Hike #1171; Dancing Ridge to Penn Estates

Hike #1171; Dancing Ridge to Penn Estates

11/3/18 Dancing Ridge to Penn Estates with Michele Valerio, Jennifer Berndt, Kenneth Lidman, Pete G. Wilcox, Kellie Kegan, Scott "Tea Biscuit" Helbing, and Rob Gearhardt

Our next hike would be the annual hike for Michele’s birthday, and also our annual costume hike. We didn’t have as huge a showing as we did the previous year, or in some other years, but also a larger showing than some years as well.

This could be a 'nother hike!

Michele and her husband Scott live in Penistates (which is what we call “Penn Estates”), and for several years now we’ve been organizing hikes to end at Michele’s house. It was always the model with our hikes that someone in the core group would host a party once a month. While this has sort of died down and doesn’t much happen any more (aside from Michele, Mr. Buckett had Buckettfest in February, I had the anniversary party in March, DJ Ray used to take June, Carol and Rob did Decemberween, etc), we have still kept with doing the hike to Michele and Scott’s every year.

Dancing Ridge Trail

This is the sixth year in a row we’ve had the event, and each time tried to have something totally different than the previous year included.
The first time we went was 2013 from the south through Stroudsburg, followed by one from the west at Camelback Mountain in 2014, from Cresco in the north in 2015, from State Game Lands in the west in 2016, and from Totts Gap to the south in 2017. When we did the one from the west the one time, it was because of Police murderer Eric Frein hiding out in the nearby woods, and on that occasion the hike we did this time was originally planned.

On Dancing Ridge Trail

With new trail connections to the south, I put it on hold another year, and just figured we’d get around to it another time.
When I needed a hike for this year, it seemed the obvious thing to do. It would be much different than the previous ones, but still an interesting route.
It’s amazing that we can do still so many almost totally different hikes from points to Michele’s house after already doing so many. It reminded me a bit of when I started these hikes altogether, how there were so many that ended in Washington.

A star watching site...

This one ended up being for the most part a mellow, rather relaxing route, but I really enjoyed it very much.
We have been doubling up this with the annual costume hike every year, which seems to be a sensible thing. If we make Michele’s party a costume party as well, it tends to be more enticing I think. I was surprised that more people didn’t sign up for this one, but it’s all just as well. I do need to plan more ahead of time and engage with people better. I’m finally getting caught up with my presentations of what we’ve done with the online media, and feel ready to make the next steps.

Dancing Ridge Trail

The first thing I tried to do differently this year was after meeting at the entrance to Penistates, we would just bring the cars directly to Michele’s house. The place is like Fort Knox, and it’s kind of a joke that it’s so hard to get in.
I planned for the hike to end directly at her house rather than be at the entrance to Penistates and then walk or ride there. We would be coming from the north, so it made more sense to just walk on in a different way.
Michele waited with me while we tried to usher people to the start. Rob and I laughed our asses off at a speeder who was chased by one of their rent a cops.

Ivan Swamp Road

When the guy got to the stop sign at Hallet Road, he just blew through it and went right down the hill. The rent a cop just stopped there. I turned to Rob and said “It’s like when them Duke Boys reached the county line”, referring to the TV show Dukes of Hazzard, who would try to outrun one of the cops, who would turn around or stop when they reached the Hazzard County line. The rent a cop stopped for a few moments, then turned back around and headed back into Penistates.
We all headed over to Michele’s and then piled into mine and Pete’s vehicles.

Ivan Swamp Road

We shuttled to the north via the back roads into a rather secluded section of western Delaware State Forest.
I’d hiked Delaware State Forest a great many times in the past, from Thunder Swamp Trail to areas north with Promised Land State Park and much more. Still, I had never done any of this section. This was the area known as Snow Hill, and I’d been close to there on the southwest side of Thunder Swamp Trail, but not to this point. I chose a spot with some trails from a side road off of Snow Hill Rd. to start.

Ivan Swamp Road

This part felt really in the middle of nowhere. The road we drove in on was dirt, and there was one other truck out on the roads.
We parked at a lot where Sixteen Mile Run Road broke off to the north, and Dancing Ridge Trail headed into the woods to the south. Sixteen Mile Run sounded like another hike right there.
We started walking from the lot across the access road, and then continued straight into the woods on Dancing Ridge Trail. The trail apparently has two forks and we only did one of them. There’s another hike.

Ivan Swamp Road

The trail was basically an older woods road. It was narrow enough, but a good truck could be brought right down it without really any problem. The trail went right and then left, and we passed by one hunter using a bow. He politely said we should be wearing orange.

Ivan Swamp Road

Mind you, this got had not one bit of orange on him and we didn’t even see him right away.
The woods were very wet, full of puddles, and strong flowing springs. The Dancing Ridge isn’t really much of a ridge, just a bit of a plateau, typical of the Pocono Mountains. We had to go around puddles pretty much the entire day, because it rained very heavily the night before in the area. It was really enough for there to be flash flooding.
We moved on down the trail until it turned to the right at an access road in an open field

Overflowing springs on Ivan Swamp Road

We turned to the right, unsure of exactly which was supposed to be the trail. A sign at the end of the open field read “Dancing Ridge dark Sky Site”. This is apparently a stargazing site far from any of the developments of the area with light pollution.
We continued on the woods road, still part of Dancing Ridge Trail, and emerged on Snow Hill Road. Directly across, another trail/woods road continued. There was no sign for this one, but it went into the woods and split into two. We continued to the right on Laurel Spring Trail to the right, while Hunter Trail went into woods down to the left.

Manzanedo Road

The trail was much wider here than the previous one, but still nice. We continued through the woods on a gradual downward grade.
We missed a connecting trail to the right, called the L&I Connector Trail, but the way we walked was by no means bad.
The trail made it so we could continue in the woods from Laurel Spring Trail to Ivan Swamp Road, another trail closed to traffic, without having to walk any of Hiawatha Lane, which was a dirt road that Laurel Spring Trail emerged on.

Pine Mountain Run

The dirt road was by no means a problem, and we followed it past a the Otter Lake community area, which we could barely see the trailers and such for out in the woods to the left.
We continued to a bend in Hiawatha Lane where we continued straight on Ivan Swamp Road. This was a very pleasant old woods road continuing in the same general direction we had been going to the south. We went down hill for a bit, but then started ascending for a a bit more into an area that had somewhat recently been timbered.

Incidental waterfalls

A lot of small trees were fallen over blocking the way as we peaked the height of the land on this one. We regrouped at the top of a hill and just kind of admired the area for a bit.

Incidental waterfalls

It was really such a long, unbroken swath of wilderness, I was really enjoying it quite a bit.
Pete offered up some of this wonderful beverage he picked up at his local brewery, and it was just a relaxing good time.
Soon, the woods road started to descend a bit and reached a small stream crossing that was swollen well beyond normal levels.
There were pipes that carried the brook, known as Leas Run, beneath the road, but it was mostly all flowing over. I went with a stick to try to clear some of it out while Tea Biscuit tried to clear out the next one up. We both gave up, not feeling that inspired.

Overflowing springs

We climbed up hill gradually to emerge on paved Schoolhouse Road, a little used but somewhat main back road. There was some state forest land directly across, and we tried walking through a bit, but we came to “no trespassing” signs complete with large wires delineating the boundaries, so we opted not to continue on. Instead, we headed back out to Schoolhouse Road and followed it to the north for just a little bit, to the intersection with Manzanedo Road. This leads to some private community but the main route bypasses it. It was wider than I’d wanted, but we would make do.

Pine Mountain Run and an old barn

We headed down hill on the road, which had some lovely little bends to it, and took a short break where it crossed over Pine Mountain Run, a usually small but now flowing creek.
As we headed up hill a bit, above the creek, there were these huge springs off to the right, draining out of the leaf strewn woods in no particular wash area. It all just seemed to flowing whatever which way, and then cascaded like little incidental waterfalls into the drainage trench alongside the road. It was quite a pretty scene.

Autumn on Pine Mountain Run

We soon reached the intersection with Millertown Road, which was one of the other roads I had been considering using for this hike, because it too goes into another part of state forest. We can use it on a different future hike though.

...thanks for the clarification

I could hear the cascading creek below the road as we walked, and wished we could get down to explore it. Unfortunately, there were too many houses in the area, right along side the thing.
We continued down hill to the intersection with Route 447, really the worst part of the entire hike.
The road is just too busy, and my plan was that we would only follow it for a bit, and try to get into the woods along the Brodhead Creek when possible.

Brodhead Creek

People in the area are really possessive, with a strong “mine not yours” attitude. There is tons of land, but they’re all people who only live in the area part time and basically never use the property. We even passed a driveway soon after getting on 447 that read “Notta Road”.
Pine Mountain Run passed under 447 right near the intersection, with beautiful fall colors all around and an old abandoned barn closer to it’s confluence with the Brodhead Creek to the east. We continued following 447 south.

Brodhead Creek

The road was just too busy to be enjoyable. I knew there was a house coming up on the right side of the road, not too far from the creek, so I didn’t want to head into the woods until after we passed that. It was pretty much the only house on the west side of the creek anyway.
Tea Biscuit had his two dogs, Waffles and Tinkerbell, and it was rough trying to follow the road with the two of them pulling, and people speeding like crazy far too close to the shoulder. He said we should just go into the woods when we saw a road.

Falls of the Brodhead

I really didn’t want to go in yet. It wasn’t all that far to the house, but we weren’t a very big group and I figured then that probably no one would care. We’d be quiet going by, and it wasn’t like we were stealing their fish.
The woods road went straight back into a pretty area of evergreens alongside the Brodhead Creek. A path continued along the creek heading down stream, which was just perfect. A nice, relaxing route with easy walking.
The path seemed to come to an end, but there wasn’t much vegetation to fight through.

Path along the Brodhead

I moved ahead of the rest of the group. I didn’t want to really hang around long until we got to somewhere past the house.
We had followed this section of the Brodhead before, but on the other side a couple of years ago for Michele’s hike. I remembered some of the particularly interesting looking cascades from that time. I thought of Kralc Leahcim (Lerch) here, because he really loved that one, and the two of us were up front scrambling through the crappy rock mess the entire time and loving every bit.

Lerch of course would have been out on this hike, but he had recently gotten his new job with an environmental remediation group, and they had sent him out to the middle of God’s nowhere, Kansas for an extended assignment starting in September, and he’s still out there.
There was one particular fall on the creek that had a few foot drop that I was particularly impressed with, and I knew where we were right away when I saw it.

A stream entering the Brodhead

After a bit of higher ground, I cut down to the left and emerged onto a somewhat mowed and clear utility vehicle path. I turned right to follow it into a more shaded area from an area that looked somewhat recently timbered. Then, I was within sight of the house. I could see at least one car, probably two, outside the building. I was in plain sight. I dipped down along the edge of the pathway, closer to the creek, and moved swiftly while crouched over. There was a long stretch where I remained within view of the home.

Leas Run falls

I continued through the woods on the path, which made me more nervous because anyone with any ATV could just get out there in a few moments and catch up.

Leas Run falls

I hurried along, and felt even more nervous when there was another path coming in from the left that went directly to the house I was concerned about. I moved faster.

Falls on Leas Run

Soon, I reached a point where the trail continued on, but there were branches and stuff fallen over it, and no one had been taking care of it from that point. I hopped over them and continued through the woods. A wider flood plan on the creek at this point put me lower, and I felt much better being more out of sight. I decided to continue walking until I found a pleasant enough spot for the others to catch up.
I soon came to a tiny creek flowing into the Brodhead. In most times, this little creek is probably little more than a spring, barely worthy of even giving it a name, but with all of the rain we had had the night before, it was a rather huge stream.
I had no problem with just jumping over the thing. I actually put my left foot right into it rather than even try to bother with the jump or shaking up my drink.
I waited there for quite a while, to the point where I figured I had better turn back for a bit and find out where they’d gotten to.

Leas Run

Fortunately, they came into sight before I could get too far, and then Rob came barreling through the woods with a stick and mimed out beating me with it because of the previous section of land. I told him to blame Tea Biscuit for it!
Everyone made their way to the creek, and Tea Biscuit just jumped over, making it look even easier than I did. Rob came across, as well as Ken and Pete and Kellie. Pete made a sort of makeshift bridge out of sticks and such he found laying around.
Rob was okay, but he went back to help Michele go across at another place a little further up stream. The rest of us just took a break for a while while they crossed, and Ken eventually went back to help out as well. The two guys helped pull her across at a good spot, and we were all together along the other side of the creek.
Route 447 came kind of close to the edge of the creek in this area, but then soon moved further away. We were rewarded with another nice little section of woods under evergreens just ahead.

Falls on Leas Run

I made my way over some rocky area under the trees and gained some elevation, when I eventually hit a bit of an old woods road coming in from Route 447.

Falls on Leas Run

This must have been more of the Brodhead Flyfisher property. The sun was coming out and turning into a beautiful day, and yet we saw no one out using the properties.

Leas Run Falls

I’ll bet in the near future their membership might not be enough to sustain, and the property could be either sold to, or have conservation easements sold to one of the non profits like Pocono Land Trust, or go to State Game Lands. These big club properties just don’t seem to last any more.
The woods road seemed to come to an end, but a foot trail continued. This was an outstanding route. It felt like a regular, well used hiking trail along the creek heading down stream. It eventually emerged on Creek Road/Rt 447.

An attractive spot...

The trail went up a steep slope, and came out on the top of a rock above the road, where it passes through a cut, then descends on the other side. There were two attractive looking rustic homes on the left side of the road, an then a giant dead Pine tree laying on the right. I sat down on the edge of it, and only Jen was really caught up at first. I didn’t want to hang out at this posted spot, but of course everyone sat down as soon as they got to it. We had to keep moving though, away from this particular site. There was a grassy swath, and then a grassy woods road parallel with the creek heading into the woods to the right.

An old mill race?

Like the other ones, this access road didn’t last very long either, and it soon came to an end. Fortunately, there was still no scrubby vegetation, and we were able to just meander into the woods to the right along the creek. A path soon became apparent, and we followed it further down stream.
As we walked, the path seemed to turn into a berm, which to me looked like it might have been part of an old mill race.

Old mill race?

It was definitely built up above everything else, and there would have had to have been mills through this area. I did not notice any foundations, however.
We came out to Rt 447 again, which remains much closer to the creek for the remainder of the time we needed to follow it.
It was a more difficult section, and this was probably the worst part of the entire hike. The longest road walk we had to do was near the end, and the second longest was the part after the state forest, but this bit was the worst for traffic.

1911 Lackawanna overpass

While we were walking down stream, we came to a spot with a house on a hill to the left, and then a shocking cable ferry thing I really wanted to use. Only one person at a time could make use of it, but it would carry us across the Brodhead Creek to the fly fishers property on the other side. I figure the house that was there must be owned by them, or be a caretaker or something. I went closer only to find that the thing was locked and we couldn’t move it. I didn’t want to mess with it, or even be seen checking out out too much.

Analomink High Bridge site

Disappointed, we moved on down the road a short distance more to find yet another cable ferry site. This second one was basically just a glorified clothes line, but if I wanted to I could get across it. In fact, I could probably have just monkey barred across the creek on it, but everyone was not going to do this. This one had a lock on it as well, so we couldn’t really have it work properly even if that was something we were going to do.

Analomink High Bridge site

The next great point of interest that made the road walk something worthwhile was the discovery of a rather hidden waterfalls.
When we were just continuing along, it was the sound of it that caught my attention first.
I peered off into the woods to the left, and the major cascade was barely visible from the road. There is nowhere legal to park within several miles of this point, and so it’s gone relatively unnoticed for probably years. Every car that drives by is flying.

Analomink High Bridge site

As soon as I got into the woods, I could see that this was a substantial waterfall. I had to get close.
Pete was right there with me on this. We scrambled over the rocks, which was not that easy because it was nothing but little loose stones covered in beds of leaves, and reached the base of the falls, which had several little sections, and about two major ones. Even the little cascades leading into it were quite impressive.
Pete made his way right out onto the water to get the best shots, and I took turns standing with him on that spot. Tea Biscuit also came up to check out the falls, but I was totally surprised that no one else made the trip into the woods to see them more closely.
I had Pete stand at the base of the falls to the right, so that there would be a reference point to just how huge the falls were.
From there, the three of us turned to the left and started descending from the falls through woods toward Rt 447 further to the south, rather than just cut back the way we’d come and have to walk more road.

Analomink High Bridge site

It’s amazing to me that these incredible places can exist, nameless and unknown to so many passing by, and with so much development in the area. Not so much as a foot path led up.

Analomink High Bridge site

The creek the falls had been on was Leas Run, the same small one we had crossed on Ivan Swamp Road much earlier. It flows from there down into Hallowood Lake, and then cascades down the mountain to the west to hit Brodhead Creek. Maybe in the future we’ll have to try to bushwhack down it.
We continued on 447 south, with kind of a narrow shoulder at times, until we came to the intersection with Route 191.

At Analomink High Bridge site

This was a much busier road. We crossed Brodhead Creek on it and continued to the west a bit. We passed a couple of houses to the right, and then came to the edge of the Paradise Creek, the most major tributary to the Brodhead, on our left. A couple of the buildings to the right I think were the headquarters to the Brodhead Fly Fishers.
We continued walking to the old Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad overpass of the highway as well as the Paradise Creek. I’d walked the section a couple times before.

Analomink High Bridge by Watson Bunnel, from Steamtown NHS collection

The last time there, we walked a bit of the older right of way to the former bridge site. The current culvert was installed in 1911 to replace the earlier Analomink High Bridge.

Analomink High Bridge site

John Insley Blair died in 1899, and with his death their seemed to be a new era for the Lackawanna Railroad. William Truesdale became President and started huge improvements.

We've moved to April 3, 1911 and we see Timothy Burke & Co. at work on the Analomink (Pa) high bridge project, which will result in a fill being created to replace the bridge. Steamtown NHP photo.

The replacement of most of the old masonry structures on the Lackawanna main with concrete was one of the most obvious, but there were also several cutoff projects which involved the four incredible viaducts: Delaware, Paulins Kill, Martins Creek, and Tunhannock, in order from smallest to largest in size.

April 3 1911 image showing construction of the fill and reroute of the Lackawnna at Analomink High Bridge. Photo by Watson Bunnel, Steamtown NHS archive

The New Jersey Cutoff was the greatest undertaking of them all, not only because it included the first two viaducts, but also the construction of a tunnel and the world’s largest fill.

Wide right of way

With all of the hype of railroad improvements, little or no attention is given to the other cutoffs. Everyone focuses on the major ones in NJ and in Nicholson PA, but the truth is multiple improvements occurred throughout the line.
The area north of Analomink PA was one such area. There was once a substantial deck truss bridge that spanned the Paradise Creek at the site we reached, but it was decided to create a double culvert for the road and creek, and to back fill it, then remove the bridge.

Old mile marker

The reroute was completed apparently by the end of 1911, an amazing undertaking that today would be deemed impossible.
We walked through the culvert, and then cut to the right to climb steeply up hill to the railroad grade, and skirted the edge of the old high bridge’s abutments.
I didn’t take notice of any remnant of the center pier, but both abutments on either side were still in place. The old bridge appears to have been quite a bit lower than the current grade atop the culvert underpasses.

Ruins along the Brodhead

We took a break after climbing up so steeply along the tracks.
After that, we started heading to the south for a little bit. We could see the original grade off to the right of us after crossing the Paradise Creek. There was also a bit of a wider right of way on the opposite side, which led me to believe they might have had even more trackage there.
We approached a mile marker that read “87”, which I assume is probably 87 miles out of Hoboken, which was their big later day terminal along the Hudson River.

Stone ruin

We continued along the railroad for just a little bit, until we could see the confluence of the Paradise Creek and the Brodhead Creek below us. It was too narrow an area to descend right there, but when a flood plain got a little wider, we headed down hill rather steeply. Tea Biscuit and I ended up right down there at the steepest point, but some of the others waited for an easier spot to head down. We turned right at the bottom and happened upon some sort of stone ruins, but not sure what exactly they were.

ForEvergreen Nature Preserve

There was a house directly across, and then anotehr bit of stone just past the first one, but right on the shore of the creek. It could have been another old cable ferry site of some sort.
We walked along the creek past a large cell tower, one of those ones made to look like some kind of evergreen tree, and entered the former Stroud Township golf course, known as Evergreen Golf Course, and now the ForEvergreen Nature Preserve.

ForEvergreen

The 42 acre tract continues to be owned by the township, but with a 25 year lease to both Brodhead Watershed Association and Pocono Heritage Land Trust.

ForEvergreen

The golf course was purchased in 1971 as an amenity to the Penn Hills Resort. It remained open as a golf course until 2010 when it closed. Three years later, it was purchased by the township.
Penn Hills has since fallen into incredible disrepair, and one of the main buildings has burned down.
The non profits who run the place have similar missions but different goals. One is for water quality, the other for land preservation, and so it seems to be a good fit.

ForEvergreen

The original clubhouse building was deemed to be in too poor condition to be rehabilitated, and so they constructed a brand new building to use for their new offices.
We continued on the paths closed to the Brodhead Creek, which were quite pretty.
We had been talking about utilizing this park for a hike for some time, so it was good to finally reach it. Michele pointed out to us that a White Pine tree along the edge of the course was home to nesting Bald Eagles.

Bald Eagle nest at ForEvergreen

We continued along the former golf cart paths along the creek, which eventually started to turn inland toward the new office building, and passed a pretty little pond.

ForEvergreen

We stopped to get our group shot at the pretty little pond spot, then continued to walk out past the new building. Construction seemed to just be finishing up, with hay put down for grass seed areas, but nothing yet in the building.
We walked out of the parking lot onto Cherry Lane Road, and turned right to pass beneath the former Lackawanna Railroad tracks, in another culvert built in 1911 like the previous one.

Analomink Station image by Watson Bunnel

The Analomink Station for the Lackawanna must have been in this area, but I’m not exactly sure where.

Pond at ForEvergreen

We follow Cherry Lane Road up hill a bit, which wasn’t particularly enjoyable. This was the longest road walk of the hike, just around three miles or so.

The group at ForEver Green

I was thinking that with all of the water runoff, we should have gone further and cut through the woods to pass Clark Falls, which we had done in the past, but I didn’t want to take too much extra time. It already seemed like it might be the earliest we’d ever finished one of these Michele hikes anyway.
We took the road up hill and past some communities along ponds, and crossed the heavy flowing Clark Creek. We then made a left turn on Metzgar Road heading gradually up hill farther, but with a bit less traffic.

Lackawanna underpass at Analomink

It seemed to go on for a long time, but we reached the top. It was a mostly residential road, but not all that many cars.
Everyone was getting tired, because they were mostly falling behind.
We turned to the right when we reached Hallet Road, and went a short distance up hill further to the intersection with Park Lane on the right. To the left, Locust Drive is gated, but we could walk around it to get directly into Penistates and continue from there.
We followed the road to the south until we reached a power line crossing.

Clark Creek

Once there, we made a hard left turn and followed the power line gradually down hill. It was dry at first, but at the low point it passed through an extremely wet spot that I think I was the only one to gracefully navigate without getting too soaked.
This led us out to Spicebush Drive, where we turned to the right.
We took Spicebush to the intersection with Pasquin and turned right. We had followed this power line route on the hike once before a couple of years back and it worked well.

Power line fun

We turned right on Greenbriar Drive, and then left on Fernwood Drive. The development was chock full of deer. They were everywhere, in just about every yard, both bucks and does. It was obvious that hunting isn’t allowed in this area, because there were so many, and they weren’t very afraid of us.
We turned left on Woodland Drive, and that led us to an area where straight ahead there was a creek and some woods. I recall crossing that on a previous one into the local park, but this time it was running too high. I walked to it while everyone else turned right on Somerset Drive.

Stream at Penistates

I decided to turn right and follow the brook to Mill Road, which took us across the brook.
We turned left on Penn Estates Drive, then right onto Kensington Drive up Beacon Hill. The hill seemed absolutely brutal after all we’d done.
The last left turn up hill on Stonehedge was also killer, but we soon reached the cars.
Pete came up with just over 18 miles total for the day, and Ken showed up at just over 17, so they were both close with their GPS regardless.

Hanging out

I really like the idea of ending the hike right at the house, because for most it means that there’s no more effort, just relax and have a good time. So, it kind of sucks when I drive to the starting point, because Pete and I had to have Kellie drive us back. It wasn’t too terrible though.
I stopped before coming back up and bought some cookies to share with everyone. Unfortunately, Michele’s husband Scott wasn’t able to be there because he’d gotten called in to work, but he was good enough to prepare a giant vat of chili.

Hangin out

I had two big bowls of it, and they picked up extra cheese for me, which was great.
Alyssa showed up to hang out and brought some cheesecake cookie things her mom made that were absolutely amazing.
Everyone had done really amazingly well considering we did so much extra mileage, and Michele, Ken, and Rob hadn’t even done that kind of mileage with me in quite a long time.
I would have liked to hang out for longer, but I was pretty tired already, and my feet were feeling raw from the new black shoes I’d put on to match my vest and cape (no blisters though).
We still have no shortag of ways to hike into Penistates. I’ve already found a back gate route including more power line rights of way, and then many options other than that from the west. There’s another way of coming from the north by way of the bog preserve with different stuff. We can still do entirely different ones in a variation of this one, with almost nothing the same, and even from the south and east. Just looking over this hike, I have at least five more good hikes that could end right in Penistates, and they’ll probably be even better.

HAM