Hike #752; Peter's Mountain and Clark's Valley

 Hike #752; Peter's Mountain and Clark's Valley

2/8/14 Peter's Mountain and Clark's Valley Loop with Gabe Franklin, Jen Berndt, Michele Valerio, Stephen Argentina, Daniel Yu, Liam "Tubby", and Brigitte Benedict.

The group on the north slope of Peter's Mountain

Our next hike would be a great loop building on  previous hikes out of Clark's Valley in St. Anthony's Wilderness.

It had been a long time since I'd last visited this place. For one reason or another, I just haven't focused as much effort into branching out into that area. It had been a couple of years since I'd been to Clark's Valley, and doing the next couple sections of the Appalachian Trail westbound from there has always been in the back of my mind. It just never seemed like the time was quite right.

St. Anthony's Wilderness is an expanse of land that stretches between Blue Mountain and Peter's Mountain. In 1742 Conrad Weiser, Officer of Indian Affairs for Pennsylvania requested that Ludwig Von Zinzendorf, leader of the Moravian Church accompany him on a "peace mission" to the ridges and valleys of the area to ease tensions with local native American tribes. Impressed by a view from a rocky outcropping into one of the valleys north of Blue Mountain, Zinzendorf named the area "St. Anthony's Wilderness" in honor of fellow missionary Anthony Seyfert. The Appalachian Trail, when first marked through the area in the 1930s, first followed the route of the older Darlington Trail which remained atop Blue Mountain, but when Fort Indiantown Gap Military Reservation took over, the trail was forced to be moved. It now follows the expanse of St. Anthony's Wilderness which is the second largest piece of land without roads in Pennsylvania.

Clark's Valley by now felt pretty familiar to me. I'd finished a hike here a couple of years back, and I started a nearly 100 mile backpack from this point to Lancaster with Jillane about a year before that. Still, I hadn't branched out to the west from here. While technically still part of St. Anthony's Wilderness, in State Game Lands 211, this section didn't look like it'd be particularly interesting to me, and the only real way of making a loop hike would be by following a pipeline along Clark's Creek as the return route. I thought to do it as a Summer hike, because there might be swimming, but there are so many better hikes for Summer when I'm looking for swimming.

There had been so many suburban hikes with a lot of road walking lately that I really needed to get out in the wilderness. What better way to do it than by going to St. Anthony's Wilderness and doing this hike that would take us across only one road all day? It seemed like it'd be a good idea, so long as we didn't have deep snow, and the Appalachian Trail, I thought, would more than likely be broken through if there was. I convinced myself to post this hike. I really wanted to head west a bit more.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes said "It is a capitol mistake to theorize without evidence". It is in human nature for people to accept certain evidence in order to justify a preconceived conclusion. I've seen in recently with the folks that quit Metrotrails after the previous week's hike. This week I would experience this truth in different ways.

We carpooled in Dan and Jen's cars to meet Tubby and newcomer Brigitte at the Clark's Valley AT lot. Brigitte, who lives close by, is a wealth of knowledge about the area. She kindly brought me several map printouts of all of the trails within St. Anthony's Wilderness and vicinity.

The AT lot was now plowed at all, and a gate blocked the bottom of it. We managed to get our cars off of the road well enough. This was one of the reasons for bringing Jen's Suburu, since it has all wheel drive. We started walking on the AT heading southbound, which for the moment was north.

Immediately, I didn't see the blazes or any broken trail. What is usually obvious treadway was nothing. I felt so certain that the Appalachian Trail, being the world's most famous hiking trail, would certainly have been broken in, but not a soul had hiked it. We'd been pummeled with a couple of storms, and then there were hot days during the week causing huge melts. The upper layer of the trail was a crust of ice, and for a while we just walked on top of it. Traction wasn't too bad, and I thought this would be doable, but then about half way up the mountain we started busting through the ice.

Not every step was a break through, so when it did happen, the foot was already firmly planted, and it really messes with the lower back. Before reaching the top, I'd had some nasty lower back pain from breaking trail and busting through. It was very cold out, but by the time we reached the top we were all sweating a lot.

At the top, the AT turned west and followed the ridge. Peter's Mountain was different than much of Blue, Second,  and Stony Mountains, the last few the trail crossed. Those ridges were pretty wide on the top and didn't always offer good seasonal views, but Peter's Mountain was rather narrow and had some really nice views through the leafless trees both to the north and south. The snow only complimented the views. I was ahead with Gabe and we talked about how this was the right day to do this particular hike. I had thought that Peter's Mountain would be horribly boring, but it was actually quite nice. At one point we even crossed a knife edge rock formation in the center.

It was shortly after we reached the top of the ridge that Stephen started saying he wanted to see a Bald Eagle, because he'd only seen one in the wild before on one of our hikes. Amazingly, just after he made this announcement, a Bald Eagle flew overhead. Stephen flipped out yelling "OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!" and scared it away! He dropped to his knees realizing he'd scared it off.

We passed the blue blazed Shickellemy Trail on the left, which leads back down to Rt 325 a ways from where we started, then continued on to reach the side trail to Kinter View where we had a longer break. Kinter View gave us unobstructed views into Clark's Valley and of Third Mountain to the south of us. It was a really nice spot to stop for a break.

We continued from here on along the trail to finally reach Whitetail Trail, a pink blazed trail that crosses the AT. We were now out of the State Game Lands 211 and had entered the Joseph Ibberson Conservation Area. Ibberson was a conservationist that was responsible for dividing PA's DCNR which manages it's state parks into management factions. This location was the first state conservation area. We turned right to descend following the pink blazes. Gabe, Stephen, and I decided to run like maniacs down the hill. I can't believe I didn't fall. If I had, I'd have stumbled far down the ridge on the steep portions. I continued to run like crazy, without falling, and finally stopped when I got to an outstanding seasonal view along the steep section of the slope. Gabe stopped to admire the view as well, and he noticed a crackling noise while we were silent. The ice we'd kicked up while running down the hill was making these noises as it was sliding down hill. Very interesting! We continued down to the Victoria Trail, blue blazed, and regrouped.

From here, we followed Victoria Trail, which is on an old woods road at this point, further down hill. It turned left as a foot path where the road entered private land. We stayed on the trail until we reached the beige blazed Rock Trail and turned left. We followed this shortly to the Evergreen Trail, then took that into an interesting area where Eastern White Pines had bowed over under the weight of the snow, and their forms were trapped in what Stephen described as a curtsey, under the thick and heavy ice crust and snow accumulation.

Stephen was having a lot of trouble with his hand, which he cut and couldn't get to stop bleeding. It was only a small cut, but he was using snow and tissues to clean it. I helped him with his mole skin which he tried to put on it. That didn't work and he was getting amusingly frustrated. Someone gave him some wipes, one of which said "deodorant wipes". "The hands don't smell, I don't think" Stephen said. The other ones were "mammary wipes" I think he said, and we teased him about wiping his nipples. Conversations with Stephen are among the most amusing I have.

We turned from here onto the Evergreen Trail, then followed it through more bowed over young pines, and then went left on Whitetail Trail, which was marked with a sign that said "Eagle Trail" at this point. We followed this back to Victoria Trail, then turned right to follow that on the old road up hill.

There were more nice views to the right as we continued to ascend Peter's Mountain once more. We regrouped again when we reached the Appalachian Trail. The map of Ibberson showed that the Victoria Trail went straight ahead, while Brigitte thought it should go left on the AT. She was right, but I went down anyway to see if something was changed on the Ibberson map. We saw no blazes, so we followed Brigitte, and sure enough she was right. Why they opted to build new foot path rather than use existing woods roads I don't know, but oh well. There was one minor view as we were heading down on Victoria Trail along the south side of Peter's Mountain. We could see the tops of the mountains where the Susquehanna flows between.

Gabe and I took the lead again heading down the mountain on Victoria Trail, with Stephen close behind. The ice got thicker as we descended, and so we would slide for the longest time we could. Jen caught up with us pretty quickly and also slid around a bit. I took one fall at a switchback, and as I landed my water bottle came out of my pack. It slid on down the slope, and it would have stopped under most normal conditions. Not this time; it continued to slide, hit a log, jumped into the air, and slid further down the mountain until it was no longer in sight. Fortunately Jen had enough water to share, because I needed it badly. Dan's thermos also fell earlier in the trip, and Michele almost caught it, but she likened it to trying to catch a fish.

We continued to descend, and the trail joined one of the woods roads we had seen earlier. Victoria Trail crested the mountain on the woods road, but then followed the AT to the left, though the AT continued on the woods road for a time before turning off. This woods road, I believe part of a series of woods roads, joined Victoria Trail route again further down.

Curiously, and fitting in with things just not being the way one might expect it, the woods road portion of Victoria Trail had far more plants and trees growing from it than the foot path portion. I would guess that the graded stuff must harbor roots much more easily than the rocky slope. Young Eastern White Pines and Mountain Laurels grew intimately into the trail, and had to be gently held back in order to continue. Many of the white pines were bowed over like the ones we saw in Ibberson.

The trail continued down to reach Rt 325 at what the map shows as a parking area, but now had large trucks, a large back hoe, and some pipes and other materials stored in it. As we were re-grouping by the road, I decided to go climb through one of the giant pipes. From the pipe, I viewed the large back hoe and wondered if just maybe they might have left the key hidden in it. I ran over to check.

I got right in, then started looking around, and sure enough found the key in the cubby area by the glove compartment. I got it started up, and Stephen ran over and jumped in the front bucket. I carefully lifted him in the air as high as the machine would allow. I would have liked to drive the thing across the street and up Third Mountain, but I didn't want to be that much of a jerk, so I turned it off and hid the keys where I found them (after letting Stephen down of course).

We turned right on the road briefly, then went to the left down a game lands access road used for recent logging. The road took us down hill and across a bridge over the Clark's Creek. Brigitte likes to fish in the creek a lot, and knew it very very well, but had not yet walked the section we were about to...attempt...to walk.

Next was another example of something not turning out to be exactly what we'd thought it would be. First, when I scaled off the hike I did not see the elevation involved from this point. After a brief break, we headed up hill on the logging road, which went much further up Third Mountain than I had anticipated it would be (On a side note on Third Mountain, I had had confusion about the difference between Third Mountain, Sharp Mountain, and Stony Mountain. Third Mountain in fact splits into two ridges just to the east of here, separated by a creek known as the Devil's Race Course. At this point it was in fact Third Mountain). We continued on logging roads to the east with some nice views of Peter's Mountain through the recently logged clearings. I had thought based on aerial images that we would be fine to continue on along other woods roads to connect with the logging roads accessible from the Clarks Valley lot, some of which was the route of Water Tank Trail. We had no such luck. After a large "cul de sac" clearing, the woods road ended, and no woods roads continued in any direction. We opted to just start going off trail along the slope. Gabe and I took the lead again.

This was a beautiful section. It was much easier than before because our feet were not busting through the ice like they had been earlier. This section was beautiful with barely any undergrowth to fight through. We continued down hill a bit more in order to circumvent a boulder field we had found. I could see the boulder field on the aerial images on my phone, which I had loaded earlier so we'd have then now that we had no internet service. Megan, Gabe's wife I had been friends with since high school, texted me that she was going to be passing through Harrisburg and wanted to meet up to ride back. Unfortunately spotty service kept us from being able to make contact easily.

We continued down hill and eventually reached the pipeline right of way along Clark's Creek. Here was another example of something not being what one might expect.  Usually, pipeline rights of way are clear and open wide, easy to walk. Not this one. We had to fight through uncut weeds, large branches growing across, more bowed over white pines, and lots of toppled trees. Even worse, this pipeline had been eroded in such a way as to make it unrecognizable as a pipeline. There were no exposed pipes where it was washed out, but the surface was not obviously a pipe line.

Gabe and I found it easier to walk off of the pipe line and through the woods closer to Clark's Creek. Jen caught up again, as well as Stephen, and we kept moving on at a good pace. Brigitte had a previous injury but was doing okay, taking it a bit slower at this point. I looked at the GPS and determined that we were very close, mistaking a clearing on the imagery for the parking lot when actually it was about double the distance. I had assumed we'd be done by 6 or so, and Brigitte thought maybe 8. The pipeline began skirting some private land, and so we got away from the creek to follow the boundary more. We got back to the creek a couple of times, and the pipeline itself sometimes went over it. It was getting dark quickly and not all of us had flashlights. We passed through dense stands of Eastern Hemlock which had dead lower branches that kept hitting me in my face. I was afraid I was going to knock out a contact lens. I think Jen hurt one of her eyes on it at one time as I recall.

We waited up to re-group a few times, but tried to keep pushing onward. Everyone had great attitudes about it, especially Tubby who announced "I don't believe anything! We're going to be out here all fucking night!!!", all with a smile and a laugh.

At one point, we started hearing gun shots. As we walked, the shots kept getting closer. It was soon that we were very close to the shots. We were walking toward a state game lands shooting range along Clark's Creek! Stephen started shouting out and the firing stopped. We started loudly singing Billy Joel songs as we walked along the section of the creek parallel with the range. We could see the targets along the other side of the creek as we walked by. We continued singing, and when we were out of range of the targets, the firing resumed. It's nice to know the gunmen were considerate enough.

The sun went down and it got quite dark, but the half moon was showing which supplied enough light for me at least. It was still tough with all of the branches though. There were not many points I could use for reference to get us back, save for one more boulder field adjacent to the right of way and a recently cleared area from logging to the right.

I thought I was handling myself pretty well on the ice, but after falling about four times I realized it was no longer worth bragging about how few times I'd fallen, as it could now be described as "several" times. As we passed through a relatively open area, the ice was thicker, and at a time I thought I'd bust through, my leg went out, and I fell with all of my weight onto my right side, slamming my elbow through the ice with my cell phone coming out of my pocket. The phone too slammed onto the ice and came apart into three pieces: the phone, the battery, and the back cover. I could see a flash in my head of my water bottle from earlier as I watched all three parts of my phone sliding maybe to oblivion. The back stopped, but battery and body kept going. I picked myself up quickly and managed to snatch up the battery which was still moving, and was furthest away, then apprehended the body of the phone which had nearly stopped moving.

I'd saved the phone, which of course would be fine because I drop it all the time, but now the hard reboot had lost all of the aerial images I'd saved for use on the trip. It didn't matter much, be were only following the pipeline, and we knew we were just following the Clark's Creek to the right when in doubt.

Strangely, we soon came to broken trail. We had not seen a single foot print on any of the trails all day long, and here on this very remote section of pipeline, we came across foot prints making it easier to walk. Not only that, the lone hiker (there was a set of foot prints from the same boot heading in both directions) had managed to cut the pipeline trail back, making it much easier to walk. This had obviously been done the same day because the cut hemlocks and such were all just laying on top of the snow, not melted in or covered. We continued to follow this path, but then at some point the foot prints disappeared and the pipeline was unwalked again. I don't know where the hiker might have turned off. It may also have been a hunter, as I noted some hunter's bright eye tacks in the trees.

We soon reached a game lands woods road. It was visible before we reached it because of the bridge over it. The pipe line must have required that all roads must bridge it rather than cross at grade, something I'd never seen done anywhere else. It was like this at two other locations we had crossed, at the first woods road and again at a private access to a pasture from homes on the other side of the creek.

We turned to the left on this woods road, once again familiar ground for me. This was the route of the blue blazed Water Tank Trail, some of which I'd followed backpacking in 2011. The woods road headed closer to the creek, then joined with the Appalachian Trail again. The last couple hundred feet were the only other bit of broken trail we'd see, across the bridge over Clark's Creek and back up hill to the parking lot. Gabe and Tubby helped Brigitte the last distance back up the the cars.

It was amazing to get back, and we looked up to see the half moon with a halo around it. When we were ready to go, Stephen, Gabe, and I had to push Dan's car out of the snow. We all got together for dinner at the Stony Creek Inn, along the Susquehanna River where Third Mountain dips down. Megan managed to find us and join us for dinner. The foot was a little pricey, but quite excellent, and it was a nice way to finish off the day. We were all starving from the workout we'd gotten.

I realize more and more that these trips are never truly what I expect them to be, but that is definitely a great thing. I wanted to believe this would just be a "blah" section of the AT, a nice walk through the woods, and a rather quick and easy section that I in a way wanted to get out of the way. I also thought the return route would be nothing more than a fast social cool down walk along a pipeline and woods roads. The truth was I made that capitol mistake Sherlock Homes refers to, making an assumption without enough evidence. The part of the hike I expected to be packed down,  the AT, was the part no one had walked at all since the last storm. The part I expected to be boring and open was grown in and stunningly beautiful at dusk.

The hike was exactly what I needed both physically and mentally. I truly needed the good workout, to really sweat out the toxins and be nature. I'd had a bad headache that had not gone away since my week with the flu or whatever it was, but this hike seemed to clear it out somewhat, if not completely. It was also mentally great for me to be with a group of such positive people who truly appreciated the land we were passing through. I was still feeling somewhat down about the people who had quite Metrotrails as a result of the previous week's hike, but this one felt like redemption.

I can't wait to finish the Peter's Mountain section of the AT and head toward the town of Duncannon, the mid point of the Appalachian Trail.