Hike #1440; Second Narrows to Spring Run

Hike #1440: 9/19/21 Second Narrows to Spring Run with Professor John DiFiore, David Adams, Daniel Trump, Diane Reider, and Peter Fleszar

This next one would be my fourth in my Tuscarora Trail efforts. I'd started hiking the trail years ago, only to abandon that for a while, and returned to it earlier in the year.

This hike would be between where we left off at Second Narrows, a middle of nowhere spot in Tuscarora State Forest, all the way out to near the village of Spring Run.

The hike would be one of the most secluded sections we would do of the entire year, because it didn't cross a single paved road for the entire length of the day. The Tuscarora Trail was intended as a replacement for the Appalachian Trail before the National Trails System Act took effect, and so it was a wilder route with less building encroachments.

The ending point was an obscure spot, so much so that I decided we would meet in the town of Spring Run, and then shuttle to the end point before carpooling to the beginning. It made for a bit more complicated thing, but we did it.

The spot was a small private land lot that was close to a former quarry up the hill from the road that no one was ever going to find if they weren't with us.

We shuttled from there back to the wilderness of the Second Narrows and started our hike.

I was a bit concerned at first because someone told me on the Tuscarora Trail facebook page that the segment that we were to hike was officially closed to public due to a logging operation or something. When I checked the official Tuscarora Trail website, I could find no such closure noted, so I chose to ignore the warning and see what we came across.

There were no signs going into the woods southbound from Second Narrows saying that we couldn't walk that way, so off we went.

The route took us through some lowlands in what is referred to as Second Narrows, through some lovely little swamps, and then across the Schaeffer Run on a little foot bridge. 

After meandering along on the trail through lowlands, we made our way slightly up hill and came to the crossing of Couch Road.
At first, we assumed that maybe this was a joke name given by park employees because so many people illegally dump, and they might have found an abundance of couches along this particular road. 

Then, I thought maybe the "Couch" was a term meant to describe a sort of bench of false summing on a climb up a ridge that might seem to resemble a couch. But neither of these were the truth; the road is actually named for someone with the last name "Couch".

We started ascending Amberson Ridge from Couch Road, somewhat steeply for a bit of time. I powered up the slope as quickly as I could, which was really a good warm up for the day, and reached another part of Couch Road, this part not accessible to vehicle.
Couch Road was once part of the Perry Lumber Company Railroad's narrow gauge line, which we would come to after a little bit. I thought at the time it looked like a logging line, but I didn't know for sure until researching it.

The trail followed old Couch Road along the peak of Amberson Ridge for a bit of time, but eventually turned off to the left and descended a bit through woods. There were some views to the north through the trees along this segment.

We continued to descend to Folwer's Hollow, and then crossed Fowler's Hollow Run on a nice foot bridge. There was one nice big tree near the creek, which is uncommon in the area, because it was logged rather continuously for 150 years.

I believe I took a brief dip in the creek at this point, and then we continued on uphill on the other side of the creek into very recently logged lands to cross the Perry Lumber Road. I suppose this was the area that people were concerned was closed, but there were still no signs saying such.
I really can't believe it would be closed because this year the Appalachian Trail Conservancy was telling people to hike the Tuscarora Trail rather than the Appalachian Trail from the Great Smokey Mountains to near Carlisle PA in order to help deal with crowds. If such was being encouraged, I just don't see them closing a long stretch.

We ascended a little bit from the road, crossed a little bridge, and then reached the Fowler's Hollow Shelter, where we took a little break.
This was a very nice little three sided shelter built in the old style, with a large fire place in front of it. There was also a nice spring nearby. A great little spot for a break.

When we headed out from here, I was at first disoriented where the trail was supposed to go, but we found it right in front of the shelter and continued on.
Soon, the trail turned onto the old Perry Lumber Company Railroad bed, which was a bit torn up compared to what it used to be due to recent logging. 

Perry Lumber Company was organized by a group of Harrisburg business men around 1900. By 1901, they had acquired some eleven tracts of land in this area for the purpose of logging mainly white pine, white oak, chestnut, and hemlock.
The Perry Lumber Company Railroad grew to about 12 miles in length, and portable saw mills were hauled along its tracks to do work on site after felling of trees. 
The company hoped to have the Newport and Sherman's Valley Railroad converted to standard gauge to make connection with their lumber line, but due to disagreements with N&SV owner David Gring, they ended up building at matching three foot gauge.

The Newport and Sherman's Valley was intended to be extended through as the Path Valley Railroad, but although grading and construction continued to the west, it was never completed. Some of the grade was then used by the Perry Lumber Company for their line up into the mountains, which headed both up and down Fowler's Hollow, and the main branch went up to Couch Road and Scheaffer's Camp which was near Second Narrows.

We continued along the grade, which as I understand partially follows the Perry Lumber Road that we crossed earlier, but this bit of it was definitely former rail above.

If there was any question of that at all, it was gone when Dan spotted some old railroad spikes that were laying in the recently disturbed ground from the logging.

The Perry Lumber Company was active only from 1901 to 1905 when the resources were exhausted. The line was then removed, and the properties the company once held went to the state of Pennsylvania in 1907. The connecting line, the Newport and Sherman's Valley, remained in operation until only 1935.
We followed the right of way to the Gutshall Trail intersection, and Tuscarora Trail turned right to the right. Here, we began the gradual ascent of Rising Mountain, some of which was on some sort of old road route or log skid.

The log skid got insanely steep at some point, and the blazes were not all that common. Dave and I missed the turn where the trail went off of the log skid at first, and then turned to the left through the woods to rejoin it shortly. 

We went over the top of Rising Mountain, and then descended a bit with some very nice stone steps, a welcome change from what we saw on the other side. We then descended to Hemlocks Road. We did not come right out to the road, but rather turned left on the slope parallel with it, and then turned left away from the bend in Hemlocks Road into the woods on an old road route. We did see one car going by while we were on Hemlocks Road, the only such thing we would see all day.

We continued on the road, which was nice and flat for a while and I wondered if it too might have been an old lumber railroad. It's possible that Hemlocks Road was once one of these because it goes right off of the Perry Lumber Road at an intersection that could have been a rail grade to the east.
We continued through woods and passed a sign reading we were one mile from Hemlocks Road, but 10 miles from Rt 641. That seemed like such a long way from where we reached.
We passed through an area known as Sugarcamp Hollow on this route, which skirted part of Rising Mountain, and then we climbed up to the top of it again to continue along the ridge.

A little bit earlier, I can't remember exactly in which section, we had passed another hiker, which was not a common occurrence, and he was heading northbound having done the entire trail from the Appalachian Trail to the south. 

He told us that the trail was really nice until it got into Pennsylvania, and then it was a huge mess of thorns and was really horrible to follow. I told him he would probably like the section just ahead (because we had done the bit between Colonel Denning and Second Narrows already and it wasn't as bad). As of this writing, since I have now done all of the trail from the Potomac River north, I must say that he probably didn't like the sections that we told him were not as bad. I didn't think so much of the rest of it was that terrible, but there were some rough spots. The section west of Waggoners Gap on Blue Mountain was one of the worst sections.

This next section on Rising Mountain was pretty rough both in terrain and in weeds. The first bit wasn't all that bad, and we eventually came to Catholic Path where we regrouped.
This was a path over the ridge where Catholic settlers once walked over to attend church services. 

There was a trail register just beyond this point, and we ascended Knob Mountain. This got to be pretty rough terrain again. There were a lot of rocks, quite a lot of weeds, and some really nice views, but it was alright. I continued to power ahead quickly.

In this section, we were happy once again to meet up with Pete, who had walked in from the end point of the hike to join us along the way, once again bringing us some delicious beer.

We soon reached the main view from Knob Mountain, which was fantastic and almost 360 degrees. 

A little was after this point, the trail got to be quite clear again. Someone must have cut back a lot of this, and it was quite splendid walking. There were still rocks and such, but it was a far easier traverse. It even became a woods road for a time, so it was even easier. 
A little further on, there were what looked like natural steps in the rock outcrops the trail traversed. Beyond that, the maintenance was again gone and we were walking through a mess of more thorns in spots where the sun shone through the canopy.

We continued to the west, and not all sections were bad. Some of it was easy to move along on, but we had to watch our footing. It was somewhat unsure when there was an opaque layer of weeds blanketing the rocks.

We crossed a power line on the ridge top with some good views, and then started to descend from the ridge top a bit. We bent over to the right of the ridge, an then started to descent an insane slope.
Dan and I were up front, and we had to make our own switchbacks or we would go tumbling to the bottom.
The trail left public land and went into private somewhere in this area, and so the trail had to be located only where permission was granted. This put it in this really crazy steep spot where extreme care had to be taken. Dan and I both agreed that it was nuts that Pete had climbed up this to meet up with us!

A ways down, we reached a woods road where the trail turned hard to the right. After a bit of this, we cut to the left rather steeply again down through just woods near a sort of dry run that became a small spring. 

Soon, we reached another woods road and turned to the left. This took us along the flank of Knob Mountain heading southwest, and then wrapped around the west side of it. It became wider as we continued, and the trail turned on a side road downhill to the right. 

There was a straight option that would have taken us more in the direction we were going to come out on Route 941, Spring Run Road, but I chose to follow the official route as not to have any problems.

We emerged on the road and went left. This took us in view of a stream called the Dry Run, and just a little ways to the south until we came to the parking lot where we had been in the morning. 

This had been a really nice hike, and one of the most secluded ones of the entire year. It's really great to have something like this, so deep in the woods and away from so much man made stuff, to contrast with that other industrial hisotry stuff we do so much of. It is that much more interesting that even in this deep woodland expanse, we were not far and sometimes right on that same type of industrial history, almost wiped away from any form of recognition.
At this point, I think we only had three hikes remaining to complete the north half of the Tuscarora Trail. It seemed like it was going by really fast.