Bear Creek & Red Mill

I love to see the forest crawling with fishers. I don't fish myself, but apparently I tend to seek out the same kinds of woodland places as fishers: shady stream valleys far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife. It was a surprise to think myself alone in the jimweeds, in the part of the forest known as Red Mill, then to chance across a perfect little village of pop-up campers and RVs.

Alas, although I welcome them and wish them well, I don't go to the woods just to talk with fishers. So hiking Red Mill was out of the question. But nearby on your official map of the Allegheny National Forest is a big patch of green that goes by the unrevealing name of "Bear Creek Recreational Area." It's not a dramatic sort of place, but worth a gray Sunday afternoon of 40 degree temps and drizzly, glowering skies.

There's new life breaking out everywhere. The tips of branches are pale green or red with new buds. Some are white with blossoms. The puddles along the path are teeming with living things, especially frogs.

Bear Creek Recreational Area is apparently just a good place to hunt and fish, judging from the beer cans. The Forest Service has located many primitive campsites along the forest roads in this area, perhaps because of all the trout streams. It's an unspectacular area, but silent, and that's all I need.

Across PA 948 from Brush Hollow is the uber-busy Forest Road 143. Seriously, this place is a beehive during the week, as "frack trucks" thunder to and from Owl's Nest in a desperate and shortsighted grab for natural gas at the new Marcellus Shale wells. (This Marcellus Shale drilling is a topic for a future post. It just makes me so angry that I can't write about it now.) In order to avoid the truck traffic, you have to go on a Sunday. This is very pretty country, with Big Mill Creek following the road. For a decent hike, take FR143 about 3 miles to FR237, on the right, then take FR237 about a mile to FR237B, which is hidden at a sharp angle to the left. FR237B is a narrow, grassy road that's mostly impassable to cars. It runs two miles through pleasant woods and some nice boulders down to Otter Run.

Photo #2 shows the muddied footprints of a wild turkey, a raccoon, and a fawn. What kind of sylvan rendez-vous would unite those three in a single mud puddle?