Hike #1470; Mt Zion to Andersontown

 Hike #1470; 2/19/22 Mason Dixon Trail; State Game Lands 242/Mt Zion to Andersontown with David Adams, ?, Randy Woodruff, James Kohan, Jennifer Grove-Shaffer, Diane Reider, Professor John DiFiore, and Daniel Trump

This next one would be my second hike in my new Mason-Dixon Trail series. I had already done the majority of the trail, with the exception of the west end from the Appalachian Trail to Wrightsville PA, and the segment from Parryville to Elk Neck MD.

I figured if I started over again, this time from the western terminus, it would fit in to both the Mason-Dixon Series as well as the Highlands Trails series, so this was part two of each of those.

I was really happy that the snow was melting off for this one. Since the second hike of January, I had only had reprieve from the snow for one hike.

These western segments of the Mason-Dixon Trail are heavy on road walking, and so I scheduled them for Winter months intentionally, so that we wouldn't have to contend with trudging through major snow. For this one, I took it a step farther, and said if there was next to no snow, we would do this hike, and if there was a lot, we would do the segment to the east ending in Andersontown, because that segment is more road walk.

It worked out very favorably for us. The snow was almost gone and we had great conditions for the intended hike.

We met at Jen Grove's house; she got married and moved to this area, but she used to hike with us more regularly several years ago. This would be the first time she'd be out to join us doing high mileage in quite a while, and she did great!

The meeting point was Jen's house. This worked out great because it is complicated trying to do point to point hikes on the west end of the Mason-Dixon Trail due to lack of parking. Diane mentioned that she had to get permission to park at a church just up the road from Jen's when she previously did the entire trail.

From there, we shuttled to the parking lot on Old Mountain Road for State Game Lands 242 on Mt Zion, just a little east of the town of Dillsburg.

The location is a bit north of the trail route itself, but can be reached quite quickly from there.

We walked from the parking area to the south on Old Mountain Road, and then turned left at the intersection with Robson Road just to the south to resume where we had left off on the designated trail route. Pretty soon after following this and passing a slight view to the south, the trail turned left into the woods of State Game Lands 242.

We made our way up hill a bit, and then came out to a slight clearing where some timbering had recently been done. This afforded us some views a bit to the north, and the route was easy along some of the access roads through the area.

We meandered past several of these spots, and then into more woods, across Old Mountain Road, and down hill and across the Beaver Creek. It was all very pleasant.

Once we were on the north side of the creek, we did end up on some foot paths, and passed through some groves of Norway Spruce in there somewhere. Some bits of the trail were a bit overgrown, but nothing too terrible. 

We emerged on Old York Road, a busier highway, and crossed through a parking lot. We passed through some small fields and then through woods on an old woods road, then soon over South York Road. After this, the trail mostly was along the edges of fields heading east.

This was all incredibly relaxing an beautiful. Some sun popped through the clouds as we made our way over a very slight knoll beyond a wetland. The ground was soft and grassy. 

Soon, we emerged after several turns through fields and along their edges to a parking area on Honey Road. The trail turned left on Honey Road and followed it to the east a bit, in an area near Wellsville PA.

Honey Road is the predecessor route to Old York Road, and it came back out to the latter where the trail turned left on it. From Honey Road to Old York Road, even though it wasn't the greatest road walk, it offered views of some beautiful old architecture including two lovely old stone farm houses and one log cabin. 

We passed Beaver Creek Road which had a sign reading both "No Outlet" and "Dead End". I joked that this was city English versus country English. 

We turned left onto Lisburn Road at a lovely farm with great views across to the small mountain known as Round Top. 

Just ahead, there was a lovely old stone arch bridge over Beaver Creek. It was built in 1917, but then widened with a cantilever deck section in 1987. Original stone parapets and portions of the spandrel walls were replaced with W-beam guide rails.
Still, the ambiance of the arch compliments the pastoral setting with old farm houses located peripherally. I wish they would have done it a bit differently, but in this area, they have reputation for screwing with historic stuff with "incongruous aesthetic".

We continued walking up Lisburn Road, with beautiful views of the Beaver Creek, and then just a little further we came across an old mill race. It was still holding water on the north side of the road. This race served grist and saw mill interests just to the east of this location on Thundergust Mill Road. 

The trail actually turned on Thundergust Mill Road just up ahead, which was a beautiful narrow little road, just the kind I like. I did not see any remnants of any mills on it, but they're noted on the 1870s atlas.

We continued ahead on this road, and then the trail turned right onto Squire Gratz Road. Some very interesting road names exist in the area. We then crossed the Beaver Creek, and the trail made a hard left on the other side into the woods. This was the start of the lands of Gifford Pinchot State Park.

The trail is co-aligned with the Beaver Creek Trail for a while, and comes close to the creek in some really pretty spots. 

The trail went over some nice sections of puncheons, and then the creek started taking on the the slack water as it began turning into the lake.

The park is named for the nation's first forester and twice governor of Pennsylvania because he broke ground on the first "Pinchot Road" here, now Rt 177. It was the beginning of a "get the farmers out of the mud" effort. The lake was dammed in 1959 and the park opened in 1961. 

We continued walking through nice woods and moved a bit more inland where we came upon a weirdly misplaced spew lever. That is what I call some of those stand pipes that have a handle that turns vertical to make water flow, and can have a hose hooked up to them. Randy decided to carry it with him for a while.

We passed through a very wet area on rock hop steps, puncheons, and bridges, and then came up closer to the shore of the lake again before emerging into Boat Mooring No. 1 area off of Rosstown Road. We took a little break there, and even the restrooms were opened. 

Rather than carry around a stand pipe for the remainder of the hike, it was decided that it would be funny to stick it into the ground well enough that people would think it was a working thing. Then, when Jim came back every so often, he could see whether it was still in the ground or not. Knowing many park maintenance people they don't even know what they have, and they would probably think it'd been there for years.

We continued on the trail on the opposite side of Rossville Road, which is co-aligned with Lakeside Trail here, but is not often along the lake side. 

After crossing the road to the camp grounds, the trail turns onto the Ridge Trail and follows that for a while, which was also quite pleasant. We were surprised in this section to get hit with a major snow squall, which made things quite interesting. There was a dusting of snow we got out of this, but really it was fine and just added to the terrific ambiance of everything. We were just in woods without views, so it was the perfect timing for this.

The trail continued ahead with minimal elevation difference across what was known as Straight Hill. We saw a couple other hikers on this stretch, for the first time or the day, and passed by a side path to a water tower. We checked that out really quick before moving on along the trail as well.

All of the little foot bridges in the park I noticed were covered in some chicken wire for traction, which I thought was a pretty good idea. After this hike, I salvaged several rolls of it to use specifically for that purpose.

The trail took us down to the left a bit, and we emerged in an area with some big boulders. There was once a building here associated with a toboggan run abandoned in 1966. Reportedly it was torn out in the 1980s.

Near the boulders, we found the remnants of the toboggan run itself. The concrete bases of the run were still in place and very obvious. I couldn't figure out for the life of me what it was while we were out there, but a little bit of research brought about most of the details.

We headed slightly down hill from the toboggan run area, and then hit an old woods road that gradually descended to the main park area. The trail skirted the rear of the picnic grounds, and then went slightly inland through woods again. Just ahead of us there were a group of scout kids doing an orienteering thing, and they were going super slow. The parents were up front trying to teach stuff and barely knew what they were talking about themselves, but they were trying so hard to figure out the map and such. 
Situations like this leave me a little frustrated and jumping ahead as soon as the trail is wide enough to get by, but more so it really puts into perspective how little connection parents or anyone for that matter have with anything outdoors at all. 

The scout group moved off to the right eventually, and we continued ahead to where the Mason-Dixon Trail joined the lake side again. This was over near the Boat Mooring #3 area.  Just past this point was a stone wall and front steps to an old homestead site. The 1876 atlas of York County shows that this was the homestead of J. Reynolds. It was probably demolished when the lake was created.

Pretty soon ahead, there was an extant, beautiful old stone farm house on the opposite side of the lake, in clear view. The same 1876 atlas showed this to have been the home of D. Wentz. It is probably an administration building now, because it is directly in front of the park maintenance facility.

Ahead, we passed through a weird, wet woods on boulders, passed a weird cracked rock that looked like it was crumbling layers, and plenty of incredible lake views.

Eventually, the shore line took us to the reservoir dam. This was not the first dam to occupy the site. A small reservoir and dam existed long before the park, which powered a clover and saw mill. 

There was a nice cascading spillway ahead, and a great view of the dam. We took a short break here, and that's where Dan joined up with us. 

The trail turned to the right along the Beaver Creek here, and then went out to Alpine Road to turn left. Just after that, the trail turned back into the woods and closely paralleled the road heading north.

We continued along the trail, and it came somewhat close to another old stone homestead on our left. The 1876 atlas calls this the residence of E. Bender. I was thinking it might have been the miller's house for the aforementioned clover and saw mill that used to exist nearby. This would have literally been right above where that should have been. 

The trail went slightly uphill here, and out to an access road to a parking area. We turned right here and it brought us out to Alpine Road at the intersection with Conley Road. The trail went straight here on Conley.

This was just the kind of road that is best for this. It had no lines in it. It was just a tiny back road. The trail followed this pleasantly on to Bull Road and turned right.

Bull Road was a little bit bigger. It had lines in it, but it still wasn't all that busy.
We descended and crossed the Beaver Creek, then paralleled it for a bit which was nice. Along the way, we passed Boring Bridge Road, which sounded like the most unexciting road in the nation, but it is actually named for early settlers of Alpine, PA by the name of Boreing. 

While walking in this section, it was realized that Dan had gone on a date with Jen many years ago before she got married, which was only slightly awkward for a moment.

We continued on the road up and over the Conewago Creek, and I noted what might have been a former mill site along it on the east side. We continued along to the south at this point, to the height of some farm land and passed by a nice old abandoned farm house with a mostly hollowed out but still living old tree in front. I had a look inside, and it was quite a mess, falling apart. It's a shame to see sturdy old homes like this go to waste.

Further down the road, we passed by a beautiful old stone farm house that had a date stone in the top, but the only legible part read "built".

We turned left from Bull Road onto Andersontown Road, and passed through some of the little settlment of Andersontown. 
There was another seemingly abandoned house on the south side of the street, and the Anderson family for whom Andersontown takes its name, lived in the row of houses about where this was supposed to be, again according to the 1876 atlas.

There were other lovely old homes in this area; a log cabin on the road, and an old stone one, as well as a picturesque farm pond on the left. Another old stone farm house had a lovely spring emanating from an enclosure in the front lawn. 

We headed down hill a bit further, and on the right was the historic 1898 Mountain Grove Chapel. To the right of it, the current Delp Center associated with the church is the original the Neiman School House built in 1851.

The school is named for George and Mary Neiman who donated the land to build the school when they were 63 and 56 years of age.

The donation was somewhat self serving as the school was probably attended by more Neiman family members than any other. The couple had 14 children, 4 boys and 10 girls, and at the time of Mr Neiman's death, he had 184 lineal descendants!

It wasn't much farther beyond that where we got to the Shaffer place, and we all went down into the yard and sat around a fire prepared by Jen's husband. He also brought out burgers and hot dogs and beer, and we all had a celebratory great ending to this hike. 
They have such an awesome spot right along the Laurel Run. It's just a perfect little spot.

It was of course great to knock out this section of the Mason-Dixon Trail, and as planned, by Summer we would be on to sections of this and the Highlands Trail that would afford us swimming opportunities!