PA Allegheny Portage NHS

 2022 52-Hike Trail Challenge #25:  Hiking Section of the 6 to 10 Trail, Gallitzin, PA

Trail crossing on old Rt 22

I had planned to hike most of 6 to 10 Trail from the Allegheny Portage National Historic Site (NHS) for a round-trip of 12 miles, but you know what my motto is, right? We plan, God laughs.  After giving the NHS a good once-over and seeing everything there was to see between the museum and the beautifully preserved/conserved/restored/reproduced buildings, we struck out on to the blue-blazed trail to see how far we could get. I had a meeting in Loretto, PA, at four o'clock and I knew we wouldn't get it all done, but a good strenuous walk it would be anyway. 

Main Line Route 

The engineering feat that was (and still is) the Pennsylvania Main Line transects Pennsylvania and served as an early 19th century trade and transportation route for west-bounders, freight, and Underground Railroad passengers. I live south of Columbia near the Mason Dixon Line where UGR routes crossed from Maryland into Pennsylvania. Roads and footpaths moved freedom seekers to the rail station in Christiana, PA, if they were headed to Philadelphia, New York, or points further north. The rail and canal intersection at Columbia moved freedom seekers west to Western PA or Ohio and beyond. As I descended the steep hill that once served as the sixth of ten incline planes on the portage railroad, I tried to imagine those passengers who were aboard the system to find freedom in and beyond Pennsylvania, a "free" state. 

Engine House No. 6 (replica on historic foundation)

Reconstructed gearing and tow rope machinery 

The steepness of the Allegheny Mountains is nothing to shake a hiking stick at.  The landscape was so formidable that native people rarely maintained settlements here other than temporary seasonal hunting camps in the secluded valleys or hollows. As settler farmers made the dangerous trek across the Appalachian Mountains in the 18th century, they were often dismayed to find the Allegheny Plateau any less challenging. The idea of a plateau vanished as people met deeply incised erosional valleys, heart-pounding hill climbs, and dozens of rocky river crossings. I couldn't imagine what it must have been like for those early settlers trying to navigate this landscape with Conestoga wagons through narrow gaps in the mountains which stood like walls against their progress. The coming of the Allegheny Portage Railroad section made it possible to carry freighter wagons, entire canal boats, and masses of people up and over ten of the steepest mountain barriers. 

Overgrown incline plane

The Six to Ten Trail roughly follows the path of five of the incline plane climbs with trailheads at each end, at the Allegheny Portage Railroad NHS and six miles east at the town of Foot of Ten. It is sometimes listed a bike path but riders should know that only about four miles of the eastern route are suitable/safe for riding. The hiking portion that Amos and I were on would not be a good idea on a bike. Seriously. We stopped to gawk at the strangely offset Skewed Arch Bridge which allowed a wagon road to pass safely over the railroad. Looking back up the hill from where we'd come I could see the white front of the Engine House at the highest summit of the portage through a narrow overgrown cut through the woods. So important was the engineering and skilled masonry of the great arched bridge that when the modern Rt. 22 came through, highway engineers split the road into east and west bound lanes to preserve the site. Hikers must cross this split highway to continue on the trail. 

View up the hill to Engine House #6 through the woods cut 

Skewed Arch Bridge

Stone cutters yard

Along the trail heading east towards Foot of Ten, we encountered each foot and summit of Incline Planes #6, #7, and #8. It was up and down hiking along the crest of hills that had been modified for the railroad below us. Of course I had to stop at every little seepage and mucky spot (there were lots) to look for salamanders. I wasn't disappointed. Amos caught sight of a deer that snorted and bolted up a hill and he hollered full throat for a good five minutes, but didn't try to chase or pull. Good boy, Amos. 

Moss and mushroom season is in full swing!

Logging railroad switchback - up.

When we got into really steep terrain, the trail followed the zig-zag switchback system of early 20th century logging rails. Like all of Pennsylvania during the early 1900s, this area saw complete deforestation as technologies like steep-climbing Shay engines that allowed for loggers to move timber down big hills. I stood for a rest and looked up and across the mountain near Incline Plane #8 and was amazed at the complexity of switchbacks, intersections, and landings visible through the mature second-growth forest. By the time we had descended our third ravine, I was getting winded. Add to that, the wider paths of the railroad switchbacks were sunnier and in spots there grew great swathes of stinging nettle. Oh no. I was wearing shorts and getting stung while Amos' nearly bare belly was already full of red welts. 

Can you spot the millipede? 

We pressed on down and up, up and down. We crossed creeks at the base of ravine valleys and hiked up rocky grades to climb out. I could barely make out the portage railroad below me through the thick forest cover. I was trying to wrap my mind around the fact that untold hundreds of quarrymen, miners, and laborers - mostly Welsh, Scot, and Irish - had created this path through a most daunting landscape. Still, even with significant smoothing of the steep mountain shoulders, many passengers were so afraid of the dizzying pitches that they elected to walk the thirty-six miles to Johnstown! 

Logging railroad switchback - down.

Climbing down a steep pitch to the portage railroad (Rt 22 beyond)

We climbed down a rocky set of boulder steps to finally intersect with the portage railroad bed near Incline Plane #8. By this time poor Amos was licking his burning belly and I was somewhat amazed at the crisscross pattern of red, raised slashes across my legs. Looking at the level path was a relief but not the mile or more of stinging nettle we would have had to push through to get to our planned turn-around at Muleshoe Curve. I bathed Amos' almost bare belly with cool water and slathered his welts with soothing insect bite cream, hoping it would help. Staring at the nettle covered path, I decided it would be best to turn around and save the rest of the trail for late fall or winter.

Itching and burning, we made this our turn-around at 3.2 miles

Back we went along the 6 to 10 Trail, huffing and puffing and careful to avoid anymore swipes with stinging nettle. Once back on the footpath and off the old logging roads, the nettle disappeared. We crossed again through the springs and seeps to look for slithery things or, for Amos, to drink from the sweet pools of water.  I found a little Garter Snake sunning on a log, his eyes opaque and blue, ready to shed his skin. It was a nice find and he sat perfectly still as I fumbled with my phone for a good shot. I keep wanting to get  my old Canon Rebel repaired so I can shoot again with that nice 250 lens that has the sweet macro. I wouldn't have to approach my slithery subjects as closely and disturb them as I do with the phone. But he seemed not to see me through his blue goggles so I was able to get a few descent pictures. 

Little Garter Snake

We arrived back at the Visitor Center in time to wash up, change into a descent not-smelly shirt and long pants, and get on our way to the meeting in nearby Loretto (also my middle name). Seated in my friend's office at St. Francis University, we laughed about the "great outdoors" and the suffering and pain it can sometimes bring us. Meanwhile, Amos slept soundly in the truck in a shady spot outside, the insect bite cream seeming to have worked giving him a soothing rest. 

Notes:  

The Pennsylvania Main Line is still considered (and celebrated) as an engineering feat. This NHS is dedicated to the entire route and operational history of the route and is located at the summit of the great portage rail system near Gallitzin. The canals and the railroad operated in unison as the Main Line system. https://www.nps.gov/alpo/learn/historyculture/pennsylvania-main-line-canal.htm  and https://www.nps.gov/alpo/learn/historyculture/allegheny-portage-railroad.htm give overviews of the two linked transportation systems. 

A well-researched article appearing in the online magazine "Funimag" (about the history of funiculars - "ladder hill" engineering) on the Allegheny Portage Railroad. The photo-linked chart at the end of the article provides a great set of aerial shots showing the full set of incline planes. These shots give you a sense of the difficult terrain!

The 6 to 10 Trail webpage spells it all out. 

Happy Birthday National Park Service! 

PA Forbes State Forest: Spruce Flat Bog and Beam Rock Ramble

 2022 52-Hike Challenge #22  (4 miles)

With the truck repaired and time to make a second try for the Laurel Summit area, we started out early in the morning to avoid the humidity and heat. Luckily a cold front had swept through overnight and the temperatures were pleasant, even cool at the top. Amos had some pep in his step at long last. Back up into Forbes State Forest we drove until we reached the summit and the breezy, cool parking lot at Laurel Summit State Park.

I combined two trails and a forest road to make a loop to encompass the high altitude bog and the outcrop of sandstone pillars at Beam Rock. It was slightly misty but the sun was beginning to burn through the rain clouds. Carpets of moss lay all around. White Pines and Hemlock towered over the CCC-era picnic area, dominating the tiny 6-acre embedded park within the state forest. Named for British Brigadier General John Forbes who commanded his expeditionary force to blaze a wilderness road in preparation for an attack on French-held Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) in 1757. The old Lincoln Highway/ new-ish Rt 30 traces roughly the path through these mountains. 

Ghost Pipe barely above the height of thick moss

We walked out to a rare sight: a high altitude bog where acres of white Cotton Grass and Northern Pitcher Plant stopped me in my tracks. Each summer I seek out a bog just to visit the Pitcher and tiny Sundews and all the other acid-tolerant plants that make a bog or fen their home. This place, however, was special - ringed with krummholz and flag trees, a windy, cold environment that just now was enjoying a brief summer month or two before the cold Allegheny autumn returns. Dragonflies by the thousands danced in the breeze. Ravens croaked. The wet-carpet musty scent of a bear somewhere out in the berry bush caught our attention. Amos began to holler but didn't pull. 

Cotton Grass - a northern species more common in New England and Canada

In the mid-19th century these flats were covered in old growth Hemlock hundreds of years old. The loggers who found this summit called the trees Spruce - as anything evergreen with needles was called in the 1800s.  The logging continued through the early 1900s, then using various small engines and tramways to ferry the trees to the mills. The mountains were laid to total waste. By the 1920s the state stepped in to buy the degraded mountains, much to the chagrin of the locals and lumber companies, many of whom complained that the governor was wasting state money. But soon the CCC moved in and built park infrastructure, replanted forest using seed banks and sapling stock carried up from the less accessible ravine forests. 

Spruce Flats after the logging, c. 1910

The thick forests that blanket the mountain today are mature but not original. It is all second growth except for the bog where no trees returned except those that now encircle the shallow bowl of bog that formed in the absence of the ancient trees. Ecologists suggest that without the ancient Hemlocks to absorb the water naturally trapped in the depression of the flats, the bog formed in its place. Even in this dry, low precipitation month of August it is holding tons of water. I measured a standing six inches of water collected through rain, fog, and snow on the mountain. 

Northern Pitcher Plant - so many huge clumps I could hardly believe my eyes

Amos must have scared that bear out of the berry patch because suddenly I became aware of the silence. I had been so caught up in the spectacle of the bog I hadn't noticed he'd stopped hollering at the bear scent and had laid down for a snooze. A fit older woman came tramping out on to the boardwalk that juts out from the end of the trail. She swung off her pack and greeted me with "What a crazy amazing place!" Joan was hiking the Laurel Highlands Trail and detoured off to see the bog and to have her second breakfast. Amos asked for her turkey jerky and a breakfast bar which she shared with him. Joan has hiked all over the country, some long distance trails, some a week or two long. The Laurel Highlands Trail is 70 miles long and she was giving it a full week to complete before heading down to Washington D.C. to visit her older sister. She asked how old I was. I told her I just turned 62. She said she was 78. "Don't wait. Don't wait," she said as she hoisted her pack and headed back to the yellow blazes of the Laurel Highland Trail. How'd she know??

Woodland Sunflowers

From the bog we walked back to the picnic area to find a connector trail to the forest road that would lead us to the rocky overlook at Beam Rocks. Mushrooms were just everywhere in all shapes, sizes, and colors. I found a new (to me) mushroom that looked like it was bleeding and sure enough it was a Blood Tooth or Red Juice Tooth mushroom. So cool. The pines were soon overtaken by Chestnut Oaks and Mountain Ash and great thickets of Rhododendron. We found our way onto the gravel Laurel Summit forest road and past acres and acres of Woodland Sunflower. 

Red-Juice Tooth

Scarlet Waxy Cap

Silvery-Violet Cort

A mile or so later and we arrived at the first red blaze for Beam Rocks Trail. The path dipped down and down, crossed a boulder maze, and opened out on to the tops of pillars of wind eroded sandstone. The breeze lifted a cool mist up from the Spruce Run ravine. I looked out over the tops of Ironwood, Hop Hornbeam, and Black Cherry clinging to the steep slope under the outcrop. I watched three Broadwing Hawks soar south along the opposite ridgeway. Fall migration has begun for these long-distance hawk wanderers. 

Red blaze for the Beam Rock Trail

Boulder maze

Pillars of sandstone and a 30 mile view

We retraced our steps back up to the road and walked straight back to the truck, but on the way we passed by this wickedly cool, seen-better-days observatory that I later learned is an Airglow Observatory built by the University of Pittsburg in the mid-1960s. Although the Airglow Program through is still active, I wasn't sure if this observatory is still in use. It looked decrepit, a little sad, in need of some seal sealer and paint. The Airglow Program studies the ionosphere, specifically the aural spectrum and oxygen interaction.  At the time it was built out here, 25 miles from Pittsburg, the night skies were not as affected by city lights as they are now. But newer observatories have been built since in better dark/twilight sky locations in Peru and New England.  The program is still managed by Pitt.  It would be cool to know if this observatory has been decommissioned or is still in use. It would be cooler still to be able to see inside!

Airglow Observatory, U. Pitt/ 

Notes:

DCNR Laurel Summit State Park - elevation at almost 3,000' and home to the beautiful Spruce Flats Bog as well as a major trails intersection.

Forbes State Forest has units across three SW Pennsylvania counties, Fayette, Somerset, and Westmoreland. 

Purple Lizard Maps produces this excellent outdoor recreational map for Ohiopyle State Park which includes on one side all of Forbes State Forest and the many small state park units embedded within it. It was a valuable resource for me in navigation since I had no cell signal.  They make the best maps and are a local PA company!

From the most current grant funding statement awarded to U. of Pittsburgh for the Airglow Program:

A program of upper atmosphere dynamics studies is proposed that involves work at the University of Pittsburgh, at the equatorial Airglow Observatory in Arequipoa, Peru, and at the midlatitude Millstone Hill Observatory in Massachusetts. Determinations of Doppler shifts and widths of nightglow emission lines will be made by upgraded Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) instruments to yield velocities and temperatures. The FPIs are of both conventional and all-sky designs that make use of CCD detectors to provide greatly improved sensitivity. Accurate determinations of the Doppler shifts will be provided by zero velocity reference sources, either using the PIs newly developed oxygen afterglow reference source (OARS) that emits the forbidden OI 630.0 and 557.7 nm lines or by more portable Secondary Standard sources that will be interferometrically calibrated against the OARS standard. The improved precision will permit accurate determinations of the (small) vertical velocities, supplementing the usual horizontal velocity determinations to provide a 3-dimensional characterization of the thermospheric flow.

For the equatorial measurements in Peru, the new, multi-wavelength capability of the FPI will broaden the ongoing 630 nm studies of upper thermosphere dynamics to include mesopause wind and temperature determinations via OH (731.6 nm) nightglow line studies. The all-sky FPI at Millstone Hill will be used to examine coupling effects between the midlatitude lower and upper thermosphere by sequential determinations of their wind and temperature fields using the 557.7 nm and 630.0 nm airglow emissions. At both latitudes, the neutral dynamics results can be compared to the ionospheric dynamics measurements obtained by either the Jicamarca or the Millstone Hill incoherent scatter radar.

https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0221920

PA Laurel Highlands: Linn Run State Park and A Happy Repair

 2022 52-Hike Challenge #21 (3 miles) Linn Run State Park

Next stop: Town and Country Motors for brake repair

You know the saying "Man plans, God laughs." It's true. But if you laugh along you are often granted surprises that you couldn't possibly have planned for. Don't let a bad brake get in the way of making new friends.

 

Conservation landscapes of Pennsylvania

I started out to hike a five mile loop in Linn Run State Park, a beautiful gem embedded in Forbes State Forest. The forest itself is embedded in the beautiful Laurel Highlands. With seven large regional conservation landscapes that include where I work in the Susquehanna Riverlands, these large regions have a lot to explore. Conservation landscapes are designated as high value natural areas with existing or potential infrastructure for green industry/eco-recreational businesses that support local economies. There are hundreds of outdoor opportunities, scenic working lands, state and national parks, state and national forests, and communities that benefit from Pennsylvania's vibrant wildlands. 

Linn Run trickling through - the hottest, driest part of summer

The heat and humidity were, again, an issue for my long-suffering coonhound, Amos. Keep in mind that the inherent nature of this breed is to sleep in cool, shady places all summer long and go for night walks after midnight. At least that's what all of my black and tan coonies have done for the past twenty years. I should not have been surprised that by mile three Amos laid down in the trail and went to sleep. This, after sipping long, leisurely drinks from the trickle that was Linn Run, and digging multiple hollows into the cool leafy duff to snuffle in and test for fit.  Fall, winter, and early spring are really his hiking time so I had to reset my mileage goals for the day. Honestly though, I had to sit in one of his nests to cool off and it was quite comfy! 

"Fossil" ripple marks in Linn Run sandstone from a shallow seabed

No swimmers today - low water.

He laid down in the shallow pools at Flat Rock and again in the tiny stream that dripped into Adams Falls. He snuffled through ferns and sat contentedly in a muddy hollow on the trail. He flopped over on his side to enjoy the coolness of the restroom's cement pad. Well, I thought, if it's just three miles today, we'd had a blast exploring the beautiful ravines, hunting for mushrooms, and lying about on sandstone ledges. Together we sauntered back to the truck. 

Old Man of the Woods

Yellow Coral 

I decided to drive higher up the mountain and maybe visit the Spruce Flats Bog but as we climbed a certain rotational noise began to emanate from the front right wheel. Drat! A brake pad was shot. Double drat! There was a sound of metal against metal. Not good. I met up with a forestry crew and asked about finding a repair shop. They suggested a small Ford dealership in Ligonier just a few miles away. Off we went, Amos snoring in the backseat and me stressing about the cost of rotors and pads. Withing twenty minutes I was parked at the dealership.

Amanita-eye view from one of Amos' nests

Adams Falls in its summertime trickle mode

I walked up to the service window and was met by the nicest mechanic team. I explained my situation and what I thought was the problem. They showed me their long list of repair tickets for the day and said "Do you live nearby?" and I said no. I live four hours away. I started to feel a little sick. 

Dry stream bed trying to feed a waterfall

But then the service writer leaned over the counter and saw Amos. "You guys! A coonhound!"  Then he saw my Hadrian's Wall t-shirt. "You've walked Hadrian's Wall Path? So have I!" I completely forgot about my truck troubles. Amos was getting all kinds of hugs and scratches and I'd found a fellow long distance hiker to swap stories with. "You know, you never encounter the true nature of human kindness until you walk a landscape," said the mechanic. "People are incredible. Everyone needs to go for a long walk. It will change your perspective on humanity." 

Amos loving the cool shop floor

Next thing I knew the truck was taken out for a drive then put right up on the lift. A mechanic called over to Amos, "It won't take long buddy!" The cashier kissed Amos' ears as another mechanic pulled the truck tire. "Don't worry Amos, you'll be on the road in no time!" The store manager showed me to the waiting area and invited Amos to sit on the cool leather couch which of course he loved. Within the hour I had my truck repaired and the bill was not all that bad. But Amos wouldn't leave! He was loving all the attention, especially the air conditioning and it was another half hour before I convinced him it was time to go. He made a lot of new friends that day. 

PA Staple Bend Tunnel Trail

 2022 52-Hike Challenge #20 @ 4 miles/ hike & bike on Staple Bend Tunnel Trail, Mineral Point, PA 

The National Park Service manages the multi-site Allegheny Portage Railroad through Western PA, and is one of five National Park units in the region that include the Johnstown Flood Memorial at the South Fork Dam, Fort Necessity National Battlefield, Flight 93 National Memorial, and Friendship Hill NHS. I managed only this one site on my visit to the Laurel Highlands but I do hope to return to explore the other sites within the Allegheny Portage Railroad NHS.  After my visit to the Johnstown Flood site, it was just a short drive for an afternoon hike and bike to and through the Staple Bend Tunnel. 

Beautiful rail grade with some hills!

Completed in 1833 the Staple Bend Tunnel was the first railroad tunnel built in the United States. Being a rail fan, of course I had to see this. I biked most of the four mile trail only because it was getting late and rain was again threatening but had I more time I would have walked it for no other reason than to linger at all the historical interpretive signs and interesting landscape details. Welsh stone masons, miners, and quarry men (and their families) were the real heroes in the construction of this 900' tunnel and their fine work is still something to behold. 

East entrance

I'll leave to you, if you are interested, to read all of the historical information linked in the Notes below, but for this post I just wanted to reflect on the incredible scope and scale of manual labor this tunnel required. I admit I rode back and forth through the tunnel to ponder and appreciate the labor and skills devoted to this project. The Allegheny Portage section of the Main Line Canal system was designed to carry canal boats across the Allegheny Mountains via rail and for a time before steam engines and the powerful Pennsylvania Railroad system out-competed the Main Line, it was the route that connected East to West, Philadelphia to Pittsburg and the Ohio, during the golden age of canal transportation.

West entrance

While experienced, skilled Welsh stone workers created the tunnel, its facades, and the beautiful culverts constructed below the railroad to keep it dry, they were supported by hundreds of Irish laborers who toiled in the quarries, mucked blast debris, and hauled tons of earth to construct the railbed. So much labor! I scrambled down a steep bank to admire a large culvert (now blocked with stone) built dry stack, no mortar, no fastening rods. It also occurred to me how  much time, effort, funding the National Park Service has invested in keeping these structures in sound condition. I know a few stone masons who learned their trades as seasonal and early career stone workers with the NPS. 

A modern pipe now carries the stream but acid seepage adds a goopy trickle.

Dry stack sandstone with a fern garden attached.

Ten inclined planes were built across the mountains to facilitate moving freight barges as well as passenger rail cars. Riders on this section were often making the journey between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh as tourists.  A rather famous passenger on a five-month visit to the U.S., Mr. Charles Dickens of London, traveled on the Main Line in 1842. His accounts of the trip across the country are famously critical of American transportation systems but he did somewhat love the portage section of the passage.

"On Sunday morning we arrived at the foot of the mountain, which is crossed by railroad. There are ten inclined planes; five ascending, and five descending; the carriages are dragged up the former, and let slowly down the latter, by means of stationary engines; the comparatively level spaces between, being traversed, sometimes by horse, and sometimes by engine power, as the case demands. Occasionally the rails are laid upon the extreme verge of a giddy precipice; and looking from the carriage window, the traveller gazes sheer down, without a stone or scrap of fence between into the mountain depths below. The journey is very carefully made, however; only two carriages travelling together; and while proper precautions are taken, is not to be dreaded for its dangers."    

Charles Dickens, Letters of Charles Dickens, 1842

NPS interpretive panel, Staple Bend Tunnel at Incline Plane No. 1, Staple Bend Tunnel

After I had ridden the tunnel enough times to satisfy my pondering and awe, I carefully rode down the embankment of Incline Plane No. 1 as it lowered towards the level leading to Mineral Point. I saw where a biker before me had crashed on the hill, leaving a broken pair of sunglasses and some bandage wrappers. Uh oh. I decided to dismount and walk the rest of the way into the little town park. After a little rest and a snack I headed back up the hill pushing my bike the whole way. The cool breeze rushing out of the tunnel was wonderful. 

Sleeper stones that held up the rails.

A fine mist of rain was interrupted by peeks of sunlight and this made the ride back to my truck delightful. The Conemaugh River glinted below. Train engines idled in the yards outside of town hidden from view by thick summer foliage.  The sounds of rain dripping from leaves softened the sounds of the engines. Back at the truck I made a note in my journal to visit the rest of the Allegheny Portage Railroad sites and to read some more of Dickens' reflections of his trip across the U.S. 

Notes:

The Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site is actually a collection of separate sites along the path of the portage section of the Pennsylvania Main Line. I am really looking forward to visiting the other sites within this NHS!

American through Charles Dickens' Eyes (History Collection Online) gives an overview of the fanous author's visit to the U.S. See also "Charles Dickens' Travels in America" 

PA Johnstown Flood National Memorial: A Strict Liability Hike and Bike

My questions of legal liability concerning manmade environmental hazards began back at Canoe Creek State Park as my dog and I walked trails that led to and around ruins of limestone quarries, mines, and pits. Though park signs and good hiking etiquette require people stay on trails, I wondered what if someone was injured during an off-trail experience?  A fall into a mine shaft or a tumble off a vertical quarry pit wall? Who, if anyone, bears responsibility for a landscape so altered that it could cause harm?

The next day I took a hike and bike ride at the NPS Johnstown Flood Memorial at the site of the South Fork Dam which failed on May 31, 1889. I had this question in mind as I approached a park ranger at the Visitor Center about where I might learn more about how this manmade "natural" disaster caused a firestorm of legal debate around questions of liability. Before she could help me, her manager emerged from the office and informed a small group of visitors and staff that she had just learned of the passing of historian David McCullough whose first book Johnstown Flood (1968) lit my interest in environmental history while I still worked for the park service. The best-selling book also launched an intense national interest in the Johnstown flood, flood histories, and industrial liability. With the stunning success of the book, he helped raise funds for the Johnstown Flood Museum and the Johnstown Area Historical Association (JAHA). He was the driver behind much-needed renovations to the South Fork dam site under NPS management. A Pittsburgh native, McCullough helped create the culture and craft of story-telling which the current visitor center does with such excellence. The small group in the visitor center stood quietly as we digested the news.  

The valley that was once a lake.

After the flood obliterated the Conemaugh valley and destroyed Johnstown, the South Fork Fishing Club whose officers and owners were some of America's wealthiest industrialists, was able to deflect lawsuits by claiming the dam failure was an "Act of God," in essence finding legal fault with nature. It also helped that the rich club members inserted favored lawyers, specially selected "experts," and industry-friendly judges into the legal proceedings.  Public indignation boiled over as one lawsuit after another was dismissed, laying blame in natural causes.  Public pressure was so great that popular magazines, newspapers, and other public media engaged a new breed of investigative journalist called muckrakers who wrote exhaustively on this tragedy as well as two additional dam failures that occurred in the years following the 1889 flood.  As national pressure mounted, state and federal courts, unable to quell public outcry against environmental abuses of exploitative industries, began to consider the English Law regarding negligence and nuisance as American ideas of strict liability in cases of environmental disaster, human injury, and property loss caused by company negligence. 

Remains of the dam's spillway, a testament to greed.

McCullough's book tells a beautifully detailed and sympathetic story of the flood and its aftermath so I won't repeat it here in hopes you will read it (or read it again), but the author, after years of research and writing summed up the singular event as "...not an act of God or nature. It was brought about by human failure, shortsightedness, selfishness."  While the fallout of the Johnstown Flood legal actions instigated consideration of strict liability in state courts around the country, legislation to ensure dam safety took much longer. In fact, two more fatal Pennsylvania dam failures, the 1911 Austin Dam collapse and the 1977 Laurel Run Dam breech and collapse (which again flooded Johnstown), finally spurred Pennsylvania lawmakers into action enacting strict building code regulations for dam construction, maintenance, repair, and removal. It only took 90 years at a cost thousands of lives.

A surviving part of the Clubhouse under NPS care.

I hiked and biked around the South Fork Dam site. I explored what was left of the spillway where iron grates had been installed by the South Fork Fishing Club to prevent their 1,000 cherished (and expensive) black bass from escaping the lake. The grates would quickly become clogged as flood waters overtopped the dam on Friday night, May 31, adding tons of pressure to the weakened center. I biked down from the NPS site into the little town of St. Michaels, the town that grew up on the edge of the lake after the flood. Here I found a good lunch and visited a few surviving club member cottages (really big Victorian homes) and the restored remains of the clubhouse/guesthouse.  I spoke with a NPS carpenter who was working on the clubhouse porch. "This place still represents something difficult for the locals to wrap their heads around, even a hundred plus years later - the greed and indifference of rich people." 

I biked up to the NPS Picnic Area and walked out on the South Fork Trail and looked back at the Visitor Center. In the years before the flood, the fishing club had removed the large outflow pipes at the base of the dam, effectively sealing off any possibility of releasing water to counter rising lake levels during high water events. With no thought of repairing and shoring up an existing slump from a past breech and with visible leaks erupted in the steep downstream wall, club owners assured worried citizens downstream that the dam posed no threat. In 1889, when the heaviest rains ever witnessed by residents in the small downriver towns of South Fork and Mineral Point continued to pound the valley, alarm was raised in Johnstown, already flooded under ten feet of water. A telegraph operator sent a dire message to the railyard in East Conemaugh: "South Fork Dam is liable to break: Notify the People of Johnstown to prepare for the worst." 

The breech.

A railroad line now runs through the breech in the South Fork Dam. Interstate 219 crosses the narrow valley just below what is still visible of the old lake bed and dam ruins. I rode my bike back to the Visitor Center and checked my speed averaging about 15 mph. It took me about 30 minutes to reach my truck at the top of the hill. Thirty minutes after the dam collapsed on May 31, 1889, a roaring wall of logs, metal, lumber, rock, and roiling brown flood water had already obliterated South Fork and Mineral Point and was bearing down on East Conemaugh at 40mph. By the time I finished putting away my helmet and backpack and locked my bike on its rack, I glanced at my phone. Fifty-seven minutes had passed since I left the NPS Picnic Area on the other side of the old lake bed. Fifty-seven minutes after the dam collapsed, Johnstown was hit by the surging flood wall. 

Modern industries are handling the forces of nature on a stupendous scale. . . . Woe to the people who trust these powers to the hands of fools.”

David McCullough, Johnstown Flood

Notes: 

Dam failures in Pennsylvania are unfortunately not a rare occurrence in the 19th and 20th century, especially tragic in landscapes where rivers, creeks, and runs flow in tight, sluice valleys and towns downstream exist in bowl-like topographies. David Rose, PhD, in The Influence of Dam Failures in Pennsylvania explores how PA dam failures helped create new and (hopefully) effective dam safety law and construction protocol. 

For a more academic investigation of the flood and its aftermath, see this excellent online resource from Bowdoin College "The Johnstown Flood" by Casey Goldberg. In particular, the chapter "Avoidance of Legal Blame" and "Blurring the Lines."  Check out the embedded computer simulation of the flood's path, velocity, and volume (!) 

David McCullough was America's most gifted narrative historian, may he rest in peace. I read his book Johnstown Flood (1968) in the early 1990s. I am re-reading it again as I travel through Pennsylvania's Laurel Highlands on my August road trip.   

 

PA Canoe Creek State Park - A Post-Industrial Loop

 2022 52-Hike Challenge #19 - Canoe Creek State Park, Blair County, PA (4 miles) 

At just under a thousand acres with almost 200 of those as lake, Canoe Creek State Park has many miles of excellent trails with some just for horseback riding and others for mountain biking and more for hiking. On our latest expedition across Pennsylvania to visit state parks we've not visited before, my trusty coonhound Amos and I made this little gem our afternoon stop on the way to the Laurel Highlands in the western part of the state. We spent several hours exploring marshes, side-hilling a small mountain, and visiting water as much as possible. It was hot, humid, and (for Amos) a hike that needed more than a few water stops. We walked a solid four miles, most of it on a series of trails that forms a loop around a former industrial complex where ruins and lumps and bumps on the land are pretty numerous. 

Blair Limestone Company lime kiln ruins

The Blair Limestone Company ruins dominate the first part of this loop that begins in the parking lot of the environmental center on the hill. We walked down a macadam road, enjoyed the view over the lake, then walked up an old railroad grade to the remains of six limekilns. The hillside was stepped up and around for various now-gone buildings and sheds. A mill race runs close to the road into the kiln area. The more I looked the more I saw and the more questions I had. 

Inside a limestone kiln

Limestone was an important raw resource quarried and mined in this region beginning in the mid-1800s. There are quarries and mines pits everywhere but the thick summer foliage makes it hard to see entrances and vertical walls. (I made a note to come back in winter!) The Blair Limestone Company operated here in the early part of the 20th century and while it was making every meter count for continued limestone extraction and processing, it unknowingly created a warren of places that now harbor thousands of bats throughout the park. Old mine openings (not visible from the trail we took) are modified to exclude human intruders with the installation of modern grates. Bat biologists monitor roosting sites, hibernation chambers, and bat nurseries. The bats have captured the public's attention, so bat watching is popular and encouraged, especially in the presence of park educators and conservation biologists who can explain the challenges that our state's bat populations face. These challenges include loss of roosting habitat and White-Nose Syndrome. 

Side-hill hiking below the mines

The Frank Felbaum Bat Sanctuary is located here in an old church and at last count is a communal roosting home to over 30,000 Little Brown Bats. The park is home to all six species of PA bats including the endangered and old mine-loving Indiana Bat and is designated an Important Mammal Area (IMA) by the state.  As we walked around the hill, noticing how nature and time have reclaimed this industrial area, I wonder if company bosses ever imagined this site becoming a world-renowned  bat conservation site? 

On our climb up the mountain, passing quarry pits and mine entrances, the trail sometimes joined with the small gauge railroad grade where chunky little steam engines pulled railcars loaded with limestone down to the kilns. We climbed even further and the path became rocky and mucky in the rain. We rounded the crest of the hill and discovered the ruins of the Hartman kiln almost hidden in the dense summer undergrowth. Two lost hikers ambled by and asked me for a look at my soggy map. They had been circling the hilltop for an hour continuously missing the trail blaze that would lead to the bridge below. We all walked down together and they said their goodbye as they cross the bridge to take the Beaver Pond Trail back. 

Canoe Creek 

Our end of the trail joined yet another railroad grade where hundreds of old ties still laid in their beds of gravel. I wondered how many little engines worked along and around this small mountain? We walked along Canoe Creek on its way to the lake and counted green four herons hunting along its banks. A wood duck hen and a line of quick little ducklings zoomed ahead, popping in and out of root caves and log banks to stay well ahead of us. 

Old railroad grade with embedded ties along the creek

I connected the Boardwalk Trail to our loop so that we could walk out to enjoy the marshy edge of the lake and maybe catch a cool breeze. Thunder echoed off the distant hill and rain fell lightly. Poor Amos was really feeling the humidity and had slowed way down from his usual hiking trot. We stopped a lot to feel the breeze and the cool sprinkles. I didn't want to ruin his day so we continued back to the truck without extending our walk to the old church-turned-bat-sanctuary. When he saw the truck at the end of the old macadam road, he picked up speed and soon enjoyed a long drink from his water bowl and laid out on his rear bench seat as I turned the A/C on high. 

Poor Amos had reached his limit

AllTrails map with the Boardwalk Loop added (dotted red)

Notes:  

Listing for Important Mammal Areas compiled by the Pennsylvania Biological Survey.  Canoe Creek State Park is #16. 

Indiana Bat is a species in serious decline, its national population dropping by half since 2019. https://www.fws.gov/species/indiana-bat-myotis-sodalis

DCNR website for Canoe Creek State Park