Calm Before the Storm

This week, all the hiking time I got was one measly hour on Sunday afternoon: ten minutes to my destination, forty minutes in the woods, and ten minutes return time. Almost not worth the effort? Even if it was just an hour, I had to take it. If I miss my weekly rendez-vous with the forest, I spend the next seven days operating on a depleted spirit.

Besides, yesterday was the calm before The Storm. Today, of course, is "The Storm." It's The First Day of Buck, when men take the day off work, kids get the day off from school, and the sometimes peaceful Allegheny National Forest becomes the Marne River Valley, circa 1914...except with no trenches for shelter. I don't mean to pick on hunters, but I marvel at their deeply held belief that the only reason to go to the woods is to kill its inhabitants. I recently met some hunters in the Tionesta Natural Area, and one of them told me---as if confessing a dark secret---"This place is real nice. We come here once juss to be here." Funny, that's the only reason I ever go to the woods: Just to be there.

I know a nurse in the ER in Seneca who says that they play "Hunters' Bingo" on The First Day of Buck. The first nurse to report the Big Four ("heart attack in the woods," "gun powder in the right eye," "fall from a tree stand," and "stray bullet") wins. It's cynical and mean-spirited. But it's no wonder some of these guys have heart attacks in the woods. Most of the hunters I know spend the whole year in a recliner, shouting at ball games on the TV and getting brainwashed by Fox News. They drag their flagging manhoods off their seats long enough for three things: 1) to grab a beer, or eight; 2) to go to the pot; 3) for their yearly foray into the forest, armed like Hessian mercenaries, firing at every hapless bird and every twig that rattles in the gust.

Anyhow, due to time restraints, yesterday I did a quick loop on the old forest roads that run through the McKinley Valley. In case you don't know McKinley, it's an abandoned town site that I documented for a popular ghost town website. (I can't seem to establish a link to that web page for you, but if you're really interested, you could find it by googling "mckinley ghost town.") Definitely worth a visit...when there's nobody shooting at you. The photos on the aforementioned site were taken with a cell phone, so they're not great. But here's a shot of the old main street. Notice the "staircase to nowhere" in the foreground. I recently talked to an 88 year old lady who moved out of McKinley in 1953. She said there were still six occupied houses there at that time.