Allegheny Pilgrimage: Day 5, Tionesta Creek from Lynch to Hastings

Sunday morning, chilly and gray, saw me revisiting the old parish church that I once served in Kane, not to mention the local Episcopal church where one of my former parishioners is now the rector.  Covid has not been kind to churches in rural areas, and I do fear for the future of religion in the provinces!  The lure of extremism is all-pervasive these days, and socially-responsible faith--the kind that respects science and treats sacred texts metaphorically--is a little too nuanced for a lot of the people who are still interested in religion.  Ah, but for me it was the day to begin my second leg of the journey: the watery portion of the trip.

Instead of hiking the rest of the way to the southern border of the national forest, I decided to borrow a kayak and travel the remaining distance on Tionesta Creek--which is a smaller waterway that was only just barely navigable with 40 lbs. of food and camping supplies aboard.  The rainy Saturday rescued me from rethinking my plan to travel Tionesta Creek.  If the water levels on the Tionesta had been lower than a foot and a half, Plan B would have been to do the Clarion River.  But the Clarion does not pass through the parts of the forest where I wanted to travel.  I wanted to be deep in the heart of my beloved forest--where Tionesta Creek passes like a miniature Congo snakes through forests of its own.  I wanted to pass through Mayburg and Kellettville.  I wanted to row past Salmon Creek, and Lamentation Run, and Bear Creek.  The Clarion only just passes along the southern border of it all--at the edge of things, not the heart.

Oh, it was lovely to set out on the water!  The smell of the fresh, clear stream!  The breezes lightly passing over the surface of the deep.  It's not quite a river, but it's a large creek, and deep in many places.  But it also has long gravelly stretches that are broad and very shallow.  I probably had to get out of the boat and tug it along behind me five or six times throughout the course of my three days on the water.  Other times I made it over the gravelly shallows by staying in the boat and pushing hard with the paddles.  But most of the time, it was smooth going...and so wonderful.

Although I'd intended to put in at Sheffield--in the dead center of the national forest--my friend wisely advised me to put in a few miles further downstream, where the water would be deeper.  We bid farewell at a place where the town of Lynch used to be.  Now there's just a bridge and a lonely hunting camp.  It was already getting close to 2:00 on Sunday afternoon, so I didn't paddle far before I stopped to make camp on one of the few riverside banks that was level enough.  In those first few hours I saw fine redheaded mergansers, and wood ducks, and two bald eagles!  And when it was time to sleep, it was wood thrushes and barred owls that sang their melodic songs.