Hike #1363; Standing Stone Trail Pt 1
10/10/20 Detweiler Run Natural Area to Allensville Rd with Jim Kohan, Daniel Trump, Jennifer Bee, Kirk Rohn, Brittany Audrey, Jennifer Tull, Professor John DiFiore, Serious Sean Dougherty, Diane Reider, and Peter Fleszar
This next hike would be a point to point I’d been looking forward to kicking off for a great many years.
This one ended up being special...and Facebook is eliminating the “notes” function I have been using for hike journals for almost 12 years, so if this ends up being the last one that gets published before they go offline on Oct 31 2020, it’ll be a good one to end on.
I will be looking for a new platform to host the journals on in the near future.
Standing Stone Trail northern terminus
It would actually be something really special in so many ways making me feel deeply loved and appreciated, and thankful that I am surrounded by such wonderful people.
SST on Monroe Kulp rail bed
The hike would be the first in the Standing Stone Trail series. I had touched this trail through my long connective hikes once before, backpacking with Jillane through Detweiler Run Natural Area on the Mid State Trail. I had hiked pieces of it with Rich and Eric Pace prior to that on a day trip to scout some of it with him back in 2002 or so. At that time, the trail was known simply as the Link Trail.
Standing Stone Trail links the Mid State Trail with the Tuscarora Trail, which was meant to be a potential replacement for the Appalachian Trail from encroaching development.
Monroe Kulp logging railroad bed
The Link Trail was kind of an unknown little route, with rugged terrain and outstanding scenery. I loved that about it. It was later renamed Standing Stone Trail because of a large rock outcropping along the route.
Doing this entire trail is pretty much the farthest I will ever go for a single day hike. It’s really out there. I wasn’t considering doing this as part of my series on the 911 National Memorial Trail lately, but I knew that it connected with it. If I did a couple of two or three day trips that incorporated this trail as well as some of the others in the area, maybe it would work out.
SST on Monroe Kulp grade
It wasn’t looking like that would work, and now that it was getting colder it definitely wouldn’t.
I worked on planning out the remainder of hikes from where I’d left off in Lewistown to the other spot I’d left off in Huntingdon, and realized that my original plan for the 911 series, to complete the entire route by September of 2021, was not going to happen. The covid-19 garbage had knocked me out of that series since February, and I didn’t want to drive as far or do the big road walking sections there in really hot weather.
Alan Seeger Natural Area
I had to seriously look at the series with new eyes.
What did I want to do?
There’s so much more to see out there, and did I really want to go out that far and just do this one thing?
SST on Monroe Kulp grade
I started looking more closely at Standing Stone Trail. I could do a single hike from the northern terminus of the trail at about the same distance as Huntingdon and finish one hike at the State Game Lands on Stone Mountain. A second one would take me down to the next valley, and a third one could be part Standing Stone Trail, part Juniata series. I took it further, and a fourth could be part Standing Stone Trail and part Juniata Series the other direction. With that, there were two other hikes left tracing the Juniata Canal to connect the points I wanted to connect. Two other hikes south form there would complete the entire Standing Stone Trail.
SST on Monroe Kulp rail grade
Further, the Tuscarora Trail, where I last left off on it, could be connected south from Waggoners Gap in a few hikes, right to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in Hancock MD.
SST on Monroe Kulp rail grade
I made the decision all at once. I was going to do Juniata Canal, Standing Stone Trail, and Tuscarora Trail as part of the same series. Then, I will finish the Mason-Dixon Trail.
I was getting overly excited just thinking about it. The Metrotrails group has felt more strong and engaging than in the past couple of years, even with all of the covid craziness. Maybe all of us, with all of the stress we’ve been through, needed something bigger to look forward to every month in the dedicated series.
SST bridge
I could do others and keep them a bit closer to home to fill in the other times, and continue to build interest.
SST
The first section of the Standing Stone is diverse, with virgin Hemlock forests, old logging railroads, a fire tower, vistas, historic ironworks, and more. In fact each section offers great scenery and diversity in route.
I offered to carpool us all in the Metro Van, and we definitely loaded it up for this one.
We had an awesome carpool out, singing along the whatever crazy music we were putting in. We went from Paul McCartney’s “Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard” to his “Kisses on the Bottom” jazzy standards album, to Ace of Base’s “The Sign”, and then the greatest hits of Elton John.
SST near a hunting camp
On the way however, the van started to overheat badly.
Usually I can just add some antifreeze and it’s good for many more days. I figured I had a slight leak. It helped a little bit briefly, but then just kept getting hotter.
We drove to the meeting point, which was on the dirt surface Allensville Road on top of Stone Mountain, but barely before I was going to have a more major problem.
I was going to shuttle everyone to the start in the van, but the thing seriously needed to cool down. Fortunately, we had enough drivers there that we could get to the start without too big a problem.
SST on the Monroe Kulp RR bed
Newcomer Jim, Diane, and Professor John helped to shuttle back and forth between the ends with their cars, and we ended up being alright.
SST on Monroe Kulp RR bed
The starting point was a spot deep in Detweiler Run Natural Area where Bear Meadows Trail makes a hairpin turn, and closed Detweiler Run Road goes straight. The Mid State Trail nearly touches the corner of these roads, and so we were able to walk right into the woods there.
The Mid State Trail was the brainchild of Tom Thwaites, who laid out the first section in the state forest to the north of us. I had hiked the entire Mid State Trail south of RB Winter State Park with Jillane on a few hikes.
SST on Monroe Kulp grade
I would like to eventually hit all of the stuff to the north of there, but we’ll see how my westward stuff goes with this series!
The drive to the start of the hike seemed to take forever, but we got through it.
We all started out walking onto the Mid State Trail, which descended steeply on its southbound route into Detweiler Run Natural Area.
This was an area of great interest because it embodies the respect of those old landowners, and is an interesting story of how it came to be.
Foot bridge on the SST
The northern terminus of the Standing Stone Trail is at a ninety degree bend in the Mid State Trail, along an old logging railroad right of way.
SST on Monroe Kulp grade
Detweiler Run Natural Area has a large stand of virgin Hemlock trees, because two combining land holders, the Reichley Brothers and Monroe Kulp, owned land on either side. The uncertainty of where the boundary was led both owners to not cut the woods close to the boundary since they could not be sure. Each built their logging railroad rights of way toward one another, but not connected. The Mid State Trail follows the Reichley Bros. right of way a little northbound from here (although we were traveling south a bit), and the Standing Stone Trail follows the old Monroe Kulp logging railroad.
On the rail bed
We turned right on the Monroe Kulp railroad, onto the orange blazed Standing Stone Trail.
SST on Monroe Kulp RR grade
The section from here to Greenwood Furnace State Park was originally known as the Greenwood Spur of the Mid State Trail, and the Standing Stone Trail started down there. It was more recently made part of the Standing Stone Trail. The original spur was yellow blazed, but now it is orange to match the rest of the trail.
We started walking the rail grade for a while but the trail eventually turned off of it to the left.
Where the SST leaves the rail bed.
We crossed the Detweiler Run on a little foot bridge a couple of times and went by a hunting camp building that I was not expecting to see. Apart from that, it remained overall very secluded.
I wasn’t expecting to cross any roads that were passable by automobile either, but we did end up crossing a dirt road rather early on.
I couldn’t remember the name of the logger that owned the railroad and I was stressing over the name for quite a while.
A map showing the logging railroad beds and penciled in are the Mid State and Standing Stone Trails
I kept up coming up with Linden Hall, who was another one just a little further uphill from here. I eventually thought of Monroe Kulp, and soon after, there was a routed wooden sign that denoted that it was the Monroe Kulp Railroad, circa 1900!
SST near Detweiler Run
We continued along the rail bed for a bit, and eventually the right of way continued straight where the Standing Stone Trail turned hard to the right.
We soon entered Alan Seeger Natural Area, which had lots more very large old Hemlocks in it. A lot of them were killed in more recent years, but there were still some impressive ones.
We continued on a much wider trail, passed a sign, and joined what makes up a loop to this site. There were a couple other people on the trail at this point.
Alan Seeger Natural Area
There were a couple of impressive footbridges in this area. One of them was rather high up, and then came back down. I wasn’t expecting to find anything that substantial out there.
Alan Seeger Natural Area
I found that the Standing Stone Trail, at least for our first time on it, was much more done up than the Mid State Trail in many sections.
The trail passed through a picnic area at Alan Seeger Natural Area, and several other people were around. Serious Sean ws playing his guitar along the way a bit but we tried to be a bit more quiet through this section because we didn’t want to piss anyone off.
The trail started to climb after another gravel road crossing at Alan Seeger, and there were rocks across another tributary, and then nice bits of cut up logs and such over a wet area.
Rhododendron Tangle
There were also interpretive signs on the natural area, and then stone steps built into the ascent further up. There was a nice routed sign where a spring was to the left as well.
SST in Alan Seeger Natural Area
The ascent started getting pretty steep as we were making our way up Broad Mountain. I knew this would be a bigger ascent than the recent one in the Catskills, but felt we wouldn’t have too much a problem.
The stone steps and treadway work continued from time to time, and there was a side trail a little more than half way up that led briefly to an overlook.
I was surprised that the side trail had more stone work done on it than the main trail, with beautiful steps and leveled rocks. The view was pretty nice facing to the north.
Alan Seeger Natural Area
The trail crossed a vehicle accessible gravel road on the way up too, which we took a break at, around halfway up.
Dan decided to cut a corner there and skip the top of Broad Mountain to get to the Greenwood Furnace a little earlier. The rest of us pushed steeply to the top, where we came out at the Broad Mountain Fire Tower.
This was surprisingly similar to the Rock Rift Fire Tower we had come across in the western Catskills. In the same way, the bottom two flights of stairs had been completely removed from the structure.
Alan Seeger Natural ARea
There was a group of boy scouts up there when we arrived, and they had already begun climbing the superstructure, but did not try to go up above the first wooden deck platform.
Since they were doing it, of course we were going to go.
View from Broad Mountain Fire Tower
We climbed up to the level, and I hurried my way to the box at the top of the tower. Some of the wooden steps were in pretty bad shape, and so I braced myself on the railing on the way up. Serious Sean, Kirk, Brittany, Jim, and I all went to the top of the tower.
Up the tower
The views were fantastic in all directions.
We made our way back down, and then took a long break waiting for the others to catch up.
I have to hurry as much as I can on these inclines or I really lose steam.
The tower
Everyone was doing pretty well on the incline, but we waited a long time for Dan. We didn’t realize that he had turned on the road and wasn’t coming to the top. Brittany found a spot under an evergreen she called her “Nook”.
Once we found that he wasn’t coming up, we got up and continued on our way.
The trail from the top followed a clearing that used to be a telephone line to the tower. Some of the old poles were still in place there.
The foliage was changing beautifully on our way down, and we passed several other groups of people in this section on their way up.
Tower fun
I was rather surprised, because I doubt a lot of these people would be going up the tower the way we did. There’s not a view up there otherwise, so it seemed strange to see so many.
The trail turned off the old telephone line, and then weaved along a bit of woods road, and then down some more very nice stone steps. It shifted from foot path to old roadways, which were used for making charcoal for the Greenwood Furnace around 1850. The trail passed a few charcoal hearths, and one of them even had a routed wooden sign denoting it.
Greenwood Furnace #2
The trail became foot path again, and it came out to a dirt road at the bottom of a hill where we regrouped. The trail turned right here for a bit, passed through a meadow, then turned sharply left downhill on a very nice side hill route above a steep precipice.
Old rail cars at Greenwood Furnace
The trail emerged from a wooded area into a meadow where the route was widely mowed.
We came to a point where there used to be a boarding house, built in 1825, on the right. There was an historic marker about the structure that was eighteen by twenty five feet, had four rooms, two floors, and an adjacent springhouse and Summer kitchen. It was originally built as a single family house, but had an addition added on when it became a boarding house. Workers could stay there for a part of their wage during the furnace days.
SST near Greenwood Furnace
The house was purchased by one of the former furnace workers, Gurt Barnes, when the furnace closed in 1904. He remained in the house until 1933. I suppose it disappeared some time soon after that.
Some archeological digging had recently occurred at the former house site as per the historic marker.
We continued out to the end of this section and there was a sign denoting this as the “trail of the year” for 2016.
A scene in Greenwood Furnace State Park
Greenwood Furnace was an important iron supplier early on in the days of the railroads, including the Pennsylvania Railroad which had a great presence nearby.
Museum in Greenwood Furnace SP
The Furnace #1 at Greenwood Furnace was completed in 1834, and stands in ruins in the park. Furnace #2 was completed in 1867. Both were used simultaneously, and Furnace #1 was taken out of blast in 1880. Furnace #2 was abandoned in 1904. By that time, necessary timber for the blast process had been depleted from the mountainsides.
The furnace spent the next thirty nears neglected and growing over with weeds. The stones began to collapse, and it wasn’t until the 1930s with the Civilian Conservation Corps began working in the new park land that any attention was given to the aging relic.
Furnace #2
The CCC stabilized and repaired Furnace #2 as an interpretive piece in 1936.
It was impossible to just walk by the state park. We wandered in and checked out the pretty picnic grounds, and I was ready to actually to go the beach for a swim, but then decided against it.
We continued through picnic grounds and stopped at the restroom, and peaked inside the museum building, although we didn’t go through because of the covid crap and masks. |
There was an old wagon on display outside, and old ore cars parked on a piece of narrow gauge track. There must have been rail lines to serve this location, but I’ve no idea exactly where they would have run.
|We continued over to the furnace stacks an checked out the historic displays, then headed from there into the Furnace #2 itself. Some of the kiln area was still in place inside. I managed to set up a couple of then and now shots and did my group shot with the structure.
Late 1800s view of Greenwood Furnace #2
From here, we continued up to the entrance of Greenwood Furnace State Park, and Jen messed with the sign to make it say something silly.
Furnace #2
The Standing Stone Trail passes the front of the old stone built in 1867.
When the furnace closed and the people went away, the church was used as grain storage and was in quite a state of disrepair.
Historic 1905 view of the old church
The former workers at the furnace would have reunions and were saddened to see the state of their old church. Following a letter to Governor Fisher at the time, the old church was returned to a place of worship and was rededicated in 1928.
The church as it appears now
The trail turns uphill to the right from the church. It looked like a tiny piece went through woods parallel with the road, so we skipped a hundred feet of it or something.
Some more stone steps
We started heading gradually uphill parallel with a fence to the south. The old woods road had a relaxing and gradual climb for a while, and switched back to the right after a ways.
Eventually, we had a climb with some stone steps to the top of the ridge, which was still kind of low at this point, and we would continue to gain elevation as we headed along it to the south.
The area didn’t look familiar to me, but I had hiked a loop here with Rich and Eric Pace to Stone Valley Vista back around 2002 or 3, on a very cloudy day with no views.
View from Stone Valley Vista
It’s entirely possible some of the trail might have been rerouted since then, but I don’t know.
Stone Valley Vista
When we reached Stone Valley Vista, it was outstanding.
The view was wide and covered some much. A talus slope down from the view provided even wider views, and we could see back to the fire tower we had been in among tall Spruces from afar. Jim found it using the very good camera he brought with him with a quality lens.
While at this overlook, there were a lot of people around hanging out, and some ladies requested a song of Sean. He looked at me and asked something I might know.
Big Valley Vista
We had started doing “I Can See Clearly Now” by Jimmy Cliff. I think he had jut passed away, and so it was kind of an appropriate thing. It’s kind of an appropriate thing for the world right now as well.
Some nice tread work
I tried to hit all of the notes as best I could, as well as the very long drawn out ones, and I could nearly pull it off, but not quite. The ladies were dancing and quite happy with it anyway.
We continued for another half mile and the Turkey Trail broke off to the right. This is a super steep trail that goes down and makes a loop back to the state park. I had done that with Rich and Eric my previous visit, but that was disconnected from all of my regular hikes.
Power line view
This time, we continued along the ridge, and had 6.5 more miles remaining to the end. That was a bit of a haul considering it was already getting later.
I believe this is Hidden Vista
There were a surprising amount of stone steps and treadway work done in this stretch. I wasn’t expecting it to be so easy, if you want to call it that, but the stone work did help a lot.
None of it ever remained flat. It was undulating terrain most the time, but there wasn’t a ton of up and down. It was technical, which can get tiring.
The next overlook shown on the map said “Olsen’s View”, but the next one we reached had a sign reading “Big Valley Vista”. This was an excellent east facing view.
Power line view
The next view up from this one was in both directions at a power line crossing. It was really quite impressive, and we even found what we believed to be some fossils in the exposed rocks there!
Ham!
The next view after that was through trees to the west known as Hidden Vista. I don’t know if I had it right or not, but there was a bit of a view through trees there.
Soon, we reached the Pole Trail. This was a woods road route that went downhill to Turkey Hill Road. It’s steep, but it is a road. There was an old stone building ruin along the left side of it visible from the trail.
Jen decided to take the early out there. I could come back around to pick her up just below the ridge pretty easily when we got done from that road I figured. I told her if it wasn’t a vehicle road, to just walk the road south and she’d get to where we could get her.
On the trail
There were a couple of both east and west facing minor viewpoints along the way which were nice. I got ahead of some and behind others and was walking by myself for a while on this stretch.
Just after I’d passed Pole Trail, I put my phone on in case Jen needed guidance and I had a text message from Pete Fleszar! He knew where we were going, and had headed to the end of the hike and started hiking our way. He said he was going to wait for us at the next view, known as Little Vista, and had “refreshments” for us.
Little VIsta
I pushed ahead, and reached Little Vista pretty soon. Pete was sitting there, and he had a pack of some good IPAs for us! I had one, as did Jenny, and I think Kirk.
Sauccer's Stone Pile
Jenny usually doesn’t drink anything like that, but she said she thought it made her able to do the rocks more lightly!
Before Little Vista, the rocks had gotten a bit tougher, and moved a bit under the treadway when stepped on, which meant having to be a bit more careful. After Little Vista, the treadway was incredibly well maintained and developed. Stone steps were everywhere, and flattened rocks were sat all over the place. This was an absolute pleasure to walk!
More nice stone work
The next view was the Window View, or on the maps, “Willie’s Window”, and there was a rock outcropping known as The Wall. The stone steps and treadway continued to be incredible.
The next view from this might actually have been my favorite of the entire hike. It is a huge talus slope known as Suasser’s Stone Pile, although the sign simply read “Sausser’s Pile”, and Pete made sure to correct that because the guy it was named for was apparently pissed about it.
The view as great, and the treadway was leveled so nicely despite the fact that it was a giant talus slope, I was thoroughly impressed.
Sauccer's Stone Pile with good treadway
We continued from here along the ridge, up and down over more piles and with more stone steps and treadway, and then reached a side trail to the hawk watch overlook to the left.
View at Sauccer's Stone Pile
I was the only one that went up to it I think. It was starting to get dark, and we wanted to try to get out of the woods. I am planning to return to this spot on the next hike in this series anyway, as an out and back at the start, so I wasn’t too concerned at this point.
It wasn’t much longer, and we emerged at the hairpin bend in Allensville Road to finish the hike. I got to my van and got it started right away and then hurried down to pick Jen up at the base of the mountain.
She had stopped to tie her shoes and her phone had fallen out somewhere in a short stretch of road, and we looked for it for a bit, but then the van started overheating again.
The amount of stone work below my mind
I had to hurry back to at least Allensville Road or it was going to be a big problem. Something inside was clogged, and it was blowing off what looked like rusty sulfur mine seepage.
Hawk Watch
We waited at the bend in the road for Dan to make his way back out. He was last in line noit because his legs hurt, but because his shoes were rubbing his feet terribly to the point of blistering.
We decided we were going to try to get something to eat down in Lewistown, and Pete knew the places pretty well. I was a bit concerned about the van being able to make it, but maybe it would be okay because we only had to go downhill to the main road.
It kept overheating along the way, and I had to keep stopping and opening up the radiator. I couldn’t get it to remain cool to keep going, and took several breaks before getting to the restaurant.
Stone work
Dan insisted that I do not try to drive it home over near the Sheetz. He said he would come back with his trailer the next day, get it on there, and then bring it back.
I was beyond stressed about it. I didn’t want anyone to be stuck with this burden but me. I figured I would call my AAA Plus and I would get it towed out of there and have to pay some cost for it being over one hundred miles.
The others wouldn’t give up arguing it, and so I finally agreed. I didn’t want to eat. I was way too stressed. Everyone else went out to dinner, and Jen brought me back a cheesesteak, although I couldn’t eat it yet. I just wasn’t feeling up to it.
Hawk Watch view
I layed down in the driver's seat of the van and tried to get a nap, but it really wasn’t working.
Fortunately, John had just barely enough seats that he could cram all of us in and get us home.
It was not the most comfortable ride, but I couldn’t have been stuck in there with a group of better sports about it, joking about it the entire way.
John took everyone back to their own carpool spots, and then took me all the way back to my house. He didn’t end up getting home until about 4 am!
My car on Dan's trailer...
Dan drove over three hours back home, and then three hours back to get my van. He then drove three more hours to Kirk’s house in Easton, and the two of them changed out my radiator and flushed the fluids.
Kirk and Dan. Working on my car in Easton
They had the work done, and Dan brought the car right back to me later that night. He refused to take any payment, and just said “Just keep doing what you’re doing”.
I didn’t know what to say. There’s no “thank you” big enough for it I feel.
I’d also had some rough tires, and a slow leak in one of them. I was blown away again when Serious Sean texted me “We’re chipping in for new tires for the van”.
Then, when I took the van to my awesome regular mechanic, Dan, and I got the bill, I had an oil change and I didn’t see a charge for it.
Car work getting done in Easton by Kirk and Dan
I never ask for anything, and I feel like the company I get from such a great, interesting, eclectic group of people has been payment enough for me. Still, they have been beyond generous, and I feel beyond indebted. At the very least, I will keep the hikes going, and I’ll try to keep some extra good beers in my pack for them (Kirk already made off with one of the best ones LOL!).
These are truly the best of people.
HAM
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