March at Last

Life in the rural Northeast is more pleasant, fuller, more meaningful, for people who refuse to hibernate. As I've said before, and as many a wise person has said before me, if you're going to enjoy life here, you can't let the weather stop you from doing anything. Camping, kayaking, hiking. Do it regardless of the weather...(unless there's freezing rain; that stuff'll kill you). That's why--for the first time ever--I hiked all winter this year. In previous years, I stayed in during the winter and only began to hit the trails again in late March.

But there are two problems with that timorous "hibernating" approach to outdoor life: 1) March is really the worst month for hiking because the trails and forest roads are packed down with slippery, melting snow, and 2) by the time you actually get back out into the woods, in March, you've been cooped up so long that you need the perfect wilderness experience so desperately that a short scrambling slide on an ice-packed path is going to disappoint you sorely.

Last week on A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor said that "March is to show people who don't drink what a hangover is like." I know that there are still temps in the teens ahead of us, and probably more snow. But if you dig beneath the snow in about a week, you'll probably find the coltsfoot already in bloom. There's pollen in the air. And there are bugs, and moths, and insects out skipping across the snow.

New Jersey: 10 Reasons to Love It

Okay, I realize that I'm getting carried away, but when was the last time you spent a Tuesday at home with a 4-yr. old and a 5-yr. old? Besides, one of my most uber-cool young readers out in Seattle has recently given me permission to write about anything I want, and I want to write about the Top Ten Reasons to Love NEW JERSEY:

10) It has the courage (or effrontery) to call itself "the Garden State."

9) It has the Pine Barrens; an episode of The Sopranos is set in the Pine Barrens, and it ends with a really beautiful, haunting aria sung by...a soprano.

8) It can serve as a sort of Mecca for people struggling with identity crises.

7) People come from all over the world to pump gas there. (In fact, you're not even allowed to pump your own gas in the Garden State.)

6) There are some really interesting boulder fields near the Delaware Water Gap.

5) The Jersey Shore has its charms, especially Cape May. It's way better than the sterility of the Outer Banks.

4) The way New York Governor David Paterson intones the name "New Jersey" on Saturday Night Live.

3) The Palisades make it look defensible from a distance.

2) There really is some rugged and scenic countryside in the northwest corner of the state.

1) It just makes its neighbors look so good.

Okay, I wanted to write another Top Ten List for Ohio, but this blog has too many faithful readers in the Buckeye State, and I should go read a Dr. Seuss book to my kids.

New York: 10 Reasons to Love It

As long as we're on the topic of loving our neighbors, and as long as I have a day off at home with the kids, here are the top ten reasons to love our mighty neighbor to the north, NEW YORK STATE:

10) Meet the Parents is set on Long Island.

9) New York City: sometimes you just have to take comfort in its hugeness, its proximity, and its immense variety of seething humanity, with attendant cultures, religions, cuisines, and direct overseas flights.

8) That long, long border with Canada...largely unprotected.

7) It was the first state to outlaw talking on a cell phone while driving.

6) Those fake ruined castles along the Hudson River, which are just about the pinnacle of anglophile pretension.

5) Saturday Night Live's dramatic portrayal of Gov. David Paterson's scathing, hate-filled rants about New Jersey.

4) Saturday Night Live's dramatic portrayal of Gov. David Paterson.

3) There's widespread, popular resistance to drilling for Marcellus shale even among rural people in New York State, which demonstrates a concern for the long-term effects of turning a quick buck, as well as some forward-thinkingness.

2) The Adirondacks and the Catskills.

1) The vast, beautiful Allegany State Park, which is an almost pristine slice of western Appalachian heaven, or basically what our Allegheny National Forest would be if its recreational potential were maximized, its environmental well-being considered, and if it were protected from rampant logging and drilling. (If you don't believe me, hike the North Country Trail from the ANF into New York State sometime and see the difference!)

Vermont: 10 Reasons to Love It

The Top Ten List of Things to Love about VERMONT:

10) Fox News has never called it "a battleground state."

9) It's the only New England state where it's impossible to get attacked by a shark.

8) It shares a largely unguarded border with Canada...Quebec, no less.

7) Only Wyoming has fewer people.

6) There's no risk of its ever becoming the next trendy location in the nation. (It gets snow.)

5) They make cheese there, I'm pretty certain.

4) Frederick Buechner lives there. (If any mainline clergyperson in America tells you he/she doesn't want to be Frederick Buechner, it's a lie.)

3) It's not sitting on top of any oil, or natural gas, or coal.

2) Aside from the aforementioned Buechner--who's only famous among dorks--no other famous person is from there, nor has ever set foot there, nor could even spell the name of its capital.

1) They really take pride in their Green Mountain National Forest. Just compare its website to that of the Allegheny! Can you say "citizen involvement"?

Route 666...Highway to Hell

Henry's Mills, like most quaint, riverine locations in the ANF, surely used to be industrial hell. You can tell by the name that it was a "mill town," and I'm not referring to a scenic flour mill with its water-wheel creaking and turning rhythmically in the stream. No, it was probably home to one of those godawful mills where they stripped the bark off the hemlock trees to use the acids in treating leather. But history has been kind to Henry's Mills. Today it's a picturesque hamlet on the banks of Tionesta Creek, about two dozen beautiful little seasonal homes, and hunting camps, and a few chalets.

The North Country Trail cuts straight through Henry's Mills, and the beautiful PA Highway 666 is the main road through town. (Interestingly, New Mexico--easily the 2nd creepiest state in the country--also has a very nice Highway 666, which is nicknamed "The Devil's Highway" and passes by the very eerie Shiprock.) At Henry's Mills, PA666 runs parallel to Tionesta Creek on one side, but don't miss the gated old Forest Road 600, which follows the creek on the opposite bank.

My guess is that this road used to be a railroad track. Only 3/4 of a mile downstream, it crosses a small tributary called Mead Run and becomes a narrow, difficult trail. You'll have to find a way to ford Mead Run because the bridge is long gone. I shimmied across on an oil pipeline, which goes to prove that even evil, reprehensible things have their better moments. This little riverside trail runs the whole length of the Tionesta, all the way to the bridge at Lynch, to Minister Creek, Mayburg, and eventually to the borough of Tionesta, where the creek becomes Tionesta Lake and joins the Allegheny River. Henry's Mills to Tionesta would make a very cool linear backpacking trip if you didn't mind being right across the water from a lesser-known, little-used, and sinisterly named state highway.

One of my long-term hiking goals is to explore a Tionesta Creek tributary known as Lamentation Run, which enters below Kellettville. I wonder how a body of water gets the name "Lamentation Run"?

Clear Creek in the Snow

Not a prime day

for trekking into the Big Woods,

since

the snow accumulation

has been overwhelming,

but you take the day you're given.

Trails were impassable

to all but snowshoers,

and bushwacking

was out of the question.

I was in the neighborhood

and ended up at

Clear Creek State Park.

Last fall, I accidentally rediscovered Clear Creek

while exploring the southern end of the ANF.

The streamside beach looked strangely familiar,

and it all came back to me:

My grandmother (and favorite adult)

used to take us swimming there.

She called the place "Clear Crick."

That weird rediscovery

and those memories

make Clear Crick

a sacred place for me.

Hiking the gated road

(closed for the season)

back to the log cabins

by the Clarion River

was good enough.

It was great to hang out

on the snowy porches

of empty cabins,

watching the snow fall,

absorbing the silence.

Getting the old Toyota

up out of that valley

nearly killed me. Twice.

"Their Smoking Hearth"

These old photos were taken in the late 1890s somewhere around Galeton, just east of the ANF. My guess is that the setting is in or near present day Lyman Run State Park, but I'm sure nobody knows. Like many of the public lands in the Commonwealth, Lyman Run was so devastated by the logging industry that Harrisburg had to purchase it and nurse it back to health over a 90 year period. By 1900, the logs were all gone, leaving behind eroded hillsides, polluted streams, and a sad collection of broken and barefooted people.

Alas, our state has always sold its resources, its people and their wellbeing, not to the "highest bidder," but to the very first bidder. We'll have to wait a few years to see how all the rampant drilling for Marcellus shale affects the cancer rate in the Keystone State. But tomorrow has never been our most pressing concern.
In his semi-fantastical book A Winter's Tale, author and rightwing pundit Mark Helprin describes the endless appetite of the ever-growing metropolis of New York at the turn of the century:

"Builders and machinists came from everywhere to layer the city in new steel...Pennsylvania, an entire wilderness, became their smoking hearth. They stripped the forests just for frames to help the ironwork. They mined, logged, and blasted, and brought everything to the city..."

It just gets to me, the way history repeats itself! Our home is still somebody else's smoking hearth, with people in faraway places despoiling its resources, then leaving the mess for us to clean up, or live with, or die from. The guy who got caught dumping toxic waste into old oil wells (above link) doesn't have to bathe and feed his own children using local tap water... He lives in sunny California, and his cynical lackey in Sheffield surely uses bottled water when he tries to wash the blood from his hands. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Judge McLaughlin is going to give these guys a slap on the wrist before inviting them back to his place in suburban Erie for a single malt Scotch.

Ah, I really need to get out into the woods this weekend. Last Sunday was a perfect day for hiking, but I had to finish a paper that was due Monday. Now, everything is turned in for the semester, and this Saturday and Sunday should be a go.