Hike #393; State Game Lands 106/Hawk Mountain Loop

 Hike #393 1/4/9

1/4/9 State Game Lands 106/Hawk Mountain Loop with Jillane Becker, Shelly Janes, Kyle Zalinsky, Amanda Rosenblatt, "Amish Paul" and Wyatt Hassler, and Eric Pace

Group shot at Hawk Mountain

Atop Hawk Mountain

Atop Blue Mt.

Near Hawk Mountain

Pointing out scars

Atop Hawk Mt.

Atop Hawk Mountain

Hawk Mt.

Hawk Mt.

Hawk Mt.

Skyline Trail, Hawk Mt.

View on Skyline Trail

Skyline Trail, Hawk Mt.

Skyline Trail, Hawk Mt.

Skyline Trail, Hawk Mt.

Skyline Trail, Hawk Mt.

Skyline Trail, Hawk Mt.

Skyline Trail from Hawk Mountain

Skyline Trail

Skyline Trail, Hawk Mt.

Skyline Trail, Hawk Mt.

Skyline Trail

Skyline Trail, Hawk Mt. Under the root...

Skyline Trail, Hawk Mt.

Skyline Trail, Hawk Mt.

Skyline Trail, Hawk Mt.

Skyline Trail

Skyline Trail

Skyline Trail, Hawk Mt.

Along Skyline Trail, Hawk Mt.

love. At Dan's Pulpit on the AT.

Just off the AT near Hawk Mt, Dan's Pulpit

AT on Blue Mt.

Along the AT on Blue Mt.

Descending from the secondary ridge from Blue Mt.

Along Pine Valley Road

Former LV rail bed

Old LV creek crossing

Former LV rail bed

Former LV rail bridge site

Along the tracks at one of the bridges the rail line takes over Little Schuykill River near Drehersville

Amanda was dead

Unfortunitely the original journal entry for this one was also lost to the fire...if anyone has a copy please let me know!

This hike was the next one in the continueing series of the Appalachian Trail and it's sorrounding trails heading west/south. We met for this loop in a State Game Lands parking area just north of Schuykill Gap, I think it was off of Rockland Drive. Jillane's long time friend Amanda joined us for this one, and she'd soon become a core group member.

We began by ascending through state game lands on an old woods road heading up onto this weird plateued section of Blue Mountain. We crossed a stream on the way up gradually, and then reached a large area that had been recently logged. I recall wrestling with Wyatt a bit which was standard practice when he was present.

 

We made a right turn on another woods road which skirted the edge of this part of Blue Mountain and offered views to the valley that is sort of hidden by the two pieces of the ridge. The woods road we used took us down hill a bit and into the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. There were some odd restrooms with strange illustrations on them and a cool hawk statue we used for our group shot.

Since there is a fee to get into Hawk Mountain, we sort of sneaked by the buildings and bushwhacked shortly to the trail across Hawk Mountain Road. It wasn't far before we reached a fantastic view directly into the valley toward the River of Rocks.

 

From here, we made our way along the trails to the north staying at the height of the land. We checked out one side trail and Wyatt walked up the hand rail. It led to some open area that had some significance but I can't remember what. There was no view or anything. We continued on to the Skyline Trail one of the coolest trails I'd been on along the entire Blue Mountain in this series of hikes so far. There was even a sign warning about the difficulty of this particular trail.

We began descend, and it was incredibly steep with huge rocks. It took a long time, but we got through it. Even Eric Pace didn't have too much trouble navigating them all. We continued on and the trail hit the Appalachian Trail. Where the AT turned right through the valley toward Eckville, we continued ahead on it to a nice view point (I think it might have been Dan's Pulpit?).

 

We took a really long break, and I think some of the group even took naps. It was a great place to be.

 

From here, we continued ahead to the spot where I'd last left off with the connecting hikes. We took the same route I took before down the mountain, on an old woods road leading down to Indian Run Road I think it was, a driveway off of it actually. Where the driveway hit the road we turned left briefly, then bushwhacked up hill next to an abandoned house over a secondary ridge. Eric Pace fell behind and I had him take a shortcut, turn left on Indian Run and continue to meet us later.

When we got to the top of the hill, at a big field, I was amazed at how fast Jillane did it, and it made me more and more attracted to her.

Once everyone was there, we cut across the field pretty directly and then reached a wooded section. We followed an old woods road down to Pine Valley Road. The rail bed was just a bit further north so we had to turn left and follow the road to get to the next section of it.

 

We stopped along the road section to goof off on swing sets, and soon the rail bed crossed the road. We started following it on a really nice section with black cinder dirt, with a pond parallel with us to the right. Just beyond we closely paralleled Fox Run Road. At the next road crossing we continued parallel to Indian Run Road, which came in from our left. We had to get off of it by the time we reached the intersection with Wild Turkey Lane. Eric rejoined us here, to my great surprise he had hitch hiked with a guy in a pickup truck. It was weird seeing him jump out of a truck to rejoin us. We walked along the road heading west to Mill Mountain Road and turned left on the active railroad tracks. We continued south and stopped to say hi to a guy walking his dogs.

We followed the tracks to the crossing with the Little Schuykill River and turned off of it. Kyle, Wyatt, Jillane, and I waited here for the rest of the group to catch up for a bit, a really nice spot. Amanda was dead tired and laying down a lot.

We followed the little road Sawmill Lane southbound until it joined Hawk Mountain Road, where we turned left then right onto Rockland back to the cars. It was well after dark, but we were in high spirits.

We went to dinner at Pizza Hut in Hamburg before heading out.