Hike #1447: 10/23/21 Tuscarora Trail; Spring Run to Cowans Gap State Park with Jennifer Tull, Professor John DiFiore, Dr. Mike Krejsa, Diane Reider, Rick ?, and Pete Fleszar
This next one would be the fifth in our series to hike the entire Tuscarora Trail, the would be replacement for the Appalachian Trail if the National Trails System Act had not been passed in 1968.
The AT route was protected, and the public lands pieced together for an alternate route to the west eventually materialized as the Tuscarora Trail to the south and Big Blue Trail to the north. They were both consolidated under one name, Tuscarora Trail, later.
The trail had been much more difficult than the Appalachian Trail, with more weeds, rougher terrain, and much wilder. It was far in the middle of nowhere much of the time, which has its pros and cons.
This particular hike would be quite a departure from the previous ones, and it would be welcome. It ended up being a far more interesting hike and added some much needed diversity to the trail.
The section would end up being far easier than the previous sections also because of its use of woods roads and back roads. It made it go by quite a bit quicker.
We met at Cowan's Gap State Park where we met newcomer Rick. He lives in the area and regularly goes on perimeter walks around the lake.
We shuttled toward the start, and along the way we decided to take a side trip and check out the historic Carrick Furnace along the highway, built in 1828. I didn't have any plans of ever hiking down through the valley, and so since this would never be a part of any of the hikes, we pulled of to check it out.
It was very cool and kept in reasonably good condition. Some of the infrastructure on site is no longer found at many other old iron furnace sites.
From there, we would head to the starting point, the weird pull off parking next to a former quarry area just south of Spring Run PA. The odd spot next to a house has no signs or anything denoting the trail, and all there is to go by are the blue markers on utility poles.
The trail goes south on Spring Run Road for just a short distance, which is a busier road with a double yellow line in it. It then turns to the right on Shearer Road, which has no lines and is quite pleasant.
We headed past a pretty farm and cultivated fields, as well as fields full of cattle that started at us as we walked on by. We then crossed the Dry Run on a bridge, where the road turned left. In this area, the Dry Run has its confluence with the West Branch of the Conococheague Creek, which the road begins to parallel.
Once across, we had a pretty clear view out across the farm lands of the Tuscarora Ridge, which we would soon be climbing, although much further south than the points we were looking at.
The road passed by some handsome stone homesteads that date back probably to the early 1800s.
Knob Mountain, which we had walked along on the previous hike, was often visible behind us and at different angles.
The road turned to the right away from the creek, and we soon passed by a handsome old brick farm house on the left. We continued from here out to Path Valley Road where the trail turns right.
This might be one of the only places that the Tuscarora Trail actually follows a route that was followed by the Tuscarora tribe of native Americans. I believe they called it the Seven Nations, when they were forcibly moved from these areas in the "Trail of Tears" north to Canada. Path Valley was the path followed by the tribes when they were being moved from their home lands.
My favorite trails are always the ones that do all sorts of oddball things, and the first time I planned on doing this trail several years ago, backpacking with Jillane, I had read in detail into the descriptions and how to go about it.
I was definitely not prepared to do it with her, and in retrospect much of the group would not have wanted to do it that way either.
However, in these descriptions were this wonderful little tidbits that I'd liked, where it says to go through a private farm, past natural gas tanks, and then past "the farm of Samuel Stoltzfus; he is Amish and very friendly". The fact that the trail guide put such detail into it meant that I almost expected to see Mr. Stoltzfus coming out from his home to greet the occasional hiker.
We were at this point coming up on that very section. The trail turned hard left from the highway around the back of natural gas tanks just like in the description (my guide is from 1997 but still pretty up to date with what is out there), and then left on a farm lane.
A lovely field was to the left, followed by barns and then a beautifully manicured home area which must have been the Stoltzfus farm.
The trail followed a long farm lane out through wide open fields. It was a good thing it was overcast or it might have been too bright and hot. It also wasn't raining so it provided for the perfect ambiance through this area.
The trail turned left on Mountain Green Road to the west. To the right, just into the woods, there was an old stone structure that might have been a lime kiln, but it looked more consistent with the construction of iron furnaces than of a lime kiln. We know from seeing the Carrick Furnace earlier that the iron industry was active in the Path Valley, so it could very well have been one, but there were no signs.
The road continued to gain elevation with some really nice views to the south along the way. It then entered more wooded area and passed some more interesting places including an old log cabin on the right and other historic homes.
We passed an old church building on the right, and continued out to an intersection where we turned right again, on a spur of Mountain Green Road up to the north. At this intersection, there appeared to be yet another church building, now private residence, on the corner. It might have been a school house except it had tall windows. We continued up the road from near the settlement of Willow Hill.
The road became unpaved after passing several homes, and then started climbing the Tuscarora Ridge gradually. On the way up, we passed by an old house, owned by the Mountain Green Hunting Club. There was a bit of a view in the mowed area in front of the house, looking back down in the direction of the dirt road.
We continued to climb, and Dr Mike and I made it to the top pretty quickly. Once we were near the top, there was a power line crossing that afforded us good views to the east.
The trail stayed on the road going up, and we could see a jeep or some vehicle on top where the road weaves back to the north. The Tuscarora Trail wouldn't go that far. We continued to the point where the road reaches the crest of the ridge and continues along it north, and the trail went up a set of stone steps on a foot path heading south.
This turned into another very rough ridge section similar to the previous sections of the trail. We had to watch our footing very well as not to both slip and trip.
There were several really nice views along the way, and while we were on this desolate section of ridge, we came upon none other than Pete Fleszar yet again, who brought for us some Troegs Nimble Giant Double IPA, which was quite a welcome pick me up.
The trail entered Buchanan State Forest at a rock property corner, and we continued over rocks to a communication tower, which at one time was home to a fire tower.
That is now gone unfortunately. We made our way on and through more very rocky terrain, up and down. There were more views along the way, but none so good than from a high point where we could see to the north and east including the PA Turnpike where it exits from the Tuscarora Tunnel.
We stopped and took a great break here, and the view got clearer the longer we hung out. The sky got clearer as we continued, and so the views got better. We skirted some serious talus slopes that offered great views both to the east and the west.
The trail was much clearer after this overlook, which was apparently quite a popular one. We followed the trail from here out to Fannettsburg Pike, and there was a sign reading "Metal Township". I wished I could have gotten a shot of Serious Sean with his electric guitar here!
The trail continued almost directly across at this sharp bend in the road, and then descended to the right for a bit on a foot path.
Everything got pretty easy again after this point. The trail reached an old forest road in Buchanan State Forest, and turned left, near a gate that goes back out to Fannettsburg Road. It was a long and gradual descent from there down the Tuscarora Ridge.
After a while heading down hill, the trail turned right off of the road and onto an abandoned power line clearing for a bit. It was barely recognizable as such, and I wouldn't have known if it weren't for the guide saying so.
We reached another woods road, and then continued for a bit, to Burd Run Shelter, which was off the trail slightly to the left. We all went up to it to check it out. It was quite a nice, more modern one with an extended porch on the front.
From here, the Tuscarora Trail followed the Allen Trail, and eventually turned to the north to cross the South Branch of the Little Aughwick Creek on a foot bridge. As we started heading up from the bridge on the other side, the trail crossed a very nice old mill race. I'm not sure what kind of mill or whatever it was in this area, but it would be nice to see some ruins.
Pretty soon, after a little ascent, the Tuscarora Trail crossed over Aughwick Road, and then ascended to reach the old Forbes Road where it turned left.
The old road was built by John Forbes during the French and Indian War from Carlisle to Pittsburgh as a supply line for British soldiers trying to capture Fort Duquesne.
We passed another hunting camp building on the right, and continued to gain a little more elevation as we continued to the west.
This home stretch was pretty easy except at some point it left the old Forbes Road, which I assume got washed out by the creek, and it climbed up a steep slope for a bit. It then went to creek side as a foot path and made its way out to the Cowans Lake Dam, and the southern terminus of the Standing Stone Trail where we had been a little while before.
We turned left over the foot bridge across the causeway to the lake, and then continued along the top of the dam to the east.
The fall foliage looked awesome along Cowans Lake, the 1930s CCC built lake and park we had passed through on the final Standing Stone Trail hike. We were getting done pretty early, and so John and I went and checked out the views of the lake and the concession area.
It seemed hard to believe, but at this point there were only two hikes remaining to complete the north half of the Tuscarora Trail, where it hits the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. That was the only part I was planning strongly on finishing for the time being, because it is one of the trails that connects to the 911 Memorial Trail internally.
There's still so much more stuff I could do just out of Cowan's Gap, but that would have to wait till another time and another series. The mission would have to continue first.
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