Hike #1501; Mason-Dixon Trail; Wrightsville to Brogue

Hike #1501; 8/21/22 Wrightsville to Apollo County Park with Evan "Joe Millionaire" Van Rossum, Jenny Tull, Diane Reider, David Adams, and Dan Trump

This next hike would be a point to point, the fifth in our Mason-Dixon Trail series we started from the western terminus. 

Wrightsville was where the PA Highlands Trail system breaks away from the Mason-Dixon Trail, and I’d work on both simultaneously going forward, doing whichever is more seasonally appropriate once per month.

This one would end up being the most difficult hike of the year, but also one of the most beautiful and diverse.

I had already done most of this section once before, so aside from the reroutes, it was not really new to me. Still, a lot of it felt new. It was really a beautiful route, and the Mason-Dixon Trail is one of my all time favorite trails, so I really don’t mind doing it again.

I never worked much of these sections into long distance day hikes because I had done all but one section of the trail from here to Perryville MD as backpacking trips with Jillane. I never had to figure out parking and how these things would work until this time.

I followed the mileage calculator on the official Mason-Dixon Trail website, and figured out that we could do from Wrightsville down to an area known as Brogue, where Brogue Road comes close to the Apollo County Park. I remembered a lot of this section was particularly beautiful.

We met at the end point, and Brogue Road was really middle of nowhere. There was a private home down on the end of this dirt road where a spur trail came from the Mason-Dixon Trail to the lot. No one else besides our group was parked there.

We shuttled in John’s car up north to Wrightsville, and used a pull off parking near where we left off the previous hike, just above the park along the Susquehanna River and site of Lock 1 on the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal.

One of the big treats on this hike was the return of a great old friend “Joe Millionaire”, or rather Evan Van Rossum. I’d known him for about twenty years, when he first started coming on the hikes through my brother because he had been lifting weights with him.

He had disappeared from the hikes and from everyone’s life all of a sudden in I think early 2011, and no one knew where he went. He actually did this often, where he’d disappear for a year, then be back out with us every week, then disappear again, but this time he disappeared for years and it was very strange. I finally saw him again at Scotty’s Stadium Pub when we had the annual hikers’ hootenanny there back around 2016 or so, but then I didn’t see him again for a couple more years.
I was out grocery shopping with my son one day more recently, and ran into him in the store. 

We ended up chatting for a bit, and he said he’d like to come back out again because he’d been getting out of shape during all of the pandemic times. I scooped him up again like I had so many times years earlier, and the drive to the hike was like no time went by at all.

Another big thing going at this time was that it was Jenny's last hike before retirement. We wouldn't be seeing as much of her from this point because she was planning to do some very serious backpacking trips starting with Vermont's Long Trail just after this, and starting in early 2023, she would set out to do the entire Appalachian Trail.

We headed down the slope from the road at the start, toward the former Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal. This section was officially the route of the Mason-Dixon Trail now. 

When I hiked through the first time, backpacking with Jillane, the trail was on the road up above, but I still went down and walked the towpath some of the way. Now it had been moved.

The road we started on above was the original right of way of the Northern Central Railroad, and it crossed over the Susquehanna on the old Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge. I didn’t notice right away, but the road is pretty flat.

We weaved around some mowed trails and made our way around to the canal towpath. We began with a little out and back walk to the remnants of Lock 1. There was a little bit of wall stone work left of it we could climb up onto. It seemed like some bits of it had collapsed more since the last time I was there.
Joe Millionaire headed out to use the restroom and missed this first bit, but he’d meet us on the towpath just ahead.

There were great views to the left of the old 1930 Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge, or Veterans Memorial Bridge. 

This area had been an historic crossing of the Susquehanna since the completion of the first covered bridge in 1814. Actually, the location we were walking was around the location of that original bridge, but we didn’t see any kind of remnant. The original bridge was downstream of the current bridge. That one was replaced by the second covered bridge, which was just barely upstream of the current bridge. It has a very interesting history of having been a railroad and road bridge, and then was replaced after it burned by an iron truss structure on the same piers until the current bridge was built, and then it was demolished. 

It was once the longest covered bridge in the world.
We continued along the towpath with more views of the bridge, from the boat launch area and other vantage points.

The Mason-Dixon Trail followed the towpath for much farther than I had followed it. It continued on the natural surface past the Maple Street boat launch and continued. Dan wanted to go up to the street level to show us where the NCR line broke away from the road because there is apparently still a cut that a trailer park is built on, but I was already very concerned about us being able to finish the hike at a reasonable hour. It turns out it was a good thing I was somewhat careful about this.

After a little washout spot, the canal towpath became a paved trail for a bit, which was a surprise.
We eventually came to parking at Lemon Street, and the trail turned right up there.

We turned left on Water Street and passed an old brick building, then turned to the right on Willow Street to reach Front Street, and back to the old Mason-Dixon Trail route again.

We continued south on the road, and passed a quarry, near the crossing of the Kreutz Creek.

Just a bit from here, the trail turned left briefly on Lockwood Road, and then cut into the woods to the right, into the Wilton Meadows Nature Preserve.

A sign read that it was 19.8 miles to Urey Overlook, which was very doable from where we were. 

It was only 16 miles to Apollo Shelter, which was beyond where we were going, and that was very very doable. I felt pretty good about the hike at this point.

Immediately, the trail passed through a very big stand of Pawpaw trees.
I had never eaten a Pawpaw before, and it was just a bit too early in the season to have any. They are the largest edible fruit native to North America, save for the goard, which is considered a vegetable when served, but a fruit as far as naturalists are concerned.

I realized we were probably on this hike just a bit too early, but hoped that the next section of the trail would have as many of them. There were really tons of them all through this entire day.

There were some side trails off of this through this preserve, but I didn't come up with a way to incorporate them into the hike. I looked mostly at just doing Mason-Dixon Trail this time. I could probably do another hike that would have some different routes and include some other stuff, but I'm holding off on that for a little while.

The trail meandered a bit, and descended to a small creek. I had thought the area might have been rerouted from when I last walked it because of how strange it was, but it was the same. The trail crossed beneath Rt 624 through a large concrete culvert that a stream flows through in Murphy’s Hollow. It’s pretty much possible to go through without getting the feet wet because it’s so shallow, but it is definitely an oddball spot.

We climbed up from the creek on the other side, and started doing some switchbacks through more stands of Pawpaws. 

Eventually, at the height of the land, we continued to the south along a very well mowed trail. We weaved around until we eventually came out on a private driveway. 

The trail turned left and went right through a gate. I think Dan mentioned that this had been a nudist colony or something at some point. We continued straight across from this access road, known as Plateau Road, across Hilt Road, and directly into a line of trees where we continued climbing.
Pretty soon, we emerged into a very large field, and the trail followed a mowed path as it ascended.

We weave around this giant hill, crossed a paved trail, and weaved some more until we reached the High Point Recreation Area.

This area really isn’t the highest point in the area. It is just a high elevation point where there are good views. It’s not the highest point on the Mason-Dixon Trail, but it is definitely a cool one.

Back to the northwest, we could see the old Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge, as well as the newer Rt 30 bridge. To the east, we could see the hillsides and lovely fields and estates on the slopes above the Susquehanna. To the west we could see more of the same, but to the south we could see the Clarke Lake section of the Susquehanna which was stunningly beautiful.
The clouds played along perfectly with our already wonderful ambiance, with Cumulous superimposed on a backdrop of Stratus clouds, all over light blue sky.

There was a giant circle at the top of the high point with twisting paved path to the middle where there was a giant compass built into the pavement for each direction. 

This top area reminded me of the scene at the start of the Yellow Brick Road in the Wizard of Oz. It was kind of like starting on a journey.

We had a nice break and got our group shot from the top. There was a sign that read that it was 58 miles to the western terminus of the trail at Whiskey Springs, and 135 miles to the eastern terminus at Chadd's Ford PA. I doubt this is totally accurate any more, because the trail is now over 200 miles long I understand, with the little reroutes in place. It will likely get longer with added reroutes.

When the trail was first laid out by Mr. Yost way back, it was the Brandywine-Susquehanna Trail, and just went between those two rivers, but then was extended and renamed.

While there, we were talking about some of the past hikes, and how Joe Millionaire was there when I started the Brandywine Trail series, which tied into the Mason-Dixon Trail right after the last hike he’d done with me on it.
He made a comment about my cars when it came up, and said “Oh I have to drive over 50 mph for the Rain-X to work”.
I laughed hysterically. I’d forgotten all about that.
My ’86 Camaro had bad windshield wipers, and in order for the Rain-X I applied on the windows to work properly, I had to be traveling over 50! The water wouldn’t bead up and roll off otherwise! I forgot about all of that ghetto stuff about my cars from the past, but he remembered, which was great.

This led to more conversation about his cars, and how he nearly ripped the heat shields off of the undercarriage trying to jump an ATV trail in Centralia PA. 

I was able to immediately produce the videos of him running his car up abandoned Rt 61 there, which was great.

From here on, there was a whole of reminiscing about some of those past trips and how much fun we’d had.

The trail continued down from the compass area along a fence line, and then out to Knight’s View Road. The trail went straight across this road and onto Trinity Church Road heading to the south. This was a very pleasant back road with barely any traffic and some really splendid views of the surrounding area.

I made a mistake pretty early on here. We turned right on another road which I understand is also a branch of Trinity Church Road, because I wanted to take a side trip to the Moon Dancer Winery for lunch. 

I was having such good conversation with Joe Millionaire that I didn’t realize we had gone right down the wrong road so far that it would an entire extra mile to the hike. We did pass the DiFrancesco Meadery, but unfortunately that was not open this time or we would have just hit them both!
We had to head back out and then turn right on Trinity Church Road to continue on.

As we walked down the road, there was an old cemetery on the right side. 

I don’t remember passing this when I walked by before. It might be that I just forgot, but I think with the amount of photos I was taking at the time that I would have photographed it and I did not. 

I think the cemetery must have been overgrown at the time of my first walk through there. There was a house below and near it, which might be new and built since the last time I hiked through.

We continued very slightly downhill along the road, and there was a handsome stone homestead on the left side. When I walked through with Jillane, this old farm house was apparently vacant. It still looked to be in reasonably good repair even at that time, but this time it was much better manicured with all of the vegetation from around it cut.

We continued a little further down the road, and pretty soon came to an old church or school building on the right.  

Wasn’t sure if it was the Trinity Church itself, or if it was a school house. To me, it now looked like it was a school house. It’s hard to say really. It did have the tall windows a church might have. If this was a school, I wondered if the Trinity Church was further uphill at the cemetery site.
I laid my guessing to rest by looking at the 1876 Atlas of York County that confirmed that, at least at the time, it was an Evangelical Church. Was it the “trinity church” for which the road was named, I would say probably, but can’t be sure there.

When I had walked through with Jillane years earlier, this church building stood sadly abandoned with the tall windows boarded up. 

I wouldn’t have expected that it would be brought back to anything, but this time it was in great shape, with new windows, redone roof, and a bench out back as a private residence. I was quite happy to see it in the splendid condition it was in.
I had saved several of the shots I’d taken of the old building the last time I was out there and did some modern comparisons of them.

At this intersection, the actual side trip we had to make was to the right on Kline’s Run Road. 

Moon Dancer Winery was up a driveway to the left just a short distance ahead. The climb was a bit taxing, but not too terrible.

The grounds of the place were great. We went inside and were able to sample several of the wines to see which ones we’d want to get.

The stuff all looked really good, and so I think I got two bottles of the different berry flavored stuff which was quite tasty. The first one, which read Moon Dog Cellars on it, was Bogie’s Strawberry, and the second said Murphy’s Blueberry.

They also had pizza for sale that I thought was a bit too pricey for what it was. I decided I was going to wait for everyone else to get their food before I finally decided to order something. It was okay sized, and after watching everyone else eat for a bit, I decided to go back and get something myself. 

I figured we weren’t going to pass anything for the rest of the day anyway.

The place had a very splendid view out over the Susquehanna River valley from the deck, which was really nice. I actually wouldn’t mind going back to this place a gain. It’ll probably be one of the codas to this series on the Mason-Dixon, whenever we finish it, and go back to do some of the side trails we hadn’t done.

We headed back down the driveway and past the old church, and then turned right on Klines Run Road to continue. 

The trail follows the road from here through some more pleasant farm land for just a bit further, toward an old house and barn on the left.

Near the houses, the trail turned as a foot path abruptly to the right into a line of trees, which looked to be Cottonwoods with a lot of English Ivy growing up them.
The trail stayed above a driveway on the right, and then cut more into the woods to the left where it weaved around and entered the lands of Kline’s Run Park.

After the height of the land, we began to descend toward Kline’s Run itself. 

On this descent, we passed by a Tree of Heaven, (highly invasive Ailanthus altissima, an Asian species of tree that releases a chemical into the ground that inhibits the growth of other native plants around it, similar looking to Sumac or Walnut leaves), and it was completely inundated with Spotted Lanternflies.
This was probably the worst example of lanternfly infestation I had seen yet this year. They had been really bad the end of 2020, and not as bad the end of 2021. 

This, as I understand and from talking to friends heavily into birding and insects, is because birds and other predators have begun to recognize the lanternfly as a food source, and they did not initially.

At this point, I do see them on certain trees such as Black Maple, and it is devastating them badly, but other than that it is mostly on the invasive Ailanthus, so they are kind of killing them off. I’m hoping they continue to be seen as a food source and it might help out some of our other more threatened species. It’s amazing how nature tends to correct itself in different ways.
This particular tree had the black staining on the bark that happens as a result of their secretions. At the base of the tree, it gets to be like disgusting suds.

We continued past a few more Ailanthus with the lanternflies on them, and then came out to a nice mowed area along the Klines Run and turned left. 

The trail continued through the grass to a foot bridge over the stream, crossed, and then climbed rather steeply up into the picnic grounds of Klines Run Park.
This was a really odd area because the trail goes right through open grass and we had to watch really closely for which trees had the blazes on them.
We descended a bit more through grass after a spot where we had views out to the Susquehanna, and then ascended again through another section of woods heading south.

2014

2022

Pretty soon, we emerged in the wide open fields of the Native Lands Park.

The trail goes right through the middle of these fields and has occasional posts to mark the way. It was a lot different the last time I was there because it was just a mowed path through the middle. This time, the entire fields had just recently been mowed off, probably for animal feed, and we had to kind of watch for where the treadway was supposed to be.

There are a lot of huge mansions and really beautiful private properties within view of the Native Lands Park fields.
I brought up to everyone again how this trail constantly changes from mile to mile, and that by this time they should be able to see why I loved it so much. 

2014

2022

We had already been on the canal, on back roads, in deep woods foot path, and mowed trail.

We continued to the south for a bit, and even though we were quite a ways away from it, I could see the old Dritt Family Cemetery coming into view just off the trail to the left.

There is a side trail from the official route in the fields that goes over to this plot, but rather than wait, we just made a bee line to it.
Once we got into the cemetery, I noticed that at least a few of the tomb stones had been completely replaced. It looked as though the replacement stones were not the new style marble, but rather made to look almost identical to how the stones that were originally there would have looked when they were new. One of them looked like they’d maybe done some imprints of the original stone an 3D printed the new one or something. 

It appeared like it had cracks in it, but also didn’t appear to have been cracked, and was even bleached a newish white.

Whatever the case was, they had done a pretty good job on restoring some of these stones.

We continued back to the trail from here, which remained in the wide open fields of Native Lands Preserve for a while, with some really nice rolling hilly scenery. We could see the Susquehanna River from a couple of spots closer to the south end of this preserve.

Eventually, the trail dropped down into more woods and started to descend again.

It wasn’t all that long before we emerged on Bank Hill Road. The road was so narrow that it was actually narrower than many of the rail trails we end of following along the hikes.

The road was also lined with many beautiful, giant Sycamore trees.
Most of the homes on the road were on the right, and I think there was one abandoned one on the left.
The section followed closely to the edge of the Canadochley Creek off to our right.
We continued to descend slowly on Bank Hill Road, and when we got near to the bottom, Dan spotted something really cool off to the left in someone’s back yard.
It was a very well restored trolley car. It didn’t look like it had any wheel trucks on it anymore, and it looked like it was set up on cinder blocks, but it was kept in pretty good condition. 

2014

It is situated in such a way that it is just barely out of sight from the road, except for from certain angles.

We took the chance and waddled on over to have a look at it more closely. Dan said that if someone came out to talk to us that he’d talk; he felt that if it were a fellow enthusiast that usually they would be pretty cool. No one came out and we were soon on our way again.

Bank Hill Road brought us out to Long Level Road in the little settlement of Long Level.
This area is of course named for the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal segment. Lock 1 was of course in Wrightsville where we started, and we had not even reached the part of the river where Lock 2 was yet. It was one of, if not the longest, level on the entire canal without a lock.

Originally, this settlement was the location of Cresap’s Fort. The area was settled in 1730 by Thomas Cresap on lands claimed by Lord Baltimore of Maryland. 

Cresap was forcibly evicted by Penn agents in 1736, and he moved to western Maryland where he continued with Frontier affairs until his death around 1790.

We continued walking to the right along the Long Level Road, and I watched closely along the Susquehanna to the left, the Lake Clarke section, to see remnants of the former canal.
It is actually not so far underwater as I had previously thought it was.
This time, I noticed something pretty cool when we got to the bridge over the Cabin Run.

Part of the stone work for the aqueduct that carried the canal over the Cabin Run was still in place on the upstream side along the Susquehanna.

Right after the bridge, the Mason-Dixon Trail turned hard to the right up a sort of driveway toward the woods. 

I had never walked the trail in this direction before, so anything about this section that seemed obscure I would not have experienced previously.

We could see the turn blazes, but when we got to the tree line at the back of what looked to be private property, I wasn’t seeing the way.
Eventually I think Joe Millionaire noticed it and we cut through the line of trees, along open fields that have ball fields in them to the south.

The trail was mowed nicely along the tree line, and continued as such into the woods to the west. It was definitely good to get back into the shade, and there were some more really nice big trees back there.

The trail continued closely to Cabin Run, and at one point we got pretty close to it to where we could get on the shore. At a sharp bend in the creek, there was a great little hole where we could take a dip. It was so incredibly hot at this point that everyone stopped to cool off here.

The break was very much needed, and the trail ascended from the creek right on the other side. It switched back to the left, and then reached the edge of an open field with a view toward the Susquehanna to the left. 

There was an old tractor to the left here, which might have been an old Hoyt Clagwell.

The trail continued along the top of a big slope, past an odd looking tree at a corner, and descended slightly along the tops of former meadows with some views of the Susquehanna.
We skirted another meadow area with a bit of a view, entered more woods on a slight descent, and came to a long abandoned and forgotten cemetery. The trail goes right through the middle of it, but it would be easy to just walk on through and never notice it.
I only knew this cemetery existed because the trail guide mentions that it goes through it.
I didn’t bring the trail guide with me, but I remembered to look for it.
I was watching closely, and the entire group was ahead of me; they all passed it without noticing the grave stones covered in vines and hidden in vegetation. One of them had a faded, wet American flag draped over the top of it.

It's really sad that it’s not maintained at all, but may be safer that people don’t know it’s there due to vandalism.

I stepped off of the trail and into the dense weeds to have a look at the old stones before we moved on.

The trail continued more gradually downhill from this point, and emerged at the intersection of Craley Road and Long Level Road. 

We went straight across the intersection and turned right to follow Long Level Road down along the river.

On the right, there was an odd and large stone building, which Dan explained was actually a modern pumping station made to look like it fit the ambiance of the area. The chimneys looked a little too big, but otherwise a pretty good job.
This settlement we were passing into was known as Shank’s Mare. I understand this is an old British term that meant to travel by foot.

Pretty soon, down to the left was a public park known as Lock 2 Recreation Area built over the filled in old canal. We headed down into the park to actually walk on the former canal rather than up on the road.

We could clearly see the couple of windmills on top of Turkey Hill across the Susquehanna, which power the famous Turkey Hill Dairy.
We continued along the recreation area to the large main parking lot, and right across the street from there is the Shank’s Mare Outfitters which sells stuff in its store. We decided to take another break here.
I got some kind of snack or something while we were there, but I forget what. We just really needed the break. I think I got an ice cream bar or something that I wanted but I can’t remember.

I got the sense that everyone was getting a bit burnt out by this point. It wasn’t a hard hike so far, but it was long enough.

When we were all done at the outfitter, we headed back down to the former canal route and began following that along the Susquehanna downstream again.

There were a lot of people hanging out and barbecuing along the route, and I remembered finding the top rocks of Lock 2 the last time I had been down there hiking, and I wanted to show everyone.

It just happened that there was a Spanish speaking family picnicking right on top of the spot, so it was kind of awkward. 

I tried to very quickly point out to the group that the top of the lock wall was visible basically right beneath their feet. We moved along quickly, and they seemed dumbfounded as to what I was talking about.

From here, the trail just continued on Fishing Creek Road along the Susquehanna, Long Level Road ended where Bull Road came in from the right, near a pleasant looking old Baptist church.

 Obviously, it was no longer a “long level” since we had just passed the lock.

The road ahead was a dead end and had those signs forbidding trespass, but the trail goes right through.
The road became very narrow and had no lines it it. It passed a view homes and was exposed right out on the water. It was quite a beautiful section.
There were more good views of Turkey Hill, and even some evidence of slightly shallower water where the old canal towpath would have been.

We pretty quickly reached the bridge that carried the road over the Fishing Creek, and debris was sort of stranded out at the end of that on what was probably some sort of old canal remnants because it was so much shallower.

We got across the bridge and passed the last private home, which had all sorts of signs to keep out. The old and now abandoned road continued on the other side of the Fishing Creek sort of upstream, but the Mason-Dixon Trail turned hard to the left, up some steps, and then started a steep climb up the bluffs above the Susquehanna.

This was the next really dramatic change in the trail. It went from being rather easy transitions between road and soft paths to rocky outcroppings. The climb was steep, and close to the top we reached some spots that required hand holds to navigate through.

The rock outcroppings were sometimes incredible to navigate through. When we were past most of the crazy rocks, the side hill work done on the trail was quite excellent. We maintained an easier upper area of the ridge for a bit and passed by some more glorious huge trees as we continued.

The trail started to descend eventually again, and I had kind of forgotten that we had to do that.

We came down to a large cliff rock outcropping above the confluence of a stream called the Green Branch. Dan I think said that his family used to have a cabin down on Green Branch years ago. The area has a drivable road that comes down close to the edge of the Susquehanna again, and it is literally a step back in time with hardly anything else around.

We went out to the rock outcropping for the views, and I understand people like to jump off of those cliffs into the river. 

I would not dare to do it without seeing someone else do it first because there is always so much slash wood either washed up on the Susquehanna, or washed down from the streams that flow in.

The canal had to be just below this area as well, and it would have had an aqueduct over the Green Branch as well, but at this point it must be just under the waters of the Clarke Lake.

We continued down the trail and then across concrete pilings along the edge of the creek.
We took a break here because it was a good spot to sit. I made my way down along the Green Branch where it bypasses the concrete barricades, and there was a deep enough spot to go in and cool off.

I was amazed that no one else was interested in going in again. That last section was so rough climbing up that, for me, the cool off was absolutely necessary.

From this point, the trail continued to follow the unpaved Green Branch Road along the Susquehanna downstream. It was a nice little break from the rocks from earlier.
There were more great Susquehanna River views, including back toward Turkey Hill from now a downstream angle. We passed by a house close to the edge of the river, and past a large rock face just before passing Mahala Run. There was an access to the Susquehanna to our left, and the trail turned off to begin climbing up the slopes once again.

We made our way steeply up, and then followed very nice side hill trail again near to the top.
We continued along for a while, but then another descent.
This next drop was very steeply over some rough rocks to reach Cuffs Run.
When I had backpacked this trail with Jillane, we camped at a splendid spot down along Cuffs Run that had a table built into the side of a tree and a good clear spot with just enough room for our tent. There was a deep hole to jump in to cool off as well, and a lovely little cascade.

Where the stream flows into the Susquehanna, just barely off the trail, there is a small observation blind and an incredible amount of drift wood that seems to back up into the little cove.

I would have loved to spend a little more time in these beautiful places, but at this point we were fast running out of daylight. We had to climb from Cuffs Run back up the other side, which was another very steep one.

Just short of the very top of the bluffs, we turned along a lovely vertical rock face, and then turned right to complete the climb through a giant rocky cleft. This was a cool way to reach the height of the land on this climb, if only it were the last one.

We continued along the top for a while, which was fine, and then picked up a brief section of an old abandoned road. This was once the continuation of Kohler Road, which is now a dead end road to a farm near the top. I had considered just cutting the hike short and trying to make an emergency exit out to the road, but we continued on.
Dan was still behind, but I was able to get in touch with him that he had made it past Cuffs Run. I figured he’d be okay if he made it past that point.

Unfortunately, the trail turned hard to the left from old Kohler Road and descended all the way to the water level of the Susquehanna River again. It was getting dark, and the terrain wasn’t easy.
The trail continued directly along the waterfront or a little while, but then turned hard to the right and started climbing yet again. 

This was kind of disheartening even for me. I was hoping that the climb wouldn’t be until we got to Wilson Run. By climbing, it meant that we had to go back down again at Wilson Run.

This wasn’t just a straight up climb either; it was 13 or 14 tight switchbacks going up.
I was impressed that Joe Millionaire hadn’t been out with us in years, but he blasted up these switchbacks like they were nothing.
As we kept turning up more switchbacks, I was audibly grunting. It was getting to be really very exhausting going up so much.
Dan texted me back that his phone was dying, and so I started worrying even more. On the other hand, Dan grew up in this area and knew it very well. He knew the trail and where to go, so he would slowly but surely make his way out of there. The problem was, he was not responding after a little while, and I didn’t know if he decided to stay on the trail or if he maybe might have tried to cut out at Kohler Road.

Every switchback we turned, I couldn’t believe there was another one. It was quite a relief when we finally got finished with the last one, but then still the trail continued to undulate quite a lot.

It still had rocky segments, and it was getting darker. I knew that when we did descend to Wilson Run, that it was going to be very tough going in the dark. There was still a little bit of daylight left when we started to get to that final descent.

We carefully made our way down. I remembered going up this in the daylight my first time through and how difficult it was, but going down it in the dark was worse. There was no going fast.
Dan had been having trouble with the big slopes just because he hadn’t been hiking with us in a while, but he also lost a lot of weight and was doing well with his railroad job. He could do it, but it was slow and steady. He texted me that he thought he saw a bear while in the section, and we were all getting even more worried.
Dan texted me back to go on without him because we had such a long drive home, and not to worry because he knew where he was going and he was just going to go slow and steady.

We could clearly hear Wilson Run well before we could see it. Eventually, we got back down to the stream level, and I stepped right in the water to deal with the burning of the bottoms of my feet.

I wore these Reebok shoes that I’d found at Spruce Run where I work a couple of years ago, and I’d worn holes through the bottoms of them. I dealt with the holes by taking Tastycake Apple Pie tins, putting them back in their original boxes, and shoving them into my shoes as sort of an insole. The waxed cardboard with the metal tin inside acted as a cover for the hole in the shoes that would work for a while.
The trail crossed Wilson Run on rocks not far from where we got down, and then turned right to follow the run upstream. It was rocky and rather treacherous, because it even got to one really steep spot with a bad drop to the right down to the creek. 

I couldn’t see well, and I relied on Jenny’s light just ahead of me to keep on moving. Usually I have good night vision, but this was getting to be a bad spot. I also pulled my glasses back out which helped a lot.

When we reached a spot in the creek that was just barely deep enough to get my entire body in, I laid right down in it. I had already taken my shirt off earlier because of how badly I was sweating this time, so I was ready to just take the plunge. It felt way better, but we were still exhausted.

We continued up along the creek for a ways, and I think at some point the trail turned left along a smaller tributary to the Wilson Run. I’m not sure because it was so dark at this point. However, the treadway did get a bit easier despite the fact that we were once again climbing uphill.

The question came up whether we should try waiting for Dan a bit, but I didn’t know if he’d have made the turn onto a shortcut out or not. I figured the best thing for the time being would be to get to the cars, for one just in case someone showed up like police or something and they didn’t unnecessarily send for search and rescue, or in case maybe Dan ended up back there already from a shortcut to a road.

We could also then take turns down the roads to get to him.

We pushed upward for a while longer when the trail got a bit wider, and soon came to an intersection where the Mason-Dixon Trail turned left and continued up, and the side trail to the right headed toward the parking area where we’d met in the morning.

The trail was a woods road, and much more comfortable to walk. I felt an immediate relief when we stepped onto it and started traveling in that direction. Still, when I looked at my phone GPS, it looked like we had a ways to go, farther than I had thought we would anyway.
The woods road went down a bit, and then we had to go back up. The trail turned away from the woods road and ascended a bit over rocks, and I was again feeling disheartened. By the time this came about though, we were much closer to the cars.
We came over the top of a knoll, and we could see the faint lights of the house close to the parking area. What a relief!

We descended and climbed over a fallen tree to reach the parking area. I went to my car and laid my body down across the hood with relief. It wasn’t long before all of us were back together in the parking lot.

We began discussing then what we should do about Dan. We had very bad service through the entire end of this hike. Some of the group had no service, but I had a couple of bars.

I knew that the only road Dan could have been on was Kohler Road, if he indeed tried to make his way out another way. He indicated that he had made it past Cuffs Run, so that would be the only reasonable way out.

We decided we would hop in the cars and drive around to Kohler Road.
It was a ways back out on the road to Furnace Road, and then down the next right on Kohler. We drove out in two cars to look around, and made it all the way to the bend near the end where the abandoned road would have continued along the fields. 

We didn’t see anyone on the road, and hadn’t had a response from Dan in a while. 

He wouldn’t have gone out another road, and I don’t think he would dare to go back if he’d already crossed Cuff Run. I logically assumed the only way he was going to go would be the planned route.
I figured we’d just have to start on our way, and really he shouldn’t be all that far behind us. We had waited at the lot for a while, plus the side trips took even more. It was after 9 at night, so he couldn’t be all that far.

Joe Millionaire and I headed home, Diane and Dave went back to the parking lot where we finished just to see if Dan had made it back, and then went back to Kohler Road one more time just in case, and Dan was nowhere to be found.

Fortunately, soon after that, I got a text from Dan that he had made it safely back to his vehicle. He was probably about an hour behind the rest of us, which was late because I think we finished at like 9:30.
I think our hike had come to about 21 miles, and we had done four thousand feet of elevation gain! That’s like a day in the Adirondacks! 

This ended up being the most difficult hike of the entire year, but also one of the most diverse and interesting. I was quite glad to have gotten it out of the way, and even happier to have reconnected with Joe Millionaire. 
Amazingly, I was able to drive home without falling asleep at the wheel.