WV Monongahela National Forest: Dolly Sods and Bear Rocks Preserve

 

Red Spruce and Blueberry 

The Appalachian Highlands region covers portions of nine Eastern U.S. States and is described as one of the wildest and most biodiverse mountain regions in the world. Embedded within the Appalachian Highlands region are some really interesting places that, like most of the Appalachian Mountain range are unique chapters in the ongoing story of industrial exploitation and ecological recovery of the last two centuries. I'm on my annual pilgrimage into the Pleistocene and have landed in the Monoghela National Forest to see what stories I can dig up. Yes, I have my Woolly Mammoth, Woolsey, in my backpack. 

Sandstone cliffs of the Allegheny Front 

The Bear Rocks Preserve is part of a 17,500 acre conservation area that contains a high altitude heathland, wetlands, and remnant Red Spruce forest known as the Dolly (Dahle) Sods. It is a remarkable sub-alpine landscape, part of a larger complex defined by cold winters, a very short growing season, and plant communities that resemble the upper boreal of Canada. To stand at the top of the sandstone block cliffs, weathered by water and ice, one stands on the edge of the Allegheny Front facing east looking into the Ridge and Valley Province. The Allegheny Front was one of the most serious impediments to westward expansion of the 1700s but once the fortress-like wall of the mountain was breached by roads through and over the steep water and wind gaps, settlers did come but they did not stay long. 

Frost-nipped fern frond

 

Red Spruce

Ancient Red Spruce and Hemlosk forests once covered the vast heathlands but industrial logging operations eliminated these highland forests in the late 1800s and early 1900s leaving tons of volatile slash behind. Lightening strike fires and careless fires started with railroad equipment ignited the mountain tops and several major wildfires burned hot and uncontrolled  with a most historic wildfire-firestorm consuming most of the 650-acre Dolly Sods area in 1930. With repeated burns that spanned three decades, this scenic area now afire with the red blaze of blueberry heath, was nothing more than a high altitude desert. At an altitude of 4,800 feet, Dolly Sods was biologically dead. 

Water-worn sandstone 

"A River Ran Through It" sculpted stone

To add insult to injury, the area was used during WWII as an artillery testing ground and firing range. The expansive desert-like plains exploded with shelling from 1943 to 1944 as mountain artillery divisions practiced for warfare in the Italian Alps. It is hard to imagine a place so beautiful now, laid to waste after fires and being fired upon. What makes it even more remarkable is that it even became a conservation area at all, given that private landowners that included the Western Maryland Railroad and Virginia Electric and Power refused to sell the land for decades even as the Monongahela National Forest was enveloping the mountains all around in protected land. It wasn't until 1993 that the Dolly Sods came under conservation management with large purchases made by the Nature Conservancy and  designations made during the Obama Administration under the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009.  

Flagged tree shaped by ice and wind

Flag trees at 4,800'

While exposed rock and vast plains of low growing heath plants mark the present character of the Dolly Sods plateau now, it is even harder to imagine a dense old-growth forest composed of ancient conifers that averaged ten to twelve feet in diameter.  These relic forests existed here for millions of years before the logging industry destroyed them in less than fifty. These conifer communities with understories of  fern and dense, peaty soils tens of feet thick contained untold numbers of peat community species including boreal bird species, salamanders, mammals, and insects. These relic communities originated during the Pleistocene Epoch when glaciers covered much of the Northeast and bitterly cold climates prevailed southward into Georgia in the Appalachian Mountains though no ice sheets extended beyond northeastern Pennsylvania into these parts.

The Pleistocene woodlands of the ancient Dolly Sods were rainforests, dependent upon ample rain and snowfall and thick blankets of fog that still blanket the mountains in fall and spring, sometimes for days on end. The forested plateau now devoid of any of its  rich peat beds due to 20th century fires, held vast amounts of water that ran beneath the cover of peat and humus as hidden rivers into the western basin of the present Canaan Valley. What we see today across this vast low plain of heath is a tiny fraction of the ecological wealth that once existed here. Whether we will live long enough to see those old Spruce forests return is unknown but efforts are underway by both the National Forest Service and the West Virginia Nature Conservancy to re-establish Red Spruce forests across the Dolly Sods conservation area and throughout historic high altitude and valley glade sites of the Monongahela. 

Notes:

West Virginia Nature Conservancy https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/west-virginia-dolly-sods-and-canaan-valley/

Forensics Guide for Unexploded Ordinance in Dolly Sods, Amy Richmond Aylor (2008) https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3608&context=etd

Monongahela National Forest  (NFS) https://www.fs.usda.gov/mnf

PA: York Iron Company Mines/ P. Joseph Raab County Park

 

As I hiked the short loop trail at P. Joseph Raab County Park in southwest York County, I imagined the sounds of this place during its time as a sprawling iron mine landscape, the voices of quarry men, who mostly likely spoke Welsh or the dialects of Northumberland and Cumbria, England. I imagined the sounds of heavy hand held star-bit drills and the clang of metal on metal as the  hammermen, who were trusted with good aim, pounded the drills into the hard Phyllite deep enough to make a blasting hole. 

Trench pit

The sounds of mules and horses whinnying was real enough coming from a farm nearby so it was easy to imagine the sounds of heavy ore wagons being pulled, thudding and creaking, over the rocky roads.  These were hand dug mines with their open pits and deep shafts that reached thick veins of heavy Hematite ore. The massiveness of mined landscape surprised me - all done by human hands. 

Milky Quartz

York Iron Company made a good bit of money off this large mine as it was a very productive site for over forty years.  Now grown over into mature Chestnut /Hickory hardwood forest the park still feels busy as if a team of mules pulling an ore wagon could come over the rise of the well-used path at any time. I imagine the smell of black powder and blasted rock and the metallic dust of the ore.  Ore delivered to York furances and foundaries during the Civil War was made into the cannons and cannon balls that roared and thundered to life at the Battle of Gettysburg and were used in the fierce atrillery engagements that followed down in Maryland and Virginia. 

Cut-Leaf Goldenrod & Green Metallic Sweat Bee

Finding big veins of quartz was an indicator of rich Hematite nearby and was often attached directly to it. It was dumped into waste heaps that line the old roads. I kicked a few chunks around and found several Hematite adhesions too small to be worth anything to the mine company but heavy in the hand, rusty black. Lying by delicate fronds of Cut-Leaf Goldenrod sat a big chunk of Milky Quartz and Amos licked a dark adhesion and immediately regretted it. The sharp metallic taste no doubt offended his finely tuned taste buds! 

Rimstones of weathered Phyllite slabs (fortress ramparts)

Amos and I ventured out to the rim of the largest pit, a deep cavernous trench that dropped a hundred feet at its deepest point from the weathered rimstones on top. It was so deep that I couldn't see the bottom from two different overlooks. The trail was faded and maybe not quite  "official" but signs of people having bushwacked up from the creek and across the wooded knoll were everywhere. 

 

Witch-Hazel

There were piles of stacked stone, spray painted outcrops, beer cans, trash. I picked up the beer cans and trash and stuffed all of into a trashbag then into my pack. The trail clung tight to the edge of the pit and Amos and I moved cautiously down, me mostly on my arse and him on his haunches, to the creekbed below. On the slide I picked up more trash but admired the fall-blooming Witch-Hazel. At bottom two American Crows swooped down to the creek and began bathe. I watched the sunlight play off their feathers as they stooped into the pools and splashed in the shallow water. There seemed to be an aura around the birds as the water flew in arcs around them in the humid air.  Such fun to watch.

Deep, steep pit! 

Overhead Crows were calling, rallying, gathering in dozens, and soon the woods were full of them. Thinking about Welsh folklore, it was easy to imagine the high cliff walls of mine behind me formed the ramparts of a castle while the Crows that perched and called over the pit became the Dinas Bran, the Fortress of Crows. In Welsh folklore Crows are the feathered prophets to the great kings and Amos the Coonhound, named for the Old Testament prophet ("Let justice rain down like rushing waters!")  may have met his Celtic cohorts if he hadn't been so oblivious to the racket being raised all around him. He along with the first two Crows to arrive continued to enjoy the creek bed while the feathered hoard decended into the pit and worked over the ground for acorns which were then raining down from the oak trees where branches bobbed from the weight of birds.    

Phyllite cliffs  (Fortress Walls)

We left the Crows to their fortress and acorn-gathering and walked up the creek until we came to a trail crossing. Floods had ripped an old open-grate fording bridge from its anchor points in the bedrock of the creek but it still served to carry hikers over the water. We walked  up the old wagon road past several open mine shafts gated now by the Pennsylvania Game Commission for the conservation of wintering Little Brown Bat colonies. Another hiker came down from the highest gated shaft and happily reported that he was the volunteer responsible for monitoring bat activity. 

Bat conservation cave (Mine shaft)

"We go in now and then and do proper counts, pick up trash people toss in and whatnot," he said. He was very proud of the fact that this particular mine shaft has been housing upwards of 130 Little Browns each winter. He thinks that number may be increasing and he was looking forward to the winter. He remembered coming to the old mines before it was a park. "Oh the fun we had here as kids!  This is where I first encountered bats and have loved them ever since." I agreed! As kids we had an abandoned sand and gravel mine near where we lived and we were always there exploring, playing, riding gravel before gravel riding was even a thing.  While we chatted, Amos was luxuriating in the spill of cold air pouring from the mine shaft. Glorious. 

Panicled Aster

A cool down for a hot hound. 

Notes: 

Jeri Jones is many years retired from York County Parks, but as a geologist and educator, his work on regional geology and industry is found on his website and in local papers. He appears frequently around the region for talks and tours. And he has a good Welsh name. 

Jones Geological Services https://jonesgeo.com/

Rock Zoom Room - (which often features my cousin Andrew "Rockhound" Eppig)  YouTube Channel (Jeri Jones) https://jonesgeo.com/zoom-rock-room/

York County Parks:  P. Joeseph Raab Park brochure  

Though some of the trail system in this park follows wide wagon roads, some of the trails are quite rocky and steep. A section of rim trail around the deep pit mine is "sort of" closed off but it is clear that many folks continue to use it, as I did. 

PA Spring Valley Park: A Poet's Home

 

Pond basin for several springs

A gentle hike today in the few hours I had before teaching my night class. The class is on complex systems analysis and is somewhat complicated for both teacher and students. It was good to clear my mind before diving into the upcoming lecture meeting and I thought what better place to exhale and wander than at the former home of a poet, now a York County park at Spring Valley.

Chestnut Oak forest on the rim of the bowl

Poet Robert Frost advised his Pennsylvania friend Lee Anderson that living in NYC was not the best place for a creative writer and that he thought poets did their best work while living in the country. So Lee Anderson and his wife Helen heeded Frost's advice and moved back to PA to this remote valley in York County PA, in the 1950s. They lived in a 1800s-era stone farmhouse without electricity or running water but found that oil lamps, wood heat, and abundant springwater met their needs. Anderson opened a publishing business, The Shrewsbury Press, in the nearby town of Shrewsbury. He composed his long poems here and worked on a recording project that featured poets of the day reading their own work.  His friend Robert Frost was glad to contribute. It was the first such project to combine poetry with the author's voice as an audo performance, marking a new genre of spoken-word media.

Ridge trail (marked with purple blazes)

Before his death on the farm at age 76 in 1972, Anderson had composed over 500 poems, the kind that are best read aloud. Several were epic long-form poems. His inspiration for these often came from his walking the old gravel roads and cattle trails that criss cross the valley, preserved as he would have walked them throuhout the park today. I hiked about three miles of trails and walked as many road miles, feeling the calm and quiet settle around me like fallen leaves that Anderson surely appreciated.  

Spring-fed East Branch of the Codorus

Swamp Thistle, a native wetland thistle 

The valley is broad, leafy, and low and the ridges that encircle it are like the rim of a bowl,  topped with limestone outcrops and ridges in forests of old Chestnut Oak. Many springs erupt from the sides of the valley and flow downhill to the creek or gathered into a small spring-fed basin pond which has a mucky, squishy trail around it that leads through seeps and stands of wetland plants. Amos, ever mindful of his work as a turtle-hound, was chuffed to see a small Eastern Painted Turtle basking on waterlogged limb.  It quickly plopped into the dark water and he had no way of getting to it - thus deprived of his prize of turkey jerky.

Fall Phlox

Tall Goldenrod

I walked along Potosi Road and up Blymire Hollow Road and imagined Anderson walking here to ponder how he would compose verses and make revisions. He often referred to his process of composing poetry like that of composing a symphony made up of movements and flowing themes, punctuated by breath stops and long pauses that created tension,  to be read aloud like a spoken opera or a old Norse ballad.  "The Bearstone," (1969); "Prevailing Winds," (1944); "The Floating World," (1954); "Nags Head," (1960) in their pages and pages and pages of verse may explain why his work was less celebrated than his friend's Robert Frost, who got to the point, kept his poems short and pithy, and turn-of-phrase memorable. Yet Anderson was celebrated for his decades-long recording project, housed now at Yale University and the Library of Congress. It became his legacy to American poetry and the spoken-word genre of poetry performance. 

Walnut yellowing along an unamed valley road

LOTR elf or portrait of a full-bearded Anderson? 

From:  Saturday as Usual (1963)

This Saturday    as usual   it had become

a rite     sherry at twelve    then a walk    and home

Past the mallard drakes    forever quarreling over 

One complaisant hen.    Whose turn to be her cover?

Long late autumn shadows forewarned of winter

But the lunchtime gambits had warmth     the banter

Of old-shoe friends     who knew when to praise     or tease

until    a slip of tongue    a turn of phrase     

Potosi Road 

On the Line Road, limestone gravel crunched beneath my boots and Amos decided he didn''t like walking on it. He tugged at the leash to be let on to the shoulder where it was grassy and soft.  Around the bend we startled up a Turkey Vulture and the sound of its enormous wings battering the air for lift made us both jump. It was a fresh death, a young deer,  its eyes just plucked by the scavenger and a feather left behind to ponder.  The experience of the beauty of valley road was puncuated by this young deer's death and I breathed it out like an Anderson poem with inhales and exhales and pauses  that marked our stroll      the sudden stop      our gasp      battering wings    jump in surprise      observe in silence  for a while then walk on. 

Line  Road

Blymire Hollow Road

We wandered on and off the trails at their many intersections with the gravel roads and when I caught sight of a gravel rider cruise by on his muddied Cannondale I got excited to come back to explore by bike.  The rider caught a glimpse of us and swung back 'round to compliment Amos, "That's a mighty fine hound!" he said, smiling and asking if he could "get his dog fix" with a pat and ear scritch for Amos. A lovely conversation followed about the old roads and how lucky we are to live in a county where gravel roads and grassed-over backroads are still found in abundance to walk or ride and think about our poetry. 

Lee Anderson.  Photo courtesy of York County History Center

Notes:

York Daily Record "Lee Anderson Lived in York County..."(2017)  https://www.ydr.com/story/opinion/2017/07/11/poet-lee-anderson-lived-york-county-many-years-column/465886001/

The Poetry Foundation.  Lee Anderson, "Saturday as Usual." https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=101&issue=6&page=34

York County Parks.  Spring Valley Park (named for Anderson's poems referencing  the  "valley of springs")  https://yorkcountypa.gov/701/Spring-Valley-Park

Library of Congress.  Lee Anderson reading aloud "Bearstone" and "Nags Head" https://www.loc.gov/item/94838586/

PA Stony Valley Rail Trail: End Section

 

Lebanon Reservoir 

An early morning ride on the last section of the Stony Valley Rail Trail left little time before the big rains came in order to do some poking around in the woods. Though the whole trail has been beautiful these past few rides, I've spent as much time out of the saddle as in it to explore various ruins and side trails, this little out-and-back section was really interesting for all its railroad and industrial history right on the path.

 

Stony Valley Rail Trail 

When I arrive at Goldmine Road's double parking area - a lot on each side of the road - I encountered a guy who had obviously stealth camped in the furthest parking spot, invisible from the road. I don't think he expected a rider to be pulling in at 7:45am and seemed a little bothered by my presence so I took the signal and moved to the other parking area in full view of the road.  He actually creeped me out and I was glad I had an alternative place to park.

Water Tank platform

An early morning hiker and his boxer dog were just starting out so I waited a few minutes to give them time to settle into their walk while I checked the weather.  A large rain storm was just then pushing through Chambersburg to the west and I had about two hours to complete this section. The riding miles were short so I figured I had lots of time. What I didn't figure on was how much time I would need to stop and explore ruins and other historical features - exactly two hours. 

Evening Branch

Riding towards the end point at the Lebanon Reservoir I thought I'd pass the dog and his human on the way but again, I stopped so much that I actually passed them as they were coming back. I visited the Evening Branch section of the creek that flows into Mill Creek further on and snooped around so many railroad-era foundations that I lost track. (Get it?) Before I even reached the beautiful lake and its enfolding mountains, there was thunder in the distance which complimented the gattling guns at Fort Indiantown Gap Army Base. 

Gattling guns and thunder echoed over the lake 

Beyond the City of Lebanon Water Company gates the railroad grade become something of a rolling trail and I followed this until the rain started to pepper the tree canopy. I turned around and reluctantly headed back - but with lots of additional stops. This is why I could never enter a race or a group ride. I just can't seem to stay in the saddle for long before I find something worth a dismount and look-see.

Railroad grade to single track

I stopped for mushrooms, a county line marker, some pipes sticking out of the ground, a pile of coal, the trailhead for the Second Mountain Trail, a ruffed grouse, some bear scat. I hit a patch of ballast stone that the PA Game Commission used to fill a wash-out and nearly lost control. I got to laughing so hard that I had to stop just to compose myself.  

Schuylkill County Line marker

I powered through difficult ballast in the first parking area to continue towards the ghost town of Goldmine and saw the creep still hanging out at his car. He feigned a jump at me to send me off balance and I gifted him a slew of curse words. He laughed and I flipped him the bird. This  little uncomforable encounter inspired a stop at Bass Pro Shop in H'burg to buy a new can of mace on the way home. In all my years of solo hiking and biking (30+) this was only the second time I'd had a creep encounter that angered me. 

Swatara Furnace Historic District 

After a few more miles (staying in the saddle) I swung back to the truck and loaded up in the rain. Creeper dude was gone. I drove three road miles down the road and stopped to visit the Swatara Iron Furnace on the 200-acre Swatara Furnace Historic District property on Mill Creek just below the reservoir dam. An impressive iron furnace on its own, the property also contains the Iron Masters house (a private home), the breast dam that fed the water-powered billows and its stone lined race, and two workers homes plus stone barn. Now the rain was really tipping down so I hunkered down inside the crucible chamber and waited for a break. 

Swatara Iron Furnace and wheel pit/race

Safe from the storm - crucible chamber

Ducking in right behind me was a hiking mom and her young son, glad to be out of the rain. Looking up into the chimney stack of the furnace the boy erupted in all sorts of "Wow!" and "Whoa!" and the little hiker was absolutely smitten with this magical place. "Mom! This was the best hike so far!" I described what happened in this space back in the 1840s and the stunned look on his face was gold. "You mean this was the hottest place in the middle of the fire? Like hotter than Hell? Like a billion degrees?!"  All I could do was smile as his mom gently scolded him for saying the H-word.

Whoa!

Notes:

Stony Valley Rail Trail:  Schuykill and Susquehanna Railroad -http://www.stonyvalley.com/history.html

MD Palmer State Park - Ironworks Trail

American Beech

 A heavy line of storms rolled through the evening before. With the day off, I decided to take Amos on his favorite kind of hike, a turtle tracking. The ground was wet and temperatures had cooled down from the stupidly hot week we just had, so it was perfect for box turtles to be active. When we arrived, I learned there had been a tree struck by lightening in the middle of Parker State Park area and a field crew was currently deployed to the interior, but, the lone firefighter waiting at the trucks and trailers assured me it was fine for hiking. 

Strike shards at 100 yards!

We followed UTV tracks and soon found strike shards littering the trail. They were long and pointed and ragged, like spears thrown down by some angry forest god. I launched one into the brush at an imaginary mastadon but not being very good at spear throwing, I  missed.  We climbed up the knoll where a great red oak, laid down by firefighters, smoldered and smoked. The soil was grubbed all around for fifty feet in every direction. The smell of acrid oak smoke made both Amos' and my eyes tear up. Back to the trail...

Lightening strike

We headed around the  Hornbeam Trail in hopes of picking up a turtle trail. The smell of smoke lingered the whole way and I began to wonder if there was another smoldering strike site somewhere else. If there was, we never came across it. Soon enough though, Amos began tracking and we were off the trail proper and deep into the woods. 

Jack-in-the-Pulpit berries

White Wood Aster

Blue Lobelia

Groundwort ("wart"), Thelophora vialis

Wrinkled Crust, Phelbia radiata

We came across old quarries cut into the hill where miners extracted iron ore, flint quartz, and ironstone. Scree slopes of waste rock flowed down the sides of the hill but the woods were thick reclaiming the rough ground, burying the scree with leaf litter and puctuating the quarry pits with grand old oaks, stately beech, and enormous tulip poplar. 

Braided bark of an older Tulip Poplar

Furrowed bark of an American Hornbeam

"Fingerbone" bark of a Mockernut Hickory

Checked bark of American Dogwood

Buck-rubbed bark of American Beech

The turtle tracking didn't take long. Amos stood at alert at a small female box turtle which was so well disguised in orange and black that even when I walked right up to Amos I had to wait a second or two to see it. She was maybe ten years old at most and rested, unfazed in the duff. I said "Good boy, Amos! You found a turtle!" while digging into my pack for some turkey jerkey to reward him. Oh the joy! So much joy that the little brave turtle let out a big hiss and fully closed up as Amos danced around her for his treat. 

Success! 

Box Turtle, Terrapene carolina

We returned to the Ironworks Trail and followed the crest of the hill towards even bigger quarry pits, cloaked in forest. Bathed in golden light, the forest seemed to shimmer all around us while some trees let loose a shiver of falling leaves, yellow and brown. Dead wood was speckled with tiny mushrooms, shelf fungus,and molds probably brought on by recent, much needed rains. A patch of Wrinkled Crust fungus was so bright orange I mistook it for flourescent orange spray paint.

Knoll above Deer Creek

Hard to spot the yellow blazes in a bright yellow green woods

Wild Ginger

This was the kind of early autumn day that sweeps your mind clean of all the stupid-hot days of the last month and makes you crave the autumn coolness even more. Still, there's a lot of green yet to contend with and it was practically glowing up from the ferns and wild ginger below to the ceiling of deep green of the creaking old oaks overhead with full canopies of lobed leaves.  

Basidia, spore openings, beneath Bracket Fungus. 

Seed bracts of the American Hornbeam, Carpinus caroliniana

Climbing up on a pile of dark basalt lavastone, Amos sniffed the air again, head held high in hopes of catching another turtle track. Knowing that what he really wanted was another turkey jerky treat, we sat together and shared a snack and some water. From our perch I could see the woods all the way around from knoll to valley  thinking, yeah, this is my element.  Amos kept his eye on the jerky bag, his element. 

Ironworks Trail

Leaving the forest for the meadow walk out, I had to look back to remind myself that the night before was a wild time in these woods - wind, torrential rain, lightening, deafing booms of thunder. And somewhere back there, a forest elder was lying sectioned up and blackened.  Back at the parking lot, the one lone firefighter was still leaning on his fire rake, assigned to monitor the site for the next few hours. He asked about the hike and I showed him the picture of the little female turtle and he said "Good boy, Amos!" at which point Amos began his happy dance for more turkey jerky. 

Notes: 

Palmer State Park, Harford County, Maryland State Parks.  

Palmer State Park, Harford Land Trust.