snow melt and recent heavy rains.

I had forgotten the map, stuffing it into the wrong pack the day before, so we were totally dependent upon the blue blazes. We found the trail to be well marked and easy to follow the whole way to Highpoint. It was icy in many places as bluffs and hills blocked the afternoon sun, and snow still laid in shady places, leftover from the record-breaking 30 inches we received a few weeks ago.

A single narrow road between the bluffs and the river made for a beautiful stretch.

This is river hill country and we huffed and puffed up several steep switchback slopes, but the trail mostly followed old woods roads when traveling through valleys or along ridges. Down along the river we followed the blue blazes through pretty cabin and cottage communities. The river was high - in watch stage - as snow melt and run off from recent heavy rains raised ever stream, creek, and tributary river along the lower section. 

Flooded river woods.

As we walked I thought about the idea of hiking through landscapes as a way to interpret the rich ecology and social histories that they hold. I do a lot of research at my computer, in libraries and archives, and poring through books and journals, but there is nothing that compares to investigating a landscape history by walking through it. With the river nearly touching our path, the sound of dozens of waterfalls and fast creeks tumbling off the bluffs, and surrounded by historic sites, it was clear that this section was all about hydrology, industry, and human ingenuity. 

A memorial deep in the woods.

We passed a simple memorial to some unknown soul and I thought about how dangerous work had been in harnessing the river with dams, building canals, operating cable ferries, log drives and logging, the furnace industry, and quarrying, Because of the danger of furnace work, working the colliers' charcoal pits, hoisting and setting huge blocks of stone in canal walls, an early piece of Pennsylvania legislation made it illegal to site a public house or tavern within two miles of a work site. Drinking on the job or showing up to work drunk was not tolerated. The work is still dangerous and given the place where we found the newer memorial deep in the woods, I wondered if a logger or tree cutter had recently met his end here. It was a sobering sight, so remote, but clearly cared for and maintained.

A mailbox garden begins to bloom.

Down along the river the woods paths gave way to a single paved track that traced the contour of a higher shelf of the old river bed. Here were a line of perfect cabins and cottages, some quite old and made of quarried stone, some of log, others more recently built. We chatted with folks clearing flood debris from the lower reaches of their properties and said our hellos to some folks still shoveling snow, chatting with neighbors, walking dogs. This stretch of river front community was hemmed in with a high bluff to the west. Here the Susquehanna carved its way down, down, down, through the hills and mountains rising all around as the Appalachians were being folded and lifted. The rate of downcutting was faster that the rate of uplift, so the river made its way through the young mountain range mostly by following the path of faults and fractures. The ninety degree bend at Chickies Rock is evidence of one such fault that captured and redirected the  mighty Susquehanna. 

Not much room on this shelf of old flood plain to site a cabin or cottage with the bluff directly above us.

Chickies Rock  marks a ninety degree bend where a fault line redirected the river.

As we walked I kept fooling with the strap adjustments on my new pack. I'd loaded 20lbs for the hike, probably a little more than I want on the Camino, but any back pain, knee or hip strain was quickly addressed by shifting weight from shoulders to hips with adjustments. I actually forgot I even had the pack on, even on the steep uphills, so I figure it will serve me well across Spain and several of the mountain ranges I will cross on my way to the Atlantic from France. 

Lime kilns at Wrightsville.

John Wright's Foundry and the 'new' bridge that replaced the wooden structure burned during the Civil War.

June 1863, Wrightsville Union Militia skirmished with Confederates then burned the bridge to prevent their crossing.

The single paved lane payed out as we approached the little river town of Wrightsville. John Wright's Foundry is still standing and beyond it is modern foundry and forge. The bridge connecting Wrightsville to Columbia delivers walkers, cyclists, and vehicle traffic to he center of town. An impressive bank of lime kilns funneled us on to the main street. We passed friendly folks on the porches of their small worker's row homes typical of the mid-1800s for industrial villages. But this is an important town for environmental historians so if you have the time to linger and look, there's much to learn about how the river, the hills, bridges, ferries, forests, and farms shaped the look and function of the town itself. Historical markers and signs are everywhere. I made a mental note to come back and just wander around. 

Leaving town and back to the river hills.

Once through Wrightsville we continued south along the river to the point where the trail left the road for good. Up and up we climbed into the river hills once again with the Susquehanna loud and fast below us. Rafts of debris were washing down, huge logs bobbed along, and anything floating seemed to have a crew of ring-billed gulls happily riding along. This would have been log drive season when men rode the rafts of logs downstream to mills further south. It was fun to imagine the gulls directing their logs to some distant island downriver. 

One last crossing, grateful for waterproof boots, following the blue blazes.

Coming through the culvert. Photo by Kim. 

Climbing to the summit of Highpoint Overlook. Photo by Kim. 

One more set of switchbacks and we were on our way to the summit at Highpoint. Lots of ups on this section hike but also plenty of brilliant early spring light to make the effort beautiful. Kim and I agreed that this had been one of the more beautiful sections we've hiked so far.

At the summit looking across the Susquehanna into Lancaster County. Photo by Kim.

Notes:  

Wrightsville's Bridge Burning was an important turn of events during the Civil War. 

http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/civil-war/an-occurrence-at-wrightsville-bridge/

PA Mason Dixon Trail -Maps 5 to 4: Sawmill Branch and Otter Creek

Saturday, May 24, 2015:  Airville, York Furnace, Shenks Ferry, PA, 13 miles

Be forewarned. I am terribly biased when it comes to this, the previous, and next section of the MDT. I tend to think these landscapes are the most divine of any of the sections on this 200 mile long trail that connects Chadds Ford to Whiskey Springs. I am biased I suppose because I can go here anytime and hike for an hour or a day and be only a few miles from my home. I am biased too because I have many friends in these hills, some who play violins and some who fish for the wild trout. I can walk a mile on the trail anywhere from Peach Bottom to Shenk's Ferry and know at least one landowner on who's farm or woodlot the trail  passes through. It can be tough going in some spots, but it is such beautiful landscape that for all the huffing and puffing the journey  through here is well worth it. 

Along Posey Road in Airville, York County.

Charles and Jeremiah on their 1767 trek through these parts remarked in their journals that the fiddle music, emanating from taverns and barns, sometimes got ugly. The land was contested ground and sometimes all it took for a fight to break out was for a Englishman to make a mockery of a Scot's tune. In fact, the land had been long fought over by settler families of the colonies of Pennsylvania and Maryland, waging war against each other to settle boundary disputes and to lay claim for one royal governor or the other. It took Mason and Dixon some years to make that line, but when it was done and the deeds were settled and the blood finally sunk into the earth, the music remained. It is no coincidence that today the York County Fiddlers  and Deer Creek Fiddlers groups have a long tradition of summer 'conventions' in these hills.

Kim makes the first crossing of today's section.

So here we were, Kim and I, starting the second summer of our challenge to walk the entire Mason Dixon Trail. We met on Memorial Day Saturday 2015 in the parking lot of the State Gamelands along Blain Road where we ended our 2014 hike in the fall.  A little bit of road walking along Posey Road overlooking beautiful farm country to reach the field edges and woods above Sawmill Creek, then we were in the thick of it.We quickly regained our old pace and caught up on all the news of the long winter.

Storm damage was at times massive and in places along the trail, almost impassable.

Skirting across the heights of land then dipping into the steep ravines that characterize the river hills of the Susquehanna, we came across many areas that have been ravaged by recent and intense local weather events. Whether these events represent an increase in the frequency of wild weather that signals a shift in regional climate patterns or not, one thing was clear: the steepness of the land and the forests that cling by shallow roots to the outcrops and bluffs cannot long hold up against hurricane force winds, powerful down drafts of straight line storm systems, and torrential rains. Several of the trail's bridges have been replaced over the past ten years and in many places creeks are choked with logs and toppled trees. In one place we picked our way carefully through the mangled tops of ancient hemlocks that had (by my estimation) been toppled over the winter months. 

When nature alters the landscape so much that even a good GPS doesn't help.

Recent trail crew activity was a sign of ongoing efforts to keep the trail in safe order, but it seemed to me an almost impossible job. As soon as one storm's fury is cleaned up and repaired, another section of trail received a new dose of damage. Near the sight of an almost fatal landslide (for one poor old man out fishing on a rainy day several years ago) we met a fellow hiker on a geocache quest. The landscape had been so altered in a familiar area where he'd found an ammo box stashed  a few years before that he could not even recognize the bend in the creek.

Northern Watersnake.

The challenges of navigating some parts of the trail were more than made up for by frequent wildlife sightings including a wood duck performing her broken-wing display to distract us from her family of ten babies along Sawmill Branch. A fat and beautiful northern watersnake crossed the trail to force a stop to our progress along a very steep section. We waited patiently for the snake to find her hidey-hole under a trailside outcrop before we could move ahead. Two deer came crashing down in front of us, bounding down the nearly vertical hillside and vanishing in just a few leaps across the creek and into the thick hemlocks beyond.

Metagraywacke schist glimmers inside and out.

Me against a cliff of metagraywacke. Pic by Kim.

With occasional views of the wide Susquehanna from the river bluffs, we could see the general slant and tilt of uplifted rock that makes up the sharply defined shores and outcrops. This is metagraywacke schist, layered like sedimentary rock, but really a highly morphosed igneous rock from the depths of a proto-Atlantic seafloor. It weathers roughly, not like the smooth sandstones of the northern river valley that can be found in the cobble along the beaches at low water. This is sharp stuff, the kind of rock that tears the hull of an expensive kayak or the sole of your foot and palm of your hand.

Campground map at Otter Creek.

Without too much tumbling and tripping, we powered up a steep schisty hill to the Otter Creek Campground, owned and operated by PPL. Since it was Memorial Day weekend the campground was predictably full, but remarkably quiet and serene. Families have come here for generations since the building of the dams in the 1920s when workers were given caravans for summer outings and leased lots for building vacation cabins. As we walked through children were playing everywhere while parents and grandparents enjoyed each other's company. We discovered the camp store had what we craved after each hike - ice cream! After a quick lunch down by the river, we continued on with the second leg of the hike up and around the scenic valley of Otter Creek.

View north from Urey's Overlook.

We are far north of the Mason Dixon Line now, long removed from the east-to-west path of the Mason and Dixon survey party. It is documented that Mason did visit York City to reprovision for his crew working their way across the south county. There is debate, however, about how he traveled - whether by rough river road or by inland  pike.  Either way, the roads were rough and in some places dangerous, watched over by suspicious settlers armed with guns, knives , and mean dogs.

Otter Creek, a trout fisher's paradise.

The creek valley was humid, sun dappled in green and yellow light, and filled with carpets of woodland wildflowers. I was a little worried, however, about Sawbranch and Otter Creek, two of my favorite places that, along with Muddy Creek to our south, are some of the best wild trout creeks in south central PA. For over twenty years I have fly fished these beautiful rock-studded streams that are full of deep fishey holes that hide the craftiest of trout royalty. On our way down Sawbranch and up Otter, I remarked to Kim how silted over they were. The ledges and boulders, important habitat for all manner of aquatic life, were covered in inches of fine yellow-orange silt so that you could hardly make out the bottom features.

Silt fills in the important nooks and crannies stream animals require.

Narrow path along Otter Creek. Pic by Kim.

 Not far from here, just across the river, is the renowned Shenks Ferry Wildflower Preserve that, like the Otter Creek valley, shelters a vast ravine of woodland plants and old growth forest, but it has much better exposure to early spring sunshine that this deep shaded valley does not. But Otter Creek still boasts a lot of wildflowers! We were a little late to the trillium party and the mayapples were nearing the end of their bloom period, but jack-in-the-pulpit and carpets of mayflower bloomed all around.

Indian Cucumber, tho' not really a 'cuke.

Carpets of Mayflower.

Among the profusely blooming wild raspberry patches along the more open dappled sun-splashed trail, we caught sight of false solomon's seal, mounds of hay-scented and sensitive fern, and further up the dry hillsides, thickets of mountain laurel in full bloom.  We sniffed and coughed in the continuing rain of pollen making this season one of the more memorable for those who suffer from spring allergies. But the sight of a gentle downpour of yellow and orange tulip poplar petals made us forget our itchy eyes and throats.

Mountain Laurel blossoms.

A freshly grown polypore!

Husk of last year's blossoms over a bed of fresh leaves, Rattlesnake Plantain Orchid.

Winding in and out of the creek valley, we finally topped the highest bluff over the river for this stretch at Urey's Overlook (see earlier pic). At this viewpoint we are just downstream by a mile (as the crow flies, not as we hiked!) from the third of the great dams that harness the flow of the river at Safe Harbor. After a short rest at the overlook we followed a broad mowed trail out to the the hilliest section of Rt. 425 and a new parking lot (!!) designating a new management unit for Susquehannock State Park. 

Brand new!

We crossed Rt. 425 for the third or fifth or sixth time  and trudged down into what seemed to be a lost valley. This was the rough final third of today's hike, when our muscles ached and feet pounded inside our boots. Nothing a little ibuprofen later won't help, but for now it was all a head game. I imagined the fiddlers that our English surveyors heard dueling in the local taverns (two of those taverns still stand in these parts) and of the spirit of backwoods music that still permeates the area. In my head I played my mandolin again and again a tune I'd long ago forgotten the name of, but have heard the past two years at the local fiddler's gatherings. It helped to imagine the chords,  one chorus to the next, accompanying a group of fiddlers and strummers. Kim checked her Fit-Bit and saw that we were approaching the twelve mile mark. A few more refrains and a mile more, and we'd be looking down at the big dam!

Safe Harbor Dam on the Susquehanna.

For our first long hike of the season, I think we did okay but I sure can't remember the final stretch into the woods following our view over Safe Harbor. I do remember my arms pumping up and down on my hiking poles pushing up hills in time to the imaginary sound of fiddle music in my head. But if there had been a rare bird or a beautiful snake right in front of me, I well might have missed it, so focused I was on that double scoop of strawberry ice cream waiting for me at the camp store!



This was the song in my head played here by some neighbors and friends at our York County fiddler's convention.  You can be sure I came home and pulled out the madolin while waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in! 

Notes:

A nice new map is now available from the Camp Store at Otter Creek Campground (PPL) that shows the many area trails including the MDT:  http://www.campottercreek.com/

You can make a full day of looping around the ravines and woods based from your tent or camper site with great boat access to explore the river for kayaking and canoeing. Just down the road are several small parks, historic buildings, and the remarkable Indian Steps Museum, open some weekends and for special events: http://www.indiansteps.org/


PS Notes:  51 weeks to go till graduation and a long walk across Spain! Please consider donating to my trip by clicking the Go Fund Me link at the top of my blog!

PA Mason Dixon Trail -Map 5: Muddy Creek Gorge, It's All Uphill From Here!

Sunday 10-12-14: Dorsey Park to Muddy Creek Launch, 13 miles, Peach Bottom Township

We this started this section at Peach Bottom Atomic Power Plant at the Dorsey Park & Boat Launch and hiked straight along the river slope on a cut-in trail to a small cottage community at the base of the Muddy Creek Valley in southern Pennsylvania. The river here is so broad that on foggy mornings you can't see the Lancaster County side. We were impressed with the recent trail work along this stretch - wide cleared paths, recently weed whipped, new benches and blazes. Nice work!

An eagle scout candidate, Kim, Jim the President of the MDT Hiking Club, and me.

As we walked up the gravel road a silver truck came down and parked in the grassy shoulder behind the cottages. Here was the president of the Mason Dixon Trail System! What are the chances of that happening on a two hundred mile section hike? Jim Hooper was very happy to meet us and listen to our trail notes starting from way back at Chadds Ford, a hundred miles ago. We thanked him for his hard work, but he asked instead that we thank the young man who had just walked up behind us, an eagle scout candidate who had taken on MDT maintenance for this section over the summer. Really, trail volunteers and hiking club crews cannot hear 'thank you' enough! They deserve it!

Thank you, MDT Crew!

This segment is one of the two closest MDT sections to where I live in Peach Bottom Township. I often hike a seven mile loop up through the Muddy Creek Valley using the Mason Dixon Trail and our backcountry roads for the return. I share the trail with hikers, nature photographers, birders, whitewater kayakers, and fly fishermen. I count myself  a member of all these groups who love the remoteness and wildness of Muddy Creek. It is surely one the crown jewels of the Lower Susquehanna River Valley. My best fly fishing days are here in the fall and winter. Today I hiked past my favorite casting spots where I know some beautiful wild trout hide out - and I didn't say a word! Shhhhhhh....

Gold-on-green adorns the mossy boulders along Muddy Creek banks.

Aldo Leopold wrote about the 'red lanterns' of wild blackberry leaves during October in A Sand County Almanac, my favorite book to read every year around this time. In the early stages of leaf change which is mostly now in the yellow and gold range here in the Mid-Atlantic, things red stand out dramatically against the muted brown and ochre of the forest floor. The red leaves of blackberry and Virginia creeper practically glow against the yellow of the beech and tulip popular. Leopold marked partridge hunting season by the red lanterns of Wisconsin. Here in South Central PA I associate the red lanterns of fall with wild turkey. Kim and I glimpsed a big tom winging up into a white pine as we rounded a side stream valley. Acorns are everywhere right now and the will turkeys grow very fat on them!

Red berries of Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Once past the cottages (all adorable by the way - two are for sale) we came upon the hillside trailhead to the Muddy Creek section. It was mostly straight up on steep switchbacks, and we huffed and puffed.  Barred owls hollered across the hill, woodpeckers chatted, quiet fall warblers and a hermit thrush slipped through the oak-hickory woods silently. Muddy Creek, a premier whitewater run, fell farther below us as the trail kept climbing. The light through golden leaves of paw-paw, hickory, beech, and poplar cast such a beautiful shimmering, that combined with the cool temperatures (fleeces stayed on!), we were soon surrounded by the perfect autumn morning.

Welcome to the perfect autumn day!

The experience of hiking is much like reading a poem straight through, slowly, not sticking to any one line or word, allowing a flow of light, color, sound, scent, and experience to pass through and by without grasping or clinging. Certainly on long hikes, like my time on the AT, day-after-day walking creates a flow-state of consciousness. I'm reminded of William Blake's poem on non-attachment:

He who binds himself to a joy

Does the winged life destroy

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in eternity's sun rise.

Beech leaves carpet the MDT through rhododendron. 

The MDT does not dip into gorge itself so you have to climb down off the trail into the boulder-strewn floor on slippery moss-covered rocks to see the squeeze chute where the creek tumbles through in a rooster-tailed rapid.  The bedrock is tilted schist that sparkles and glitters with mica and quartz. 

Looking into the tight Class V chute. Photo by Kim!

This is more or less the mid-section of the white water run for kayakers who have already dropped over shelves and ledges to get to this point. Most folks portage around the chute - and with good reason: there are often thick logs wedged into the crevice making entrapment all but certain. At high levels, the volume of water firing through the squeeze would surely pin a boat to the opposite undercut wall. I've paddled this creek many times in whitewater canoes and kayaks, and I know it's personality from just scraping through to full and pushy and dangerous and I've never felt the need to risk this section so I always carry it.

Where I usually take out and  carry around. Photo by Kim!

Beyond the squeeze, Muddy Creek tumbles almost non-stop down a steep gradient to the Susquehanna giving whitewater paddlers a real ride! Just when you catch your breathe from one tricky drop and turn, you have another, and another. For two miles the creek plays its way down and ends finally in a quiet pool complete with an embedded waterfall stream that pours over from a side wall. The not-so-fun part begins when its time to paddle the long flat stretch of river south to Cold Cabin Road Community Park about a mile and half away, or upstream through the old canal remains, working shoreline eddies to the Muddy Creek Access launch a mile to the north. Either way, trying to track a whitewater boat in flatwater can be tiresome!

Tilted bedrock valley floor sculpted by millions of years of fast water. 

Muddy Creek runs a long course through southern York County and is under the watchful eye of the Muddy Creek chapter of Pennsylvania Trout Unlimited. We gather several times a year to take care of streamside plantings, manage habitat, work in the native plant nursery, or clean up after floods and most commonly - after people. A favorite volunteer job for young folks is helping with the donut/coffee/cider table at the Muddy Creek Forks TU event held on opening day in early March. TU is such a great family organization to get involved with and with chapters all over the state, there's always a stream near home that could use your help. Cold water fisheries are such important habitats not only to trout but forest birds, insects, plants, and aquatic life. 

Muddy Creek is one of the most wild of PA's cold water fisheries. 

Muddy Creek has had its share of abuse, too. About ten years ago there were hoards of people here who over the course of a few months destroyed delicate forested banks, moss communities, and sand banks with long-term 'camping' (I call it squatting). It was awful. These people forced authorities and surrounding land owners to take drastic measures to limit access. The valley has recovered beautifully but I feel that we are always one field party away from seeing it defiled again.  MDT trail crews and TU groups have carefully removed disgusting trash heaps, dug out hacked off stumps and limbs, and re-planted banks and flood plains with native shrubs and trees. There is still plenty of trash to pick up, however, so its always a good idea to pack a bag or two.  That said, we saw a few recently tossed cans and bottles along the trail as well as a hold-over squatters camp draped in a torn tarp. Now, land owners let hikers know exactly where the property lines are, and the closely spaced No Trespassing signs can be a little annoying, but it's all part of a recent history of ignorance and neglect that we still struggle with. Parking at the bridge can be a real hassle and the local towing company makes a lot of money here when neighbors complain about crowds.

This makes me think again about environmental ethics and human morality. Leopold's 'red lanterns' are found in the same book where his essay on conservation and land ethics are found. He suggests there can be no ethic if something is not loved nor appreciated. The power of mob-think in society speaks to the need or compulsion to do as others do in order to be accepted - even respected. This behavior has serious consequences for areas that attract us for their wilderness or wild qualities. Having seen the crowds and the destruction they caused in this beautiful area for myself many years ago, I still wonder at nature's resilience and its ability to recover given time, attention, and protection. I am always interested in how we as society and individuals learn to care for a landscape, how to control our impulses to abuse and neglect a natural resource. I think the Mason Dixon Trail System volunteers and the good folks of TU Muddy Creek Chapter deserve a lot of credit for getting this message across.  

Old road cut through a mossy ridge.

Can we come to love the scars? Long before any of us were around to witness it, this valley contained a hydroelectric project  that required roads be blasted through the scenic ridges, and heavy equipment be anchored to the steep rock walls. The plant didn't last long, however. The steep V-shaped valley of the lower Muddy Creek can raise a wicked flood in a mighty hurry and within a few years the plant, its roads, and any sign of industrial man were swept away.  The remnants of roads remain, however, and serve now as the path for the MDT.  Along it you can see stone walls built to hold the heavy wagon road, a bridge abutment, and some massive curved iron plates that were used in water tank construction. I love recognizing these as artifacts of human history hidden in and overtaken by the rhododendron woods. But could you love the idea of hacked off limbs and uprooted trees, broken glass, vandalized boulders and walls, and mounds of trash years from now? I don't think so.  

Hydro plant  construction road, now the MDT.

The humid north-facing slopes are covered in rhododendron groves that give the valley an almost tropical feel. "Rhodie woods" or thickets, cascade down the steep hillside into the creek and grow so tall and luch that at one point the trail goes underneath, in a  deep green tunnel of wide, large leaves and twisted trunks that arc over our heads like a cathedral ceiling. Like most evergreens, we think stay these plants green year-round, but looking closely we saw there were plenty of yellowing two-year old leaves drooping and dropping into the duff. The white pines overhead carpeted the path with their yellow needles and the hemlocks that hugged the rocky promontories an sheltered the big tom turkey were shedding quite a few needles as well. Walking on the fallen needles released distinct pine on earth scent. 

Rhoadie woods, emblems of  Pennsylvania gorges. 

The large sheltering leaves of rhododendron are important habitat as well. Hiking through here on a rainy or cold day, check under the leaves for insects like moths and beetles, and this time of year look for the beautiful orb weaver spiders that retreat to their daytime rests under a leafy roof. We had to duck under and around a few orb weavers on this stretch and I always love meeting them.  One year I found a little red bat sheltering in a curled rhoadie leaf on a cold morning.  

Marbled Orb Weaver

The MDT climbs steadily up and out of the creek valley and emerges at an old iron bridge. It turns right and climbs steadily, steeply,  along the road and we were huffing and puffing now. Once up and over the long hill, we hiked a lot of road edge across the Piedmont highland past Amish farms and pumpkin fields. It's such a pleasure to hear the clanking and clopping of horse and buggy and to get a friendly wave from an Amish neighbor.

Looking towards Lancaster County as we walk across the highland toward the Susquehanna.  Photo by Kim.

Across the height of land, all of it in beautiful farms with rich soils and thick pastures, we walked along the roadside for about five miles. The blazes, painted on sign posts and telephone poles led us t down to the river, past more Amish farms, and protective farm dogs. Sheep, cattle, chickens, big horses, giant jack mules, and industrious garden and hoop houses filled the landscape. We even caught sight of feeding flocks of starlings making their combined roosting flock, sweeping and turning in unison as they began to settle in for the evening.

Early morning mists rising from Muddy Creek Valley.

Past small cabins and cottages, past a busy apiary (not mine!), and around a sharp steep bend, we turned in at the PA Fish and Boat Commission's Muddy Creek Access and gazed out across a placid, deep blue Susquehanna River. Between us and the far shores of Lancaster County is the Bear Island Complex, a natural treasure for island biodiversity.

In the 1920s there was talk of the island complex becoming a national park, but local residents hearing of the park service's heavy handedness evicting people in the Shenandoah and Great Dismal, wanted no part of it. The idea died quickly and today the islands are monitored by the power company that maintains the next dam at Holtwood, Pennsylvania Power and Light.  Some folks still live out there and as we stood admiring the river I thought I could see the red metal roof belonging to a cabin on Chestnut Island where I once stayed as a guest sheltering from a very bad lightening storm. Best chili I ever had, out there on Chestnut!

Looking towards Turkey Island, part of the dozen or so islands of the Bear Island Complex.

So after another incredibly beautiful section hike, this is the best time in our journey to truly thank the hard working volunteers who give up their weekends and take precious days off to work on the Mason Dixon Trail. I hope I haven't been too harsh in my assessments of the trail conditions so far, especially in Cecil County, MD. If anything, I hope I've added some humor, as sometimes hiking - any hiking - can be frustrating and even painful! As Jim explained earlier in the day, it is all he can do as club president to maintain all the sections with just volunteer help from Chadds Ford to Whiskey Springs. The young eagle scout was just one of hundreds of people who work year round to make the trail a little better as we go. Thanks to Jim and the trail clubs, scouts, neighbors, and friends of the MDT!

Notes:

Special Message: ALERT! The Mason-Dixon Trail along the power line right-of-way from PA State Game Lands 181 boundary to Bare Road (Map 5) will be closed due to hunting from October 1 to December 31, 2014. The next scheduled hike and meeting of the M-DTS will be Sunday, November 16th, 2014 near Conowingo Dam, MD. The hike before the meeting is TBA. The meeting itself will be in the visitors center after the hike

http://www.mason-dixontrail.org/