Hike #573; White Lake and Blairstown Area

 Hike #573; White Lake and Blairstown Area

White Lake at my dock.

7/28/11 White Lake/Marksboro/Blairstown/Kalarama with "Commando Tom" Petrucci

My next hike would be another spur of the moment thing near my home at White Lake. Tom would end up meeting me at the Blairstown A&P and we'd shuttle back to the main White Lake parking lot to begin the hike.

We started walking by the historic Vass Farmstead, which was nicely refurbished and the barn was redone beautifully.

Historic Vass Farm House

Second abandoned house in White Lake WMA

Second house, abandoned at White Lake WMA

We then walked up Stillwater Road to the parking lot across from my driveway. From this parking lot, an old road headed off into the woods. I had never followed this route far, which seemed weird since I had lived here now since November. We followed the woods road, which was apparently still used on occasion by a farmer, because it led out to a nice cultivated corn field.

Farm lane in White Lake WMA

We walked the edges of the fields to the right, and then entered a secondary field. I checked the GPS on my phone as we continued to make sure we were going the right way. We soon came to a piece of the Ridge and Valley Trail, which I didn't want to get to yet. I wanted to follow the fields to a section the trail paralleled. No matter, we continued on, and then turned off of the trail on a deer path into another field, then made our way back to the western fork of the Ridge and Valley Trail.

Cultivated fields in White Lake WMA

This section was in awful shape. It had overgrown so badly since the last time I'd been on it which didn't even seem like that long ago. I knew this would be a great future Metrotrails project. The blazes were busting off of the trees from being hammered in too far, and Tom was able to pick a few intact ones up, and we put them in my pack.

The trail took us through low areas and then ascended one of the larges ridges through a cleft. We were able to follow it more because I was familiar with the route than because the blazing was clear. There was still a long missing section of blazes near a tree stand that should have been taken down at the beginning of the season.

Wetland scene along Sunset Lake Road

I knew how to keep on the trail, and we soon descended down to Sunset Lake Road. Then we turned right and followed the road for a while.The future Ridge and Valley Trail would turn left onto Butler Road, a dead end road that was once a through route that the county vacated. We continued ahead on Sunset Lake.

Cows along Sunset Lake Road

We passed by some nice fields of cows and soon entered the woods on the road. On the right side, next to a busted up mail box was part of the Limestone Forest Preserve. We followed Mr. Carrizone's driveway, although it said private because it was part of the trail route (blazes were torn down), and followed it up and down multiple ridges and valleys.

Along Ridge and Valley Trail in the Carrizone tract, Limestone Forest

The trail was at times really tough to follow, but we managed to get through. We followed it through this property and then onto White Lake Wildlife Management Area right on out to the parking area on Stillwater Road. The trail followed a woods road parallel with the road, used for a farm, and then turned left to cross Stillwater Road into White Lake Natural Resource Area. I had suggested a gate go in at this end to deter ATVs from passing through, and Allen Barlow, the land steward for White Lake through Nature Conservancy both met with the guy to put it in ahead of time and threw out our suggestions. The gate had just been put in a few days before, and looked quite good.

Ridge and Valley Trail in Limestone Forest

We followed the Ridge and Valley Trail into the woods, which was a nice section because Allen had been mowing it. Before it was quite rough to get through. We then made the right turn onto a side path across a puncheon that Joe Blevins and I had put back into place when it washed out, and took the side trail out through woods parallel with Stillwater Road to my driveway. This is the section of trail I need to refurbish because it was blazed with the arrow markers instead of standardized blazing.

Ridge and Valley Trail, new entrance off of Stillwater Road entering county property.

We turned left on my driveway and followed it to my home, the old Wiseman House. We hung out here for a little bit, and then made our way down to the dock along the lake. There was no one around, so we had a nice swim in the lake before moving on.

White Lake at my dock.

We followed the unofficial trail away from the lake from here, on the same route I followed many years prior when I first found the section of Ridge and Valley Trail. We continued on the little ridge to the trail, and then turned right next to the big old lime kiln.

We descended into the little valley and then made our way up the other side, then right above the wetlands on out through the former girl scout camp site.

I didn't tell Tom much about the old Marl Works ruins to make it seem more amazing when we happened upon them. He was totally blown away by the size of the structure standing in ruins. I made the discovery here that the historic marker with old pictures of the site had been stolen! It was such a sad thing to see, because it was such a cool kiosk. We walked on along the edge of the Marl Works to the edge of White Lake where we could see the Vass House across, and the beautiful little Pitcher Plants growing in the marl muck.

Native Pitcher Plants growing on the shores of White Lake

We then wandered back out through the Marl Works and got back on the Ridge and Valley Trail out to Spring Valley Road, on what used to be the rail spur to the site. I couldn't see it because it was getting dark, but Allen told me the kiosk at this trail head was also vandalized at this time. We walked the short jog down Spring Valley Road onto Paulins Kill Valley Trail in Marksboro, and I found the tyvek state park signs had been torn off and thrown on the ground as well. There was also a trail map missing from the kiosk there.

We followed Paulins Kill Valley Trail from here in the dark through Paulina to Blairstown. Here, we crossed the foot bridge into town to see if we could find some food. Dale's Market was closed, and the diner and bar were open. We didn't want to sit down for diner food, and we went to the bar, but the sign showed that they did not serve food this late.

We opted to just keep going, and crossed back over the foot bridge to continue on Paulins Kill Valley Trail to the west.

We followed this on out to Kalarama at the airport and turned right to pass the North Warren High School area. While on the road, we laughed about how we felt "Tom Foolry" was just nonsense horse play, "Shenanigans" are Tom Foolry with ill intent, and that Shenanigans could lead to a "ruckus". We went on to conclude that if eight or more people are involved in a ruckus it becomes a "riot". I think we went on and on about defining things like heathens and fiends and such, and had some good laughs.

At A&P causing a ruckus.

We came out at the A&P across Rt 94. Before finishing out the night, we went into the A&P, ate a ton of cookies, and annoyed the people who were trying to close the store up by dilly dallying on what to buy (apparently, enough dilly dallying may be enough to cause a ruckus as well).