Hike #936; Mid State Backpack

Hike #936; PA Mid State Backpack

5/9-5/16/16 Rothrock State Forest/Laurel Run Road to Everett PA with Jillane Becker

DAY 1

May always means backpacking in recent years, and I really needed to get out this time. I suppose I always need to get out by the time May rolls around.
I’d been getting a lot of stuff done at work, but working every Saturday seriously changed my plans for the entire Summer. I was not able to do a lot of the Warren Highlands Trail and volunteer activities that I’d been planning months in advance. I suppose I should be thankful that at least I’ve been able to keep my Sundays, but there’s still just so more I want to do.
We didn’t get started as early as I’d have liked to. I get really stressed out and frustrated until I can actually get out there and get moving. I was hoping to leave Saturday night, but we didn’t, and then we didn’t leave all day Sunday either, my actual first day of vacation. We left Sunday night and got a room out in State College PA where we’d be able to get to the trail early on Monday.
I started calming down when we finally got to the hotel, the same place we hiked to and stayed on our previous Mid State Trail and vicinity backpack. We could easily drive from there to Boalsburg and then head up the Tussey Ridge to Laurel Run Road, the last road crossing we passed on the previous trip before descending.
I relaxed in the swimming pool, then the hot tub at the hotel, pretty much with the area to myself.

Mid State Trail looking northbound where we left off last year

I got up early on Monday, got us some breakfast, and made sure my bag was packed up well. The drive was really pretty short, and before too long we were on the ridge top, and I was looking back at the northbound Mid State Trail with it’s orange blazed and rocky surface. It followed the long abandoned Linden Hall Railroad right of way, a logging railroad on the ridge top at this point. I’d spoken with Rothrock State Forest who said I had permission to park at the site for a week.

Saying goodbye to Jillane's car at Laurel Run Road

The first couple miles or so of trail was what we had already done on the last trip in September. Still, it was better than backtracking more from the valley and having to climb up the ridge the entire way.
The trail followed a fire road shortly, then turned right on trail. We had a nice view to the west into a valley, and then continued on the Tussey Ridge where it wasn’t too difficult to walk. there were some nice sections with good rock work that made it easier to traverse.
We passed a good view of State College to the north of us before we reached the point where we had left off, at a blue blazed trail that goes down into watershed lands and Shingletown Gap, which we followed down the last time.

State College view

Jillane walked ahead a little bit, but I walked out another side trail to the “Roman Tower”, a pile of rocks with an overlook toward State College, which looks as though they fill it up with sticks and burn it like a giant torch periodically.
I returned to the Mid State Trail feeling good about where we were. Every step from this point on would pretty much be the farthest contiguous west I had ever hiked in the entire series of hikes I’d done. There was an excitement in this expansion, and my mind both raced far ahead to thoughts of the C&O Canal and the Allegheny Passage, and to the immediate steps right in front of me.

Roman Tower

We hiked on over rocks, and the guide read that the section ahead was among the roughest on the entire Mid State Trail.
The trail began to traverse a bit of a knife edge, but it wasn’t something that required hand holds. I recalled the Tuscarora Trail being a bit worse than this section, because there the rocks we were stepping on moved more. These ones were a bit more stationary.
We continued with several more views to the south, and the occasional one to the north. The views to the north are far less common than those to the south in this area for some reason.
We had started at around 11:30 am, which was not too bad at all. It was somewhat slow going, but Jillane went first and set a good pace, especially considering she hadn’t been hiking much at all lately.

Tussey Mountain view

We continued on Mid State Trail to where we had an option. The orange blazed main trail went to the left, down to the bottom of the ridge and passed through a former recreation area or picnic area or something. The route was intended for those who needed a place to camp or water. We were still early on, maybe seven or so miles in, and so we still had plenty of daylight. Ahead, the blue blazed Jackson Trail is a scenic shortcut that remains on the ridge while the orange blazed route goes down. We opted to take the rockier ridge trail rather than descend and climb again, which was certainly the better decision. It was quite beautiful.

Jo Hays Vista

It was slow going on the Jackson trail section, but we had views both to the north and the south. There was a lot of scree slope, which was a bit more loose that we had to traverse, but it had good interludes of somewhat easier trail. This was one of the only places on the entire trip we saw people. Two college kids were walking from one of the nearby towns.
We continued past them, and came to where the trail picked up a management road for some towers. We passed two guys at a truck on that, then reached Rt 26, where the orange blazed main route came back. We had to be really careful crossing the highway. At the top there were signs for trucks to slow down.

Mid State Trail on Tussey Ridge, Rothrock State Forest

We took a nice break along the highway at Jo Hays Vista, a good overlook to the north. There was a picnic bench and garbage cans we could make use of for the snacks we’d already consumed. We were down to the last couple of hours of daylight, so we’d have to start looking for a place to camp soon. We decided that it’d be smart probably by the end of one of the next easy sections. The trail followed a woods road as per the guide for a bit from here, which was a welcome break from the rocks. The great thing we could not have realized about the earlier sections is that they had a choice of best place on the ridge for the trail because of the width of the state forest lands Rothrock has. Later on, in State Game Lands, this luxury was not theirs, and it makes for some difficult hiking.

Indian Steps

The first bit was of course easy, out across power lines and along the management road. It was gravel, then sort of woods road. After the power line, the trail continued into the woods and past our first trail register of the trip to sign in on. The treadway was quite easy though, as rocks had been moved and the trail was well constructed.
We had some rocky spots, but it wasn’t bad. We crossed the Campbell Trail, then met with the Ironstone Trail, which descends the Tussey Ridge by way of the Indian Steps. The steps looked stunning from above, huge laid stone things heading directly down the ridge, with a giant cairn to mark the intersection at the top. I’d love to come back just to hike the Ironstone Loop.

View on the trail

The trail remained right on the ridge top. I checked the guide, and looking at the amount of daylight we had left, and considering the fact that it was a Monday night, it looked like the former site of Tussey Mountain Fire Tower would probably be the best place to camp. The guide book said “This is not a good place to camp”, and then went on to say it’s often the site of “Beer and Pot parties”.

Dinner at Tussey Fire Tower site

There would likely not be anything like that going on on a Monday night. I figured this site would be perfect. It should have a fire pit and be rather comfortable.
It turned out to be just that. We had a good fire pit, a view to the south just below on a rock, and plenty of sticks around. The fire was easy for Jillane to start with the dry grasses on the edge of the grassy area. Where the tower used to be, there were some footings with some wording on it, and there was the remnants of a walkway both to the former tower steps, and down to a spring below. The spring appeared dried up, but we had plenty of water at this point still anyway.
Jillane prepared for us a delicious little meal with tortillas, pepperoni, cheese, and I forget what else, using the little stove.
She had the fire going really well, and after eating we just relaxed and enjoyed the heat it provided. The sun was about down, and then I spotted something coming toward out campsite. It was a raccoon, which stood on it’s hind legs when it got within about twenty feet of us.

Our campsite

It was really cute at first. When it knew it’d been detected, it scurried off out of sight. We saw it again circling the campsite over near the former tower base, and then again in the weeds further to the west of us.
Our food was still in one bag, except the granola bars which I had placed all in a separate pouch in my pack. Although the food was not far from us at all, the Raccoon grabbed the entire bag in it’s mouth and ran off with it! Jillane saw it and yelled that it was stealing all the food. She yelled out “Bad cat!” as I got up and tried to run after it. Sitting by the fire, I had partially removed my shoes, so one fell off as I started to chase. By the time I got moving I could not catch the thief.
I ran after it, down from the tower site and a ways down the ridge. The bag was open, so he was losing stuff from it as he ran. I was able to recover a couple of bags of Maceroni and cheese, as well as some condiment packets and such.

Big Tree on the trail

I normally am against having my food in the tent, but this time I didn’t want it stolen by any other coons, so I bagged it all and kept it deep in my pack. I ended up using my pack as a pillow for the rest of the trip with the stuff inside it.
We covered just over 12 miles the first day.

Day 2

I woke up pretty early as usual. It was colder than I was anticipating, pretty much the entire trip. There was already a good view in the morning, and I walked the route of the raccoon to recover a few more condiment packets and such. Fortunately we still had our protein bars and such. We’d have been really hungry.
The second day was probably the earliest we got started of the entire trip, about 9:30 am. I wanted to beat the rain that seemed imminent. Fortunately, the second day wasn’t too bad. Any rain we got was never a downpour. We just kept pack covers on and were fine.
Just below the camp site, we crossed Pennsylvania Furnace Road, then headed further along the ridge.

View on Mid State Trail to the north

I recall a good view on the road nearby as a side trip. We continued on along the trail with several more views throughout the entire stretch. The guide book again called this one of the most scenic sections of the Mid State Trail, but also one of the most difficult.

Soup tree!

Other side trails like Brewer Path and Ewing Trail would go off from the Mid State Trail, but they were not nearly as maintained and barely used. The roads were crossed after 26 were just dirt or gravel, and the only one after Pennsylvania Furnace Road would be Colerain Road.
At the north facing talus slope overlook we reached, we walked to a giant White Pine tree and found some trail magic: a can of Campbell’s chunky soup was sitting on a branch for the taking. What luck! A raccoon stole all of our food, and we find a can of soup in a tree!
We continued on the ridge top slowly but surely from here.

View on Mid State Trail

The trail passed through a section of woods, then got to yet another extremely rocky section, with a view to the south into Harry’s Valley Divide. We could see ahead to another giant round bit of mountain, probably one of the offsets of the mountain we were walking.
I found out early on about “offsets”, or as they call them further into west PA, “doubling gaps” early on. We have a small one at Raccoon Ridge and Mt. Mohican in NJ, and the Big Offset and Little Offset are located by Pen Argyl PA. This was a rather major one though, because what was coming up was where the Little Juniata River carved it’s gap through the ridge.

Mid State Trail

The section ahead was rocky and jutted up above the rest of the ridge. I could tell that at least some effort went into stabilizing rocks intended for the hiker or backpacking to step on while navigating the section, but it was still rather hard. The view however made it all worth it. I really like sections of trail like this anyway, because it’s just so interesting looking. The trail reached it’s peak, then followed an exposed knife edge for a while before heading back into the woods. The views along the way were just gorgeous, but both of us were getting kind of tired. It was a good thing we got up so early because it was such a slow going day.

Rocky Mid State Trail

The trail continued to be difficult and rocky for a good while. The guide book is written in kilometers instead of miles, and one kilometer is only about 0.6 mile, but in the book mileage it just seemed like we were moving along very slow.

View from Mid State Trail on Tussey Ridge

The plan was that we had to get off of the Tussey Ridge by the night. There is a developed campground in the village of Barree who I had talked to, and we would be staying there for the night, where we could get a hot shower and relax a bit. The day was just turning out to be too hard to keep good pace.

Stone Overlook

There were a lot more views on the trail than what the book mentions in a lot of cases, and some that they call overlooks have nothing, but at least serve as a point of reference when walking through. that was the case with the Stone Overlook, which had two big piles when we reached it.

View on Mid State Trail by Colerain road

From that point, we went up and down a bit, but then the character of the ridge changed quite a bit. We were then on a narrower bit of ridge. Not always a knife edge, but with steep sides left and right. There were odd maples with red whirly bird seed things on them as well as the other plant life I don’t quite recognize (like what looks like an unfamiliar Sumac species). The trail continued gradually up a bit more, and we could soon hear the motors of vehicles down below us. We were sort of parallel with Colerain Road for a long time, which gradually ascends the mountain while we were above.
We continued on the ridge until we finally could see Colerain Road. It sort of cut a cleft into the ridge, and we crossed rather directly. There was a really nice view to the north just below the trail near the road as we continued.

Stone pile with benches overlooking the Little Juniata valley

The next section seemed to drag on for a long time as well. It was still very pretty and mostly ridge top, but just took a long time. The guide said we were only a couple more miles left on ridge top before descending, but it seemed like an eternity.

View from Tussey Ridge

When we finally got to the point where we’d begin to descend, it was well worth it and we took a break. The site was probably the most beautiful overlook of the entire hike. We were looking down into the valley of the Little Juniata River. The former Pennsylvania Railroad tracks, a main line, still passed along the river and we could see a train coming from up above. There was a good mix of expansive farmlands and huge forests on the mountains. To the right of the trail, there was a giant rock bench. A laid stone path led to the back of it, with stairs set into it. The little tower had two stone benches in it so one could sit and enjoy the view of the other ridges beyond.

Lovely view on Tussey Ridge

The sun was starting to go down, and it shone with brilliant striations through the clouds. The railroad rails in the distance glowed with the reflection of the sun. We could see straight across the gap in the Tussey Ridge, and a bit to the south as well.
The view was spectacular, but we were limited on time. We had to move along. We started walking, and spotted some weird rocks, one with protruding lines, one with inlets. It appeared to be some sort of fossil, with the fitting pieces on either side of the trail.
As we started heading down hill, I twisted my ankle, slipped and fell with all of my weight onto my lower left shin. I immediately thought I might be in big trouble now.

View across the Little Juniata water gap

I was able to get up, but it hurt really badly. I tried to ignore it and just continued walking. My knee hurt from it very very badly going down hill.
The trail was rocky for a while, but then reached an old woods road.
The woods road was part of a series of them that were built on grades of a former ganister quarry. Ganister is basically firebrick material. It was quarried in the area by the Tuscarora Sandstone company, probably a century before and earlier. Ganister was used in early days to line the interiors of iron furnaces. The trail turned right along a quarry level with a good view to the southwest. It then turned sharply to the left onto what was referred to as a funicular grade. At the top of the hill was a masonry foundation which the book claims was some sort of engine hoist atop the funicular grade.
We very carefully made our way down hill. I had to employ the aid of sticks to get down it myself because my knee and leg hurt so badly.
At the bottom of the funicular grade, the trail turned to the left on another quarry level, and we had a nice view across the water gap of the Little Juniata River. The trail remained on the level grade, which soon looked like it might have at one time had railroad rails, and followed it to a point where the trail continues down hill more gradually as a footpath. the woods where we began to gradually descend were nice, with lots of hay scented ferns coming in like crazy.
We gradually descended to where we could see some homes. The entire character of the trail changed when we started to descent. More history, traces of past and current human occupation. The trail came out into a parking area for Little Juniata Natural Area. An abandoned road continued along the river up stream, but Mid State Trail turned onto the road to the left. It was getting rather dark.
We took Mountain Road out past a few houses, closely parallel with the Little Juniata River. Jillane found an expensive fishing pole sitting along side the road, but didn’t take it because it was just too much to carry.
When we reached the intersection with Barree Road, at the entrance to the little village of Barree, the trail turned right to cross the Little Juniata, but we turned left for a short bit past the Greene’s Valley Christian Camp.
I wasn’t exactly sure where to go, so I pulled out my phone and called up the camp number just before nine PM. I let the lady know at the camp we were still coming, and she said that was fine. She waited up for us, and it was only like $20 for the camp site. We walked through the site to find ours, number T2, a spot right on the Little Juniata. Jillane made a fire in the fire pit, but we didn’t bother with any prepared food this night. We were exhausted and gross. It was great to get a shower and relax a bit, and we got ice cream from their refrigerator for dinner. They didn’t really have anything to replenish what the raccoon stole from us, but at least we had ice cream!
When we decided to turn in for the night, two guys showed up next to us. They were talking pretty much all night, and eventually Jillane asked them to stop talking because they were keeping her awake, so they shut up.
We covered about 13 miles the second day.

Day 3

I woke up first as always. I decided to have a look around at where we had stayed. It was dark when we had arrived, so we really didn’t see much.

Our campsite

My leg felt okay at first. I had to limp a bit, but it wasn’t all that bad. After a shower I relaxed a bit, and then chatted with our camping neighbors who were quite apologetic of the noise they’d made. The younger guy at the camp was up because it was his birthday. I told him about the fishing pole Jillane had found the night before in case he wanted to go grab it up. He told us he camped there every year, and that he goes out on these fishing trips. He came from Pittsburg to the area, and we talked about some of the beautiful places we’d seen. He told me all about the Laurel Highlands Trail and what it was like. I was rather intrigued by what he knew.
I wandered and took some pictures; the train went by relatively often but we really couldn’t see it, only hear it’s loud whistles at grade crossings, which also drove Jillane nuts.

We got a really late start on this day, which offset how well we did the previous day. We didn’t leave the camp until 1:30 pm. I ended up pigging out on more ice cream while we were there for breakfast.
When we finally left, we took a cut off path back up to Barree Road, and I noted a stone ruin off of the road slightly on the camp property. I figure this must have been the ruins of the old Barree Furnace. The Juniata Iron was well known, I’ve come to find out. I never really associated the area of the Ridge and Valley to be rich in iron, but in this part of PA it must be.
The Christian Camp across the street had a handsome house right next to it that appeared to be old.

Barree Furnace

It turns out that the home was likely the old ironmaster’s house associated with that furnace. It strikes me as very odd that this major historic site has not so much as a single marker, even in the vicinity, that this was an ironworks. In NJ, there would likely be several.
The original forge that was constructed on the Little Juniata River at this site opened in 1797, after which the works continued to grow. The ironmaster’s house we could see was built in the 1830s, and an adjacent barn is reportedly also of original ironworks vintage. The furnace stack ruin we saw was built in 1864.

Historic depiction of Barre Furnace

The ironworks at the site closed in 1880. Like so many other places it probably just deteriorated around farmlands for near a century, and the area was purchased by the Christian Camp in the 1960s. One would never guess there was anything there other than a farm, and even the old furnace could be mistaken for a lime kiln. The only thing that stood out to me was that, unlike lime kilns, this was a free standing structure, not built into a hillside.
We got back past the intersection with Mountain Road, and continued on the flood plain to cross the Little Juniata River, with a nice view into it’s water gap to the west.

Gap in Barree PA

Just after the bridge, we passed another camp, and turned right into downtown Barree. The small town really had no one out anywhere. The trail was just blazed along the road parallel with the river. We had constant sounds of train whistles because the former Pennsylvania Railroad line through town is probably the most major one around, which heads into Altoona.
We headed to the tracks and a long train blocked us from crossing shortly. Immediately on the other side, the Mid State Trail turned right onto a woods road. A guy at the house who’s yard the road skirted smiled and hollered out “That way!!” as he pointed to the woods road parallel with the tracks. I responded that a lot must miss this turn. “Ohhh yeah!” he said.

NS engine seen from Mason Dixon Trail

It turns out the woods road we were following was actually another railroad bed. I could see that they probably improved the line and straightened it at some point, but this was probably the original Pennsylvania Railroad route from when it first came through Barre in the mid 1800s. Another fast moving Norfolk Southern engine plowed on by soon after we got into the woods.
The right of way moved a bit further way from the active tracks, but was still parallel. It was a really nice section, which soon had a wetland water body separating us from the active tracks. There were a few ties in place that served as the final proof that this was the earlier railroad.
Mid State Trail continued to a wide spot with a creek going under the right of way, then turned left up hill on a woods road.

MST on an old Pennsylvania Railroad grade

The woods road climbed parallel with a little stream, up Little Mountain. There was a nice little cascade on the left of us as we climbed. The MST turned left from the woods road at a flatter area, then crossed two flows of the stream near a confluence before a steep climb. There was a nicely built side hill trail going up hill from the stream to a plateau of Little Mountain. At the top, it was amazingly green. All of the different Spring shades were the most amazing we’d seen on the trip yet. The section of trail was much different than what we’d already been on, which was great.
The trail crossed over a woods road, followed another for a while, crossed another.

Mid State Trail on Little Mountain

It cut over one swath of woods to a parking area where we came across a sign that showed the trail had been rerouted through the area. It used to climb further on old woods roads and then descend to a settlement called Alfarata. A segment of the trail there was closed by a private owner, and so the trail had been rerouted onto the gravel surface Brick Yard Road. Jillane didn’t care much for the reroute because the previous woods road we crossed could have easily cut a corner by following it out to Brick Yard Road. We turned left and followed the road on a gradual down hill slope for a good while.

Lower Trail start

There was no traffic on the road at all, but the down hill orientation, although slight, was really hurting my leg. I was doing alright, and soon learned that on the up hills I was fine, but down hill was agony. Even flat was really painful. I pushed on through.
We left Rothrock State Forest finally at a routed wooden sign and soon descended to Main Street in Alfarata. Directly across was the start of the Lower Trail (Pronounced rhyming with ‘Flower’), which follows the former Petersburg Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad bed. The trail takes it’s name because it was purchased by Hollidaysburg T. Dean Lower, and named in memory of his late wife and son. Earlier, it was also the route of the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal’s Juniata Division.

Pennsylvania's canals

Pennsylvania does not do nearly what New Jersey does to preserve it’s canal history, and so many of the sites are completely forgotten, and such is very much the case with a lot of the main line canal. This section however, we pretty cool because they acknowledge the sites and actually have some interpretive signage.

I suppose Dole is the winner

We sat down for a break as it began raining somewhat heavily. There was a nice pavilion at the trail start that we utilized. On one inside post there were countless Dole banana stickers. On a nearby post there was not even a tenth the amount Chiquita banana stickers. That was rather strange.
There were some interpretive signs around that told the story of the railroad and canal pretty well.
The Pennsylvania Main Line Canal was separated into five divisions spanning a staggering 394 miles. The Juniata division was completed in 1832, and was 127 miles long from the Susquehanna River confluence to Hollidaysburg where the next division was the Allegheny Portage Railroad.
The Pennsylvania Railroad purchased most of the canal lands in the 1850s. They came across the state in 1854, and purchased the canal system in 1857, after which they slowly phased out pieces. They immediately abandoned the Allegheny Portage Railroad, but some of the Juniata Division Canal remained in service until 1888.

Immediately parallel with all of this was the Frankstown Branch of the Juniata River. I walked across the trail and looked down to see what appeared to be the remnants of the canal towpath and prism. Much of this is certainly gone, by flooding and construction since 1888, but we definitely saw some good remnants.
With the rain dissipating, we began the section of the Mid State Trail that follows the Lower Trail, a relaxing route after what we’d done the two previous ridge top days. We passed under Rt 22, and could see the earlier alignment of the road, still paved, just above the railroad bed.
The rail bed was wide, probably accommodating at one time four tracks, which was standard for Pennsylvania Railroad main lines. Along the river we spotted the mangled wreckage of steel trusses, possibly an old bridge, on the far shore.

Juniata Division Canal remnant

We moved on and came to historic signage denoting this as the Frankstown Path, also known as the Warriors Path, the native American trail that utilized the Frankstown Branch valley as passage through the Tussey Mountain. There was also one stating that the area was full of iron furnaces, though at the time I didn’t know about the one we saw in Barree for sure, and it said Juniata iron was the highest quality in the area. The business died off when the coal and coke fired industry took over.
Rt 22, which was parallel with us, moved away, and there were some businesses right there. A flea market and ice cream shop are seasonal, but they were sadly not opened when we went through.
The trail moved off and continued on the shelf above the river. At some point, I could see a watered remnant of the Pennsylvania Canal parallel with us again in the brush between the rail bed and the river. There were also concrete remnants of a former quarry operation to the right. The map called it Owens Quarry. There was also the Goodman Quarry below that, as well as Lock #53 of the canal but I don’t recall seeing anything but the channel.
Somewhere around the quarry stuff I came across something, knowing canals as I do, that I assume may have been a slack water section.

Bridge remnant

There was a side path leading to the left, and just before it I saw some rock that did not appear natural. I thought this could be the abutment to a former canal dam, where the channel would have ended, there’d have been a guard lock, and the canal would have had a towpath along the river and simply navigated the slack water. There was also the site of a bridge across the river. I figure the canal could have switched side of the river from time to time, but I really don’t know where. I have no good map of the canal through the area, and the Lower Trail brochure and even website is extremely limited in historic interpretation.

Old abutment

On our side of the river, some sort of footing for a bridge support was also still standing off in the weeds. These were concrete and therefore not canal vintage, but the abutments were cut masonry, so they were probably re-purposed at some point for other uses and may date back to the canal.
Considering the fact that the Juniata Division had 19 dams, as well as 86 locks and 25 aqueducts, it’s not at all far fetched to assume that this is a remnant of one of these sites. I could see some stone and a road or something of some sort on the other side, but not canal prism. The standard for the canal was forty feet wide, four feet deep, and it’d be hard to have anything like that in this section, which was probably a slack water dam piece.

Lower Trail

We continued on the trail through the deep and scenic gorge. Once on the other side, it opened up a bit and we could see farmlands on the right side of us, with the occasional barn. The trail moved away from the Frankstown Branch a little bit, and through a substantial cut.
This section of trail had a few users, the occasional cyclist, but we could not have passed ten people the entire time on it. One guy was ahead of us, wearing a cowboy hat. He came out of the weeds and was walking the same direction as us, and when he turned around and saw us walking toward him, I noted that he ran off to the right of the trail. We didn’t see anyone else until Mt. Etna, except one guy taking a piss along a road to the right who was surprised to see us walk by.

Likely old aqueduct site

We continued on for a good while on the trail to where it crossed the Frankstown Branch on a decked through style girder bridge. The bridge was double track wide with a treks plank surface. The most interesting thing here was that up stream and to the left of us appeared to be the base of a pier remnant. I can only assume this must have been where the Juniata Division Canal crossed the river on it’s own aqueduct. Cut stone appeared at the base of the little island made by the remnant, so it was most certainly not natural, and it didn’t appear to have a railroad bed on either side. We continued on from here, and soon came to yet another old rail bridge, also through girder.

The bridge was also double track wide, with the left side only railroad ties and apparently used as a private access to another property for trucks, while the trail side used a paneled material for decking.
This bridge had no adjacent remnant of a former aqueduct, and I have no idea how the canal was oriented through this area. Perhaps it was another slack water section. It’s too hard to say without doing substantial research. We crossed the bridge, and I looked back at the abutments, which were of interesting construction. It could be that some is canal vintage, repurposed for rail, but not sure. Either way, this was not the original rail bridge for this location, as the abutments are wider and show signs of a prior bridge.

Wide abutments on the rail bridge; former canal aqueduct?

Newer piers were obviously placed over older ones, and the abutment on the south side could easily have held an aqueduct cradle.
We continued on ahead to the next point of interest, Mt. Etna.
The community was settled in 1793 with a grist mill, and then the site of the Etna Iron Furnace starting in 1805.
The first thing we came across entering Mt. Etna was a covered bridge on the trail. The trail shifted to the right away from the railroad bed briefly, and signs indicated that we were now following the canal route. That would line up my theory on the railroad bridge abutments perfectly.

Covered Bridge on Lower Trail, likely canal remnant stone work

A covered bridge was erected over a small waterway, which had curved masonry on it’s edges inconsistent with the oblong nature of what we see on the railroad bridges.
The Lower Trail brochure reads that there are remnants of a canal aqueduct at covered bridge, and I assumed this was it, but further it says covered bridge associated with Mt. Etna Mill Race Bridge. Either way, I think the covered bridge we passed over is directly associated with the canal, not the railroad.
The more obvious route of the railroad would have been to the left, which we could see as we walked ahead from the bridge. Picnic benches and such were laid upon that grade, and what was probably a canal prism between the two was quite evident.

Mt. Etna Iron Masters House

A stunningly beautiful old house appeared to the right from the parking area, which I later confirmed was an ironmaster’s house. There were reportedly two ironmaster’s houses here, but one was destroyed.
We continued on the trail from here, which seemed to return to the railroad bed almost immediately after the Mt Etna site. We continued walking, although my leg was hurting me worse with just about every step. The crushed stone surface used on these trails doesn’t give well for the long distance hikers. I found myself walking on the adjacent mowed grass more often because it was hurting so badly.

We made our next break stop an old canal lock site that was recognizable and in pretty good shape. A fine job was done to place signs as well as walkways along and around the old lock site for interpretation. This I believe was the site of Lock #61.
I took a few photos of the site and then sat down and rested my leg, which was hurting more all the time. Jillane went over and explored it more extensively than I did. I now wish I’d gotten to exploring a lot more of the remnants along this section, but I just wasn’t into much of anything but getting to the Bed and Breakfast in the town of Williamsburg at the time.
The trail had it’s own mile markers, as well as the occasional historic rail marker (the first one we saw was some crazy mileage, certainly blazed for ambiance, not accuracy, because as we continued the numbers were more consistent).

Carlim remnant

We made our way on from here and passed more concrete structures similar to what we saw at the former quarries to the north. There was also a roofless building. This was apparently the remnants of the Juniata Limestone Company town of Carlim.
We continued on from here through pleasant woods on the shelf above the river. Sadly, we came to a point where they had paved the trail pretty soon. The crushed stone was bad enough on the joints with those heavy packs, but this was far, far worse. I continued to try to walk on the grass next to the trail, but that often meant stepping in dog crap, which we’d have to scrape off of our shoes.

As we turned near a bend in the river, we came to yet another canal lock remnant. This must have been either Lock #62 or 63. The upper end of the lock was out along the river, so it was probably the end of a slack water section with canal to the south. The brochure denoted Lock 62 as an outlet lock, and Lock 63 as a guard lock. It’s possible we could have missed one of them. We continued walking from here, and along the river there was soon a rather obvious remnant of a canal channel, with a low island covered in trees barely protruding from the river. I got a bit ahead of Jillane in this section. I walked on the grass watching the edge for canal remnants, and she took a break at a point behind me.

Old Pennsylvania Railroad spur

I waited for her when I got to a surprising former railroad bridge site over the Frankstown Branch. There was nothing to show where this rail line used to go, but I know it served the town of Cove Dale which was right across the river. I found out later that the line went along the Clover Creek a couple of miles to a village known as Sparr, where they may have been a quarry. There was at one time an iron forge located at the little town. We had nice views of old farm buildings across the river from the trail.
Jillane caught up with me and we moved on. The next thing we found was an abandoned old stone building to the left of the trail. This could possibly have been a lock tender’s house at one time, and the map showed that the remants of tender’s houses for both Locks 64 and 67 were there.

Ruins

This was an obvious standing structure, so I’m not sure that this is what they referred to, but it was still pretty cool.
We crossed another bridge over the Frankstown Branch on a decked railroad bridge, double tracked with a girder median like the previous one again, but this time decked with wood on one side and treks on the other. I preferred the wood. In the river, I noted a possible remnant of a base wall of another canal lock, as well as a remnant abutment adjacent to the railroad bridge, which could have either been an aqueduct or an earlier railroad bridge.
It was starting to get darker so I couldn’t have a good look at it. We were tired, sore, and hungry, and there was one pizza place in town that might still be open. I gave them a call from the trail and ordered a pizza, saying it might be just after their 9 pm closing, but if they could wait a few minutes we’d be there. Thankfully, they agreed!

Mmmmmm

We continued on the trail, and I looked as best I could at different remnants along the way. There was a set of steps to the left of the trail leading to a flat area, which could have been the cited Lock tender’s house site for Lock #67, but I just can’t be sure.
We soon came to the parking area off of 1st Street in Williamsburg. The Mid State Trail leaves the Lower Trail here and follows streets through the town. It was pretty dark by now, and we followed the streets up 2nd Street past the Dollar General. The pizza place was just a block off of High Street where the trail turns south. I hurried over and paid for our mushroom pizza, and we sat and ate it on at bench near the corner.
I was so hungry I ate all of my share of it right there at the bench. Jillane held out for after we got to the Blue Lantern B&B. I had called them up ahead of time to reserve the room, and the owner was there when we arrived talking to her daughter. We were welcomed in and shone to a lovely room upstairs. It was great to clean off and just relax a bit. The evening was a blur to me, I must have fallen right asleep after showering.
I gave our hostess a few four leaf clovers I had picked up along the trail as thanks for waiting up for us.
We hiked about 14 miles for the third day.

Day 4

I really couldn’t sleep all that well. I was sore, but not all that bad once I was laying down. I got up for breakfast well before Jillane, a delicious egg thing, and our host had to leave early. She left the food so that we could microwave it when Jillane got up.

Big Spring

There was a lovely deck outside, overlooking Big Spring, a giant spring originating in a stone lined yard across Union Street from the beautiful house, which was built around 1904 I think I was told.
The water was crystal clear coming under the road, and there was a pair of Mallards with little ducklings running around everywhere. The owner told us that they have to try to save the ducklings all the time when they get stuck in drains and such. Downstairs in the house were lots of historic photographs of the town, of Big Spring, and of the house we were staying in. It was really nice that this place was conveniently located literally on the blazed Mid State Trail route.

Historic view of the house

After breakfast, Jillane and I left our stuff at the B&B and walked down into town to visit the Dollar General. We had to replace the food we’d lost to the raccoon two nights before. Fortunately, she was able to find enough good stuff to carry us through, and we could get some more stuff for the way. It was far cooler out for this trip than we’d anticipated it would be, so I could have some chocolate, as well as some pringles and such for later in the day. I also grabbed more Gatorade because I’d already drank the three big bottles I’d brought in the first three days. We made it a little loop through town, back down via Mid State Trail route, then headed back following Big Spring.

Blue Lantern B&B

It was absolutely amazing the volume of water spewing from this Spring in town. Like a full out stream coming straight out of the ground.
We got our stuff together on the porch of the B&B, then were on our way along the trail route. It followed streets through Williamsburg, Union Street to 4th Street, then around a tight corner to Lower Clover Creek Road.
It would figure that we were along the river the previous day, and it was quite cool out and sometimes rainy. Now the road walk section passed through expansive farmlands and it was hot out. We muscled through it, over a hill and down across the Clover Creek.

Clover Creek Road section of Mid State Trail

We crossed over the Clover Creek and made our way up hill, parallel with the same on the road after an intersection. There were stunningly beautiful farm views in all directions, as well as ahead to the Tussey Ridge. There was the sound of waterfalls on the creek below us as we passed over a secondary ridge of farm lands.

Farm view

The trail remained on the road going over the pleasant secondary ridge, then headed down hill over a smaller stream. Then, we turned left on Tussey Mountain Road.
This road was rather steep for a while, but became a bit more of a gradual ascent after a while. There were some nice views to the west on the way up, out behind people’s houses and from a power line. We took a break on the way up under a large tree. Cars were going by but no one offered a ride, which I was thankful for because I did want to walk the entire thing. Just after the rest the road switched back, we climbed a bit more. There were no more houses, and only some side roads into hunting camps. We then entered State Game Lands #118 I think it was.

View from Mid State Trail to Raystown Lake

At the one road, a guy and his wife came driving out. They chatted with me about where we were going while Jillane caught up. It told them it wasn’t much farther to the top for us, as they did offer us a ride. We were pretty close, but it was a bit more. It seemed longer walking it than I thought it would be. When we finally reached the crest, the Mid State Trail turned right onto an old dirt road.
We crossed over a buried gas line with some views and continued on. The woods road was really nice and easy to walk overall. The time went by fast. A second gas line was soon reached, but it was somewhat overgrown with young Birches, so we could barely see anything.
The road was well used enough by jeeps and such, and I was afraid we’d happen upon someone else out there, but fortunately there was no one around. I gambled that the third and final gas line right of way the trail crossed in this stretch would have a good secluded camp site. That gamble paid off with a great fire pit, all the wood we could ever use complete with a tarp, and an outstanding view both east and west.

Our campsite

We set up camp rather quickly and Jillane got the fire started. It was situated in just the right spot where the flame really couldn’t be seen from anywhere. No one showed up in the middle of the night to party, we had it all to ourselves, with the most amazing sunset over the ridges to the west of us.

Our camp

There were farm views on both directions, with the lesser ridges to the west toward Hollidaysburg, and Marklesburg area to the east. We could catch a really nice view of Raystown Lake in that direction with the Allegrippis Ridge.
Jillane prepared a really delicious dinner of mac and cheese stuff, and it didn’t rain at all until we were safe in the tent. I slept pretty comfortably in this spot as I recall. I wouldn’t have minded another luxury night in a B&B, but it was good to get back on the trail and feel the excitement of continuing on. My minimum goal was to reach the town of Everett, and figured the most possible we’d go would be to the MD state line. Despite starting a day late, it was looking more and more like we just might make it to Everett.

Day 5

Jillane and I woke up at our lovely camp site at a gas line clearing atop Tussey Ridge. It rained rather heavily overnight, which I managed to sleep pretty well through, but our tent had become quite wet. We had the ground cloth down, but some of it was actually catching water, and the uneven slope of where we were caused this water to flow beneath the tent somewhat.

View west from Tussey Ridge

My feet and lower part of my sleeping bag were pretty wet. Still, I wasn’t very cold. The forecast for the day had chance of rain but it wasn’t too bad. I put off getting out of the tent too quickly and getting wet. When I finally did get out, we were inside a cloud. I could not see anything with the thick fog. As I was up, and milling about the camp site, the view to the west started to open up beautifully. The walls of clouds would move on and I could watch them colliding with the mountain and passing through us.

Raystown Lake from Tussey Ridge

Jillane got up early again on this day as not to get caught taking the tent down in the rain. Soon after she got up, the view started to open up to the east as well, affording us a good view of Raystown Lake again and the Allegrippis Ridge. We packed up and soon were on our way.
The trail went over a couple of boulders on a weird route, then continued on the ridge, on a surprisingly pleasant section that wasn’t too bad to walk. After a while and passing a trail register, the trail turned right and started descending the west side of the Tussey Ridge, with another view. The trail descended for a while gradually until we hit an old woods road.

The road was probably an old logging or charcoal road. It was barely like a road, more of just a footpath that followed along the bench of the Tussey Ridge, which was a sort of more level area partially on the edge of the Tussey Ridge, near the bottom but not quite there. We were on this woods road for a while, and eventually came to a cross mountain jeep road where the trail turned right, heading a bit further down hill for a bit. It was obvious that road was more used by 4WD vehicles, but there was a gate further down we walked around. Somewhere just around where we camped, we switched from State Game Lands #118 to State Game Lands #73.

Along Mid State Trail in SGL 73

There was a lovely little clearing at the bottom, with a limited view through the trees in a nice field. There was a gravel management road in the game lands here, which the trail follows onward. Jillane and I took a break here.
I loved that the sign in the trail read “Williamsburg and North” in the northern direction, and “PA 163 and Potomac River” to the south. Just seeing the Potomac River in print on a sign was something exciting for me to see. I want badly to reach that famous river. I want to walk it’s shore and explore the C&O Canal towpath and the Great Allegheny Passage to Pittsburgh. It’s so very tangible now by way of complete marked trails.

Mid State Trail in SGL 73

We started walking from this point onto the management road to the south. It started out easy and gravel, but then became even more pleasant and grassy. The guide book called for several places where there were clearings along the trail, but it must be a pretty old guide. There were almost none of the clearings mentioned in the guide, maybe younger trees, but that’s all. There were several old woods roads that intersected, which I tried to judge our location by, and there were some old charcoal hearths along the way. It was hard to see any other defining characteristics on this section though. That is why when the Mid State Trail turned away from the woods road, we missed the turn. We had to backtrack to the obscure foot path turn.

View on Mid State Trail

The path passed through woods, and soon picked up another old charcoal road, somewhat obscure with stone piles on either side, and climbed steeply up the Tussey Ridge again. It intersected with another gas line clearing which provided some more good views both to the east and the west, again showing a finger of the Raystown Lake on the east side. It was getting pretty warm, and I worked up a good sweat and again quite a lot of pain in my left shin. My knee had improved quite a lot since I took the far a couple days earlier, but the shin was hurting bad, and the pain was shooting down into my foot and a bit up my leg. It was also very swollen, turning red and orangish.

View toward Raystown Lake

Jillane didn’t take too long on this climb either. She was visible just as I crested the top, not that far behind me. She didn’t even want a break when we got to the top, while I was quick to throw my pack down as soon as I got there.
We moved on along the ridge from here, onto a footpath that remained on the top. The next point of interest we came across was the remains of an aircraft wreckage directly on the trail. The guide book did not mention what it was, maybe some small kind of plane. Aircraft wreckage always seems to be disappointing, small scattered pieces of aluminum, nothing much. We continued on along the sometimes very rocky ridge.

Aircraft wreckage

The trail ahead wasn’t actually that bad. There were some really nice and pleasant sections of that footpath. There was one really rocky section of ridge, with protruding rocks all jutting up that we just had to cross, but otherwise we were passing through some interesting mixed hardwood forest that was unlike much of our other ridge top sections of the hike. There were maple, Oak, and groves of Black Walnut as we walked through. There were also lots of Mayapples growing along the ground. There was even a good camp site up there which are far less common on this section of trail.

Abandoned Roadside Rest

The trail descended slightly from the ridge to a sort of woods road thing, then turned right out to an open driveway area. There was one small pavilion building, and the trail guide said this was the abandoned former Roadside Rest. Someone had recently built a house back there, and they were using the old Roadside Rest entrance to get through. We took a break under the pavilion thing, and Jillane tried out a plug there to see if it would charge her phone, but it would not. When we moved on, and someone had placed a gate and a restricted sign where the trail comes off of the road, prominently displaying “no trespassing” at about the same place as the sign saying “Great Eastern Trail”, the trail which piggybacks on the Mid State Trail.

SGL 73 management road

We soon crossed PA Rt 164, a busy paved road, and followed it briefly down hill. The guide book wasn’t totally clear on this section, and made it sound like we just had to walk down the road. This was not the case, and we turned left soon on a neat little footpath.
The path went up and down a bit, and I was getting worried that the easy section ahead that I’d been reading about was replaced with some horribly rocky and difficult section. Fortunately, the trail continued down hill and only eliminated the highway walking. It turned onto a State Game Lands 73 management road at the bottom.
The road was gravel at first, and went slightly up and down, but overall was quite relaxing.

The road went over a couple of small creeks that flowed right off of the road, so I refilled some water at a particularly good looking one. It tasted great, and I had less to worry about running out. We passed a few places that area seasonally open to parking, and eventually came to a main one where there was yet another gate, and the management road continued on ahead. I figured a good enough goal for the night would be to make it to the Maple Run Valley, which seemed to promise to have good camp sites in it, since it was close to water in an area considered to be a highlight of this section.
We continued on and the road switched from being grassy back to gravel once more, a sign that we were getting to another access point.

Porcupine

We reached another regular open parking area, and Jillane spotted a Porcupine in the middle of the trail, which ran off pretty quickly into the woods. There were a lot of them around on this particular trip. We continued ahead from here, and as we reached the point where we could see the drive-able Henrietta Mountain Road, a black car with a badge on the side pulled up. They parked right in sight, but then moved on. I was nervous that they’d question what we were doing, because you’re really not supposed to be camping on state game lands. Fortunately, no one stopped us and we continued to the road.
At the road, the Mid State Trail turned right to follow it down hill for a bit.
On the way, Jillane spotted a pretty medium haired cat, which quickly ran from us and hid in a pipe under the road. She called to it, but it wouldn’t come out. I managed to get it to come out to try some of the sausage we were carrying, but the cat didn’t seem interested.

Sweet cat

When it was close enough, I tried to pet it. The cat jumped back at first, but then really loved the attention. The next thing we knew, it was out of the pipe, purring, and brushing up against me. No matter how hard we tried, we could not get the cat to eat or even drink water. It was very very skinny, and needed food badly. We wished we’d brought some cat food. Jillane called the local police to see if we could find an animal control facility or something, but there was nothing nearby. The police said there was nothing they could do.

Cat in a cop car!

We got into a spat, and the poor cat got scared and ran into the pipe again. At that point I just started walking on alone, until at that moment a police car showed up. I was hurting bad and couldn’t even walk without a stick at this point, but I turned back to talk with them.
Whether they were bored or whatever, two young cops decided to show up and check on the situation. We managed to get the cat to come out from the pipe far enough, and we used a bag Jillane had on her to catch her (I think) inside. The police said they thought they knew of a farm they could bring her to, and if they couldn’t take her, that they would give Jillane a call and we could try to pick the cat up on our way home.
We can only assume that the cat ended up on a farm because the police never called back, but it was very awesome of them to show up and do such a good deed here.

Orchard on Mid State Trail

We moved on from here down Henrietta Mountain road, then turned left onto yet another management road. When we got to a parking area, the trail continued ahead, around a gate on a grassy route. We reached a fork, and the trail passed through some pretty fields, light woods, and then an old orchard. We were with the cat for a long time, which set us back a bit. I figured we wouldn’t be able to make it to Maple Run, but when I looked at the distance, we could maybe just make it.
The trail continued into more light woods after the orchard section, on an easy management road. This took us out to Maple Run Road, a gravel vehicle accessible road. No one came by while we were on it, where the trail turned left and headed down hill.
The far side of the road was completely scorched. It was the site of a forest fire, either controlled or accidental, and everything was black. The tree canopies were fine, but there was nothing of undergrowth in the entire area. This lasted all the way down hill to where the Mid State Trail turned right onto a woods road parallel with the headwaters of the Maple Run.
We headed down along the woods road for a while, an easy route, and there were possible campsites off to the left. I didn’t want to be right by the road, so we kept on going. It’d be bad to be within sight of the road; I could smell the burn meaning this fire had only happened a couple of days ago, so I figured they might be watching after the place.
Also, the woods road the trail followed was not gated and anyone could just drive back it, until the trail turned left onto a footpath.
We followed the footpath section only a short distance before we started turning off to look for a place to set up. The creek was much closer, and the area was obviously used for such. there were old fire pits around, and there were stick shelters, teepees, and strangely enough, tiny model teepees set up in cleared sections surrounded by little sticks. We went up and down stream a bit, and Jillane found a spot she liked on the other side of the stream. It was dark, but we had a good place to set up camp.

Camp fire!

The only problem I had with it was a weird root right in the middle of my back, but we really couldn’t have had anything better in the area the way I see it.
We gathered up some wood, and again Jillane got a good fire going, and then cooked us some dinner with mac and cheese and quinua.
I was concerned in this valley about wild animals more than most any other night, but I slept well enough that I don’t recall hearing really any of them or having any problems. The sound of the water right next to us was really nice.

Day 6

I woke up much earlier than Jillane on this morning, and the sun was at first shining. Unfortunately, the forecast I had checked the night before was not looking so good. It was looking like it would most definitely rain, and I tried to get Jillane up as to avoid it.

Camp site

I decided to take a walk and look around the site first thing. It really was an outstanding camp site with a good partially sideways tree to sit on, a fire pit that just had to be reorganized, and overall pretty soft ground.

Camp site

I had a closer look at all of the sticks and such that were set up all over the area, and the odd little teepees and clearings that someone had made. The sun didn’t shine for very long; it soon went behind the clouds, and I could tell it might be a mess after a bit.

Gnome teepee?

I walked back to the trail, using strong tree roots growing across Maple Run to get back over, and then took the footpath section of the Mid State Trail back the way we came. Since it was dark when we arrived, I wanted to go back and sort of see what I had missed. I climbed to the woods road section, turned right, and followed it back toward Maple Run Road. It was truly amazing to see the devastation caused by the recent fire there. Jillane seems to think it was a controlled burn, and she found something on line about it, but to me it looks far too out of control and wide spread to be something like that.The road was obviously used as a fire line, but I also found another line cut into the woods from the woods road section to the west.

It's like Yin and Yang

I thought to myself how the burn area and the green area reminded me of Yin and Yang. It almost was like either side of the woods road was a different season. I headed back along the woods road and followed it for a little bit beyond where the trail had turned, then headed back to our camp site.

MST along Maple Run

We got a late start, probably about 11:30 again, and immediately when we had the tent packed up and we got across the Maple Run, it started raining. I immediately took my pack off and put the cover on it. We made our way along the trail down the run with the rain coming down steadily for a while.
The trail followed right along the edge of the Maple Run for a while, and the burned area soon came back to the edge of the trail, even though it wasn’t on the woods road. We skirted this for a good while before the burn area disappeared. The trail continued much along Maple Run, but also ascended above it a little bit for a while, and then made it’s way back down.

MST near Maple Run

The area was pretty pleasant. The rain started to let up and the walking became easier. There were lots of ferns, but at one point I stepped on something that looked perfectly solid, and my foot sank far down to above the top of my shoes. I was trying to keep these shoes somewhat clean, not stepping in water with them so much. Annika gave them to me as a gift because she hated seeing me in my cheapo shoes, and they were Merrills which are about the most name branch I’ve probably ever owned. Lerch also gave me another pair of almost the same that he’d bought at a sale as well, so I’m pretty well set for shoes again. Still, I didn’t want to mess them up just yet!

Flowers on the trail

The trail reached Maple Run once more, and we passed a badly damaged foot bridge, sitting partially sideways along the run. It was a good thing we didn’t try to head further down stream than we did, because we really wouldn’t have found anywhere better to camp it seems.
The trail soon went further up above Maple Run again, and continued away from it. Some of the way was an old woods road, but very faint. The trail crossed several little tributaries and wet spots, springs on their way down to the Maple Run as we continued to climb gradually. We started to see a few buildings off to the left, some sort of camps, passed a spring house, and then ascended rather steeply the flank of part of Tussey Ridge.

MST descending Tussey Ridge

The trail apparently needed only to climb to be away from private land boundaries. The trail was rough, but I drooled over the easy looking management roads and deer stands that I could see below the trail level to the left, with some limited views across the Maple Run valley.
The trail crossed a sort of log skid after a bit, and then only went up a little bit further before leveling off, then descending a bit more.
The descent was on a woods road, extremely steep. I told Jillane it reminded me of the funicular grade we followed a couple of days before. It hurt my left shin to go down it, which had not improved very much over the last couple of days.
The trail turned to the right away from the steep road, and then had a section of laid stone steps. They were pretty impressive, but unfortunately very slippery after the rain. I slipped a bit but fortunately did not injure myself further. The trail emerged from the woods at Rt 36, Woodbury Pike. There was a fisherman across the highway parked who probably wondered where I came from.
Within sight, just down the road to the east of us was the New Frontier Restaurant. I asked Jillane if she wanted to go there or just continue on. She was up for it, so we took a walk over.
We had a great lunch of burgers and stuff. I forget what exactly I had; all I remember is that it tasted so good.
Our timing was great, because pretty much as soon as we got there it started pouring down rain. We were able to sit it out in the restaurant, and then on the porch afterwards until it died down a bit.

Mid State Trail on old 36

We walked back to the Mid State Trail route, which turns to the west down the highway, then on the abandoned old Rt 36. We followed the old highway for a bit, then cut through woods up hill briefly back to 36. There were then no blazes for a while.
This was a questionable area in my book. The guide was written before a new footbridge was erected over the Yellow Creek. The creek crossing used to be a wet crossing, and the guide even acknowledged that the crossing might not be possible. We simply had no blazes along the highway as we headed west through Dark Hollow.

I just trusted in the guide as best I could, and we began following the highway westbound. I knew the trail got at least close to the town of Loysburg on the west side of the gap the Yellow Creek carved through Tussey Ridge, and we considered staying there for the night because there is a campground.
I noted another spot where old Rt 36 broke away from the current route again, this time on the south side of the highway, and we opted to just walk there because it’d be nicer than the other paved road. After descending a bit and passing through a meadow, blazes for the Mid State Trail were again seen. We headed along the highway when the old route came back to the new one and reached the new footbridge over Yellow Creek, now the longest footbridge on the trail. We left the trail here and headed further up the road toward Loysburg.

The sun started to come out, which was nice after all the crummy weather. The clouds looked really strange.
We turned left from 36 into Loysburg; a sign at the foot bridge denoted a campground that way, but there was nothing else to show us the way.
The Yellow Creek was quite beautiful with greenery on it’s edges, and north of town a mowed path went out onto the flood plain. We continued up the main street past several historic homes. I’ve found nothing about iron industry or anything prominent like we saw further north, mostly just old timber trade, mills and farms. Martin Loy Sr. settled the area probably before the Revolutionary War, and from 1820 to 1835 the settlement was known as Morris Cove. Loy built a mill in 1801-1802 where a handsome mill structure presently stands on the edge of the Yellow Creek, but I am unsure of the date of it’s construction. The town was renamed Loysburg in 1835, and it remained so until 1844 when it was re-dubbed “Pattonville”.

Old mill in Loysburg

That year, Major James Patton and Colonel John Bingham bought the Loy interests and changed the name. After the Civil War, several citizens decided they would like the old name to their town back, and so they petitioned the post office to change it back. This was done in 1882, and it has been Loysburg ever since.
We made a left turn on Park Place Road, and reached the trailer park where they had camp sites for rent. According to the update on the Mid State Trail website, there is a trust box to get the camp site, but we didn’t see it. We also wandered over to what we thought the shower house was, and it was all locked up. We asked two little girls who were riding bikes around if they knew who to get, and they got their mother or someone to come out. The nice lady who arrived called and left a message for the owners that we were there.

View into the gap

No one answered, but fortunately the owner pulled up on her golf cart while we were there. We asked about a camp site, told her we were backpacking, and Jillane asked if we could just pay to use the shower because we still had a lot more distance to cover. She told us we could just use it without getting a site, a very generous gesture! She unlocked the building and we took some time to shower and clean up a bit. While Jillane was in, the little girls grilled me with questions about backpacking, and said some creepy things about their religion. One of them said something about church, to which the other, in a wispery voice, said something about “not talking about that”.

We headed out from the camp ground back the way we came, across the Yellow Creek, then parallel with it on Rt 36 to reach the new foot bridge across. On the other side, we turned let on a trail, then right onto an old woods road heading up hill along and high above a stream cascading down the mountain.
It was a tough climb for a bit, but when we got to a switchback, a muddy spot where we switched to another woods road going right, it got a bit easier. That was the worst of the climbing. The trail reached a bench, then ascended a bit more to a cleared area that some organization was using for a wildlife study or something.

Wild Turkey Federation clearings on Mid State Trail

More clearings were just up ahead, part of the Wild Turkey Federation. Nothing was clear cut; several trees were left standing. There was a neat view back across the gap when we reached the crest of the rise, and then the trail continued ahead on grassy State Game Lands management roads past the wildlife clearings.

View on Tussey Ridge bench

There were good views ahead to the west, out at the sunset with the striations of the clouds again. It looked a bit like it might rain again, but we got lucky and stayed dry this time, although the storms were certainly isolated and not too far from us at all.
We continued on the management roads past countless clearings. I figured we’d find somewhere to camp out in these clearings just before dark. There wouldn’t be some perfect spot along water or anything, but if we made it far enough, this would be our last night in the tent for the trip. Honestly, I didn’t feel like I could go on much longer either. My shin was hurting worse all the time.
We passed an access road to the right, which was driveable, and continued looking for where the trail turned left. We seemed to be hiking forever on this section, and when there was a long stretch without an orange blaze, I got to panicking a bit. Eventually, we found it, and we turned left on the footpath. There would be no great spot to camp. We’d have to go wherever we could. We finally settled on a crummy spot right along the trail, on the slope of the Tussey Ridge. The trail we were on followed the bench of the ridge for a long time, but we were now heading up. It would be our worst camp site, but the only opportunity we saw.
Day 7
We woke up freezing cold. The forecast said it was to be 33 degrees overnight. I was cold even going to bed. I put on three tee shirts, a flannel, and my rain jacket to keep warm, some of which I even had in the sleeping back with me.

I wasn’t going to get out of the tent till Jillane was about ready because it was just too cold out. It rained a little over night, but not too terribly.
I’d wished I had a hat as soon as I got out of the tent. Jillane got up and I hurriedly put the tent away, and we started the climb up Tussey Ridge for the last time.
On the way up, the wind was horrible and we could barely stand it. Then, to make matters worse it started snowing. Snowing. In late May. It kept up for a while, and became a mix of snow and sleet. Some of it was actually sticking to the ground. Once we got to the top, the trail moved more to the eastern side of the ridge, which helped u to deal with the wind.

Blooming on the ridge

There were blooming flowers all over, but it was cold. There was a sort of tree house box over in a tree visible from the trail. Had I know that was there, we would have gone up the ridge in the dark and tried to get in it. It might have been a good place to spend the night maybe.
We continued along the ridge, which was kind of easy at first, but then got incredibly rocky. There would be sections that were alright, but it always went back to very difficult and rocky sections. Most of this is attributed to the fact that the trail needed to stay on public land, not cross onto private. If they had more of a choice of where to put the trail, they’d probably have stayed on the bench.

Lady Slippers on the trail

The trail did go through one private land interlude, and there was a sign that read it was only for Mid State Trail hikers, no camping, fires, etc. That section ended pretty quickly, but even then the trail skirted property boundaries that were often right on the knife edge of really tough rock scrambles.
There was really only one trail crossing the entire way through, and it wasn’t much of a trail at all. It was called Dunkard’s Path, apparently that particular relious sect once used it to cross over the mountain. We had one little easy spot there, but every time we got to a point where it looked as though it might get easier, we’d be back climbing over rocks.

On Tussey Ridge

If we stopped for too long, we’d get cold. The book was calling sections farther back among the most difficult on the entire Mid State Trail, but we both agree that this section was tougher. Not only that, it was one of the least descriptive of all of the sections we cam across. It would mention a view to the east, and I would think we were almost done with the section, but then we’d be back over more rocks and there would be another view to the east. It was a frustrating, ongoing process. The pain and such fortunately didn’t deter Jillane and I from enjoying the flora and fauna of the trail. She was always ready to point out a big tree, or pink lady slippers, an odd leafed plant, or a Porcupine.

Interesting leaf patter Jillane found

We both saw Porcupines on this section, but we weren’t always right together to catch it on camera. I liked walking behind her, because when I’m ahead I lose myself and go too fast. I like the pace she was setting on this trip much better, and I enjoyed my time out much more when I was walking her speed, which was not really slow at all.
The highlight of this section when it came to the wildlife for me was two large Coyotes. They may have in fact been wolves, because they were larger and had broader faces, where Coyotes appear a little bit more narrow. The only time I’d ever seen wolves were in captivity. A good percentage of the Coyotes in the area are in fact Coy-Wolves anyway, a mix breed that is a bit larger than a coyote.

View on Tussey Ridge

It was particularly strange for me, because I had seen Coyotes twice in the previous month. One might not think that is such a big deal, but it really is. Despite the fact that I spend more time outside than most anyone I know, up until the previous month, I had only ever seen Coyotes twice in my life.

Mid State Trail on Tussey Ridge

My first ever Coyote sighting was at the Point Mountain Reservation when I was working for Hunterdon County Parks in 2009 with my friend Adam “Bandit” Johnson. We barely got a look at it because it took off like a ghost the second it saw us, not making a sound.
The second time I saw one was with Jillane in Lopatcong Township near home. That one was looking ratty, and ran parallel with her car when we were heading home from Shop Rite one night. Just in the previous month, John Debias and I saw one at work, running from the entrance to Spruce Run through the picnic areas, and we cut if off to get a good look. A week later I saw another near the same area.

Mid State Trail on Tussey Ridge.

This time, I was coming to a steep spot, with a dip and climb back over rocks, and there I saw the two of them on the trail straight ahead. They both looked at me, and in a flash took off down the mountain to the west. Once they were beyond a hundred feet away from me, I could no longer hear them. Like the one I saw on Point Mountain years ago, they made not a sound.
Many of the rocks up on the Tussey Ridge had natural cave spots in them, and since the trail is very lightly used, these probably serve as dens for many animals, including coyotes.
We took one longer break when we got to a power line crossing, which provided us great views on both directions. From there, it seemed like another eternity before we got to another point of reference.

Tussey Ridge view to the east.

It rained and sleeted one more time while we were up there. It was still far too cold for May. It was fortunately sunny much of the time up there, but that barely brought the temperature back up. The high for the day I think was only 47.
The last storm we had made for some amazing views to the east. Jillane spotted a rainbow, but I missed photographing it unfortunately.

Scully Squeeze Rock

Eventually, we reached the point on the ridge where we had to make a decision. There were two Mid State Trail routes, left and right. The current main route is only temporary, to the right, and to the left is the start of the big reroute.
Ahead, we’d have to walk on the Tussey Ridge for quite a while longer. We had about had it with the ridge at this point. The only things we were missing in that section would be possibly a couple more views, and where the trail goes out across a cattle pasture. It then follows a road for a bit followed by the abandoned Huntingdon and Broad Top Railroad bed. I wanted to see all that, but then I’d want to come back to do the other route. It was slightly shorter, but there were already sections of it in place.

Blue Diamond Trail section

We both agreed to descend from the ridge on the future main route. It took us steeply down hill and over rocks, with slight switch backs. The highlight of it was the “Scully Squeeze Rock”, where the trail passes through a natural rock formation.
We descended over some more rocks, then came to a much more pleasant section with flatter rocks, heading gradually down hill for a while. This section of the Mid State Trail is referred to as the Blue Diamond Trail, although it is not at all blazed with blue diamonds. It takes it’s name from a wood cutting corporation at the bottom. The trail emerged in a State Game Lands parking area, then followed the gravel road down hill for a bit. At the next intersection of dirt roads, the trail went straight into woods.

Blue Diamond section of Mid State Trail

The trail came out of the woods onto yet another dirt road, then crossed over and headed through another swath of woods. The trail sections we were using were barely visited and growing over. We were basically just following blazes through scrubby woods.
When we got to a big dirt road, the blazes ended. We followed it to the right, then veered around a corner down hill past an industrial park. The road became Industrial Blvd, a paved route, and we followed it down hill to Route 26. Just before the highway, I recognized an old railroad right of way, somewhat overgrown. This was the old Huntingdon and Broad Top Railroad, which closely parallels Rt 26 into Everett PA. The guide book said that the rail bed was not walkable because of different private owners, but we did not find this to be totally true.

Former Huntingdon and Broad Top Railroad

After a bit of walking along the road, with the railroad bed behind private homes, it moved much closer to Rt 26. We passed a funeral home which at first looked like a restaurant we were both excited about at first.
We got on the rail bed in front of the funeral home and were able to walk it parallel with the road for a good long time. It really would make a good trail there.
We continued on the rail bed very easily through the fronts of yards, and then there was a parallel road separating the rail bed from the other private yards, so it was just fine to walk. There were a couple of grown over sections, but still very easily passable for us. We got off of it when there were two large round bales of straw sat over it to keep people from driving on it. We got on 29 and then passed beneath Rt 30/Bud Schuster Bypass.

Bales on the Huntingdon and Broad Top Railroad bed

To the right of us, we could see the abutments to the old railroad bridge behind the pier to the much newer bridge. The railroad moved off further away from the highway while we gradually headed down hill into the town of Everett.
The Huntingdon and Broad Top Railroad was completed in 1855, a thirty one mile route between Huntingdon and Hopewell. It remained in service into the 1950s when it began to dwindle. An excursion line, known as the Everett Railroad, took over operations of the line between Tatesville (a short distance north of where we reached it) and Mount Dallas (just west of Everett), a distance of about four miles, in 1954. The line was abandoned in 1982 when Conrail abandoned the remainder of the trackage.

Locomotive at Everett Station

The town of Everett was named after a politician later on, but the original name was Waynesboro, though the name didn’t stick, and at one time it was called Bloody Run, which is still the name of a small creek that passes through, which we crossed over.

Reportedly, there was an old Native American trading post here at one time, and there was a skirmish between them and the colonists, so the creek was named Bloody Run.
We continued through town, walked through a car wash, and made fun of a building with a sign claiming it sold shackles.
It was getting darker, and looking like it was going to rain any moment. As we continued through town, I didn’t notice at the time, but the two branches of the Mid State Trail came back together. One came from up hill, having followed the same rail bed for a short while up the hill from us. I noted a sign that said railroad station up the hill, but we weren’t up for doing bonus miles at this time of night. We were tired and hungry.

SHEETZ!

There were some nice historic buildings in the town. I thought I’d like the opportunity to walk around and explore more of it. An unconnected piece of Mid State Trail is complete through the local Tenley Park, but doesn’t yet connect with the rest of what we walked, which is why the section isn’t the official main route yet.
As we got the the intersection in the middle of town, it was delightful to see a Sheetz to the right side of us. They have great made to order stuff, and I couldn’t wait to get something, but we had to get on to our motel room to put our stuff down.
While up on the ridge, I was looking up more motels we could potentially stay in. The guide book told us the Carolyn Court Motel was right on the route. I called them up, but the lady said that they were all booked up for the night.

Our last camp site

I let her know we were backpacking the Mid State Trail, and asked her if she knew of any other options in town, or even nearby. There used to be a bar and restaurant that rented rooms, but it turns out they closed only recently. After speaking for a few moments, the lady said she had one guy that she wasn’t sure would show up. She told me to give a call back in a half an hour when she could find out if for sure he was coming or not. When I called back, I was ecstatic to hear she had a room for us. It was a huge relief to know there was somewhere to just lay down when we got there.
The room wasn’t too special, small and simple, but really cheap, only about $40. It was a top floor room on the balcony. We were happy to have it.
I ran over to Sheetz because I needed food badly. Jillane and I went out together after the rain stopped, and then went to the Dollar General for more stuff like mini shampoos. The one I had brought went missing, and might have gone in the bag of food with the raccoon on our first night.
Despite being in a bed, I had trouble getting to sleep. I was really sore, and my shin was in really rough shape.

Day 8

This would pretty much be a solo day for me. First and foremost, I had to secure a ride for us back to the State College area. It was going to be insanely expensive. I was already prepared for this ahead of time. This section of Mid State Trail is most difficult to arrange for shuttles, the longest linear section.

Mid State Trail climbing the berm

I called a couple of companies, and when I found the cheapest one I ordered the car. They told me they could be there in a couple of hours. I got up and went to Sheetz for breakfast I recall, made my way back and forth from the hotel room a couple of times.
With plenty of time left, I figured I would go exploring a little bit. I wanted to see exactly where the Mid State Trail went through town, and I hadn’t noticed the blazed right in front of the hotel. I turned to follow them southbound. At the end of the street, there was a set of steps they climbed up to the flood protection berm on the Raystown Branch of the Juniata River. It’s weird to think it was the same river we walked along for about thirteen miles earlier.

Mid State Trail on the berm

It was really a beautiful section. It was also a much warmer day. It was sad that this couldn’t have been how our last day out would have been. We had discussed going an extra day and adding Tuesday, but I was really in no shape to be going further. I even thought that I should just take it easy and not keep walking, but I wanted to see more.

Old industry in Everett

I followed the berm to the next bridge over the Raystown Branch where the Mid State Trail turned and crossed. I decided not to walk it further that way, and instead head back to the hotel. I went down on the street and found a stop sign under which another haphazard sign was affixed reading “MEANS STOP”! I liked this town, it was interesting.
Once at the hotel, I chatted with the hotel manager for a bit, but then decided to do some more walking. That railroad station was still in the back of my mind, and I wanted to see where the Mid State Trail’s other branch was. I walked it up through town, then turned left to follow it up hill past some old industry.

Old engine at Everett Station

I ended up having an amazing little walk. The trail went by the abandoned industry, and I found the railroad bed. Someone’s house was built atop an old coal interchange area there. At the top of the hill, where the trail turns off of the railroad bed, there is an abandoned restroom building, I assume left over from the days when they would have boarded excursion trains from this point. I was surprised not to see the station. Rather than follow Mid State Trail onward first, I turned right, onto the old Huntingdon and Broad Top Railroad bed, and followed it to the north. It was grassy and only slightly overgrown, easy enough to go through. When it came to someone’s yard area, there was a path down.

HBT Railroad bed

To my surprise, the station was down at a lower level there. In fact, it was two stations! There was an old freight depot in the back and the passenger station in the front. I wondered if this was the original location, or if it had been moved as a museum piece. The area where it sat looked to be at least some sort of former rail, even if it wasn’t the main line.
The museum was not open on this occasion, but I could look into the windows and walk all around the outsides of both buildings as well as the historic locomotive that was parked out front of it. I cannot believe the Mid State Trail was not intentionally routed to pass this awesome site. If I were in charge of that trail, and it’s already only a block away from the main route, I would most certainly have it pass!

Everett Station

I left the station and walked around the old industrial building I saw before, then retraced my steps up hill to the rail bed where I’d stepped onto it. This time, I followed the Mid State Trail blazes along the top of the hill, onto the railroad bed. The trail was vaguely blazed, but it took me to an underpass of Rt 30/Bud Schuster Bypass. It looked like it might have once been a rail yard. It could also have been something to do with the old furnaces that were once active along the Juniata River in Everett. I know the Mid State Trail at least used to go through the cinder piles from that, but not sure what the new route does.

Tussey Ridge view along the old rail beds

I walked out under the bridges and down the apparent railroad bed a bit. It was extremely wide, I still saw no blazes, and it appeared to go on for a while. I decided to call it quits here and start making my way back to the hotel and make sure Jillane was up. I could have continued exploring places like this all day. There was so much to see.
I returned to the official Mid State Trail route, on street, and followed it directly back to the Carolyn Court Motel. Jillane got all of her stuff together pretty quick, and the taxi driver arrived slightly earlier than expected.
We were able to get a ride all the way back, a lot of which was on dirt roads, probably to dismay of our driver somewhat, and we got a big dinner at a Hoss’s chain restaurant.

Carolyn Court Motel, our room at top left

This hike doesn’t leave much left to complete of the southbound Mid State Trail, under thirty miles to the Maryland border. From there it’s only shortly through Green Ridge State Forest to the C&O Canal towpath along the Potomac River, from which we can connect to Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Tuscarora Trail, Appalachian Trail, and so many more. I really hope we can finish this trail, because I feel like our backpacking trips will only get better with what we connect. This I did not think was bad at all, just a bit more difficult than anticipated. As per the book, there is really only one more difficult and rocky section of the trail similar to what we’ve done, through State Game Lands, and then we are into Buchanan State Forest, where the trail had been more simply located opportunistically.