Hike #448 10/11/9
10/11/9 French Creek/Saint Peters/Warwick loop with Jillane Becker, Chris Jones, Amanda Rosenblatt, "Amish Paul" and Wyatt Hassler, Jim "Mr. Buckett" Mathews, Kyle Zalinsky, "DJ Ray" Cordts, "Major Tom" Conroy, and Eric Pace
Starting out; French Creek SP in our Mumus!
This hike had so much potential to be outstanding, but everyone got tired really early on and the mood was tainted by Kyle having emotional outbursts. I tried to console him, but he was beyond any help I could give him on this occasion. There were a lot of cool aspects of this hike that would have been so much better if it weren't for the sudden drop in morale among the group...there was the antique pinball arcade, old rail trestle, cool cemetary, all of which would have been fun if only we could have had a bit more group appreciation.
Regardless, the beginning of this hike was great, and I focus on that. I hate it when other people have drama in their lives I can't help them with, but I'm just glad I could say Jillane and I were doing just fine.
Me in a mumu
My next hike would cover the next portion of the Horseshoe Trail between where we'd last left off at Warwick County Park and French Creek State Park in PA. I arranged a loop that would begin in French Creek and head south to use other trails returning north. Joining me this time were my girlfriend Jillane Becker, Chris Jones, "Amish Paul" and Wyatt Hassler, Jim "Mr. Buckett" Mathews, "DJ Ray" Cordts, "Major Tom" Conroy, Eric Pace, and Amanda Rosenblatt. This time, I decided to try for another theme hike; Muumuus. I encouraged everyone to wear some sort of muumuu for the hike, but unfortunitely the only ones to show up with them were Jillane, Amanda, DJ Ray, and myself. We had to give Wyatt an old shower curtain and a weird shirt, and I had Chris wear my old Frankfurters hot dog cart umbrella I'd gotten from Taylor Rental and been holding in my trunk for years. He looked funniest as the umbrella took up most of the trail. Major Tom brought a muumuu but would'nt wear it. Mr. Buckett ended up behind because he stopped to help some lost ladies. We began walking from the park office (1-4) and hiked a side trail that led up to the Horseshoe Trail (5). Once on it, we headed southbound. Chris looked hilarious taking up the entire trail with the umbrella over him (6-9).
Chris with his happy umbrella
We took a wrong turn briefly, but realized it quickly enough. We followed the Horseshoe Trail out of French Creek State Park and into Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site where we first saw large charcoal hearths (10) followed by the furnace itself (11). We were able to go into it and even walk around the old oven area which was really cool (11-13).
Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site
We continued around the site and toured buildings which were set up like they were in the old days (14-28) and then tried to find the Horseshoe Trail. We seemed to have lost it as there were no more yellow blazes. However, there were yellow horseshoes on barrels and such, which I'd read was the former blazing technique used on the trail. We followed the yellow horseshoes and they led to an access road to the park. There were a couple of reinactors from NJ there I talked to briefly looking for directions, but they were more lost than I was. We continued down the road, and soon the trail came in from the right. According to older maps, the route we took was formerly the trail route, but it had been moved. Mr. Buckett had somehow caught up and passed us by on this trail reroute and was a couples miles to the south. We connected with him on the phone and headed out to join him. We crossed over Shed Road, then followed a dirt road known as Green Lane on the Horseshoe Trail. This led out to Bethesda Road where we turned left briefly before heading into a section of field trails (29). This led us out to Harmonyville Road where we turned left and crossed a creek on the road bridge (30). We then turned into the woods on the other side and soon entered another field where we rejoined Mr. Buckett (31,32) who was very happy because he'd gotten laid a few times that week. The trail led us through fields and then into sections of woods descending to an old railroad bed (33). The trail remained on the rail bed for a while and crossed Tynthall Road, then headed toward St. Peter's Village. Before the village, the trail left the rail bed to the right. We saw a couple of ruins, but not much (34). The trail led us down hill, and I was talking on the phone with "Commando Tom" Petrucci who was planning on joining us, but he went to the wrong park system looking for us! We continued to descend to along French Creek in a lovely section parallel with St. Peter's Village. The section led us out to Rt 23/Ridge Road and crossed onto I think it was Hill Road and started to ascend following the road.
Near Warwick Park
Kyle smashed some guys pumpkin on the road with a guy mowing the lawn right next to him (35,36). We hurried up the road until the trail made a left onto a mowed area descending into a dip between farmlands. We continued along the trail with some fine views of farmland (37-39) through woods, then open fields. We soon crossed the County Park Road and entered Warwick Park (40,41). The trail took us up hill parallel with the road, then to the east along the top of a field area to an observation deck with some nice views of the valley (42-44). DJ Ray cut his hand on some weeds and stopped to bandage his hand, and we went ahead and turned off onto the Charcoal Trail to do another loop (since we had already done this section of the Horseshoe Trail previously; 45). There was a nice view at one point from the trail, and we passed some charcoal hearths (46). I decided we'd need to cut the hike a bit short from what we were going to do previously, since it was getting later. When we reached Mt. Pleasant Road, we turned left and followed the road across French Creek to another trailhead which followed the right of way of the former Sow Belly Railroad which was a short line used for a quarry and tourism only for a few years in the 19th century. At times it looked like a railbed, but at others it was barely recognizeable as such (47-49). DJ Ray had rejoined us, and he, Major Tom, and Eric decided to wait for us there to finish the hike and pick them up. The rail bed turned on and off of the rail bed a bit, and it came to a point where it was not even visible. The trail took a more circuitous route, and we followed it up to Ridge Road and turned left (50). We followed Rt 23 with no sign of the railroad, which according to my reading had a switchback that went up to St. Peter's Village, and we turned right to follow St. Peter's Road to it's namesake village. We stopped for more water at a small restaurant and sat out front, then moved on to an old antique pinball arcade (51). Kyle and Mr. Buckett cut out here to walk the roads back to the cars. The rest of us continued acros an interesting abandoned railroad bridge over French Creek, and then along the sometimes washed out railroad right of way west (52-56). We retraced the section where the Horseshoe Trail was coaligned with it, but then continued west along it (57-60). It was sometimes a bit overgrown, but never really too bad. We continued on the railbed out to Rt 345, and instead of taking the route I'd originally proposed, we followed Rt 345 north as the sun set (61). We passed a cemetary (62) and then turned right on Harmonyville Road followed by a left on Rt 345/Pine Swamp Road. Soon, Chris took his special umbrella shirt and put it over someone's mailbox, which looked hilarious (63)! We continued up the road to a left turn on the south entrance road to French Creek SP. We followed this around some corners, and I eventually just started running to get back to my car quicker. It was quite dark and getting chilly (I was only wearing a tank top by this time, no muumuu) so we were happy to be done.
The final resting place for Chris's umbrella...or was it???
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