Salmon Creek, The North Country Trail, and a Lost Quest

 It was lovely indeed to be back in the Allegheny National Forest for a single night of solitude and discovery.  My goal was to bushwhack the length of Lamentation Run (see article I wrote eight years ago) to set up camp on the edge of the serene Tionesta Creek--pictured here.  The family and I were staying a week at the Chautauqua Institution, and I get tired of all the lectures and concerts by about Wednesday.

 But when I got back to that seldom-visited quadrant of the forest near Muzette (see below), it occurred to me that the last time I bushwhacked 3.5 miles the length of Lamentation Run, I was eight years younger, and I didn't have a 35 pound backpack on my shoulders.  So I tried to follow Forest Road 210--which runs roughly parallel to the fabled brook--as far toward its mouth on Tionesta Creek as possible.  But after less than a third of the distance, a large fallen tree blocked my path, and I didn't have the tools to move it.  My smartphone tried valiantly to lead me to Tionesta Creek by another path, but it turned out to be a gated, grassy little lane that I didn't want to chance--and which was surely blocked by long-fallen tree trunks of its own.  I had to abort my mission to camp at the mouth of Lamentation Run, but while I was in the area, I set off on a whole different trek that will be described in my next post.

 The afternoon wore on, and I had to find a place to set up camp for the night.  This was strange, for when I was truly the Snowbelt Parson, I lived so nearby that I never had to worry about finding a place to sleep in the forest.  But now I'm a stranger, a suburbanite, an outsider who returns to this enchanted forest as a mendicant.  "Please, forest, may I sleep here?  No?  Well, then how about here?"  I checked out the North Country Trail campsites along Salmon Creek Road--pictured here--but found them too public, too close to the road.

 Still, it's nice to see that the North Country Trail is still going strong.

 Thinking I might have to tuck my tail and stay in a conventional campground, I made for Kellettville on Salmon Creek Road.  The campground there is quiet, small, and unassuming.  But it turned out that I didn't have to go through the hassle of calling the Army Corps of Engineers Reservation Center and standing on hold for half an hour to get a spot at Kellettville.  Did you know there's beautiful camping at rustic sites all along the scenic length of Salmon Creek?  The sites tend to be spread out, most of them a quarter mile or a half mile from their nearest neighbors.  But not a single site was occupied; I had the whole forest to myself.  This is the view from site 16, which sits at the bottom of a long, steep path, about 500 feet from the road.

 I must admit: I spent more than three years exploring and blogging about the Allegheny National Forest, and I never knew that Salmon Creek existed, much less that it was so beautiful and campable.  It was fun to learn something new about this place after all these years.

 See the water shimmering in the left side of this photo.  When I arrived here--after the trek described in my next entry--I was hot and dirty, so I bathed in the chilly water of the creek.

 I'm still relatively new to backpacking solo.  I do a lot of backpacking, but usually with a partner.  I thought I'd get the willies as dusk began to fall.  I expected the forest that I loved to take on a haunted feel in the dark.  But it did not.  This forest is more than a friend to me.  It is "my strength and my song, and it has become my salvation."  (Okay, it was my salvation years ago--less so today--but I'm quoting a famous bit of Holy Writ that some readers may know, just to prove that I really am a parson.)

 I strung up my hammock by the stream to listen to the water-song.  As the green forest around my camp went dark, the wood thrushes made their evening chant--flute-like and rich.  It's easily my favorite birdcall, and though the thrush sings all day, its evensong is best.  The thrushes were followed by the soothing sound of a barred owl: Whoo-whoo...who-who."  In the fourteen hours I spent in this spot, I only counted eight cars passing on the dirt road above.  It was deeply tranquil.

Of course, a good fire makes everything cheerful.  It's the very best companion.  And when sleep came, it was peaceful and deep, entirely uninterrupted--which is rare for a night of backpacking.  But this is the place I love.  This is the place that I dream of and long for.  How could thoughts of Bigfoot and black bears and deranged hobos trouble my rest here?  I've missed this place so much.