What Was I Thinking?

On the brink

The Friday after Thanksgiving (November 27) was sunny and exceptionally warm (mid-60s F), so I persuaded Kali to put on her hiking boots and get in the car.  We drove 1.25 hours north to Lehigh Gorge State Park, a long, linear preserve paralleling the Lehigh River as it cuts it way through the Ridge and Valley section of the Pennsylvania Appalachians.  My destination was a 1-mile (each way) hike/scramble up Glen Onoko, a steep, scenic ravine that boasts four waterfalls along its length.

Glen Onoko was a famous Victorian summer resort with a huge, rambling guest house perched on the bank of the Lehigh River at the mouth of little Glen Onoko Run.  Radiating from the guest house were trails through the woods that allowed visitors from Philadelphia and New York (who arrived by train) to enjoy the magnificent scenery, including the cascades and rapids along the ravine.  An elaborate stone stairway allowed guests to ascend 860 feet from the river to the top of the highest falls with relative ease.

The resort burned down (as did many wooden Victorian resorts) in the early 1900s and was never rebuilt.

I first came upon Glen Onoko in the early 1990s and have hiked there several times.  When I "found" the ravine, it was pretty inaccessible.  I had to drive up to the top of Broad Mountain, and then make my way on rough dirt fire trails to the top of the falls.  From there, I could descend down the ravine and enjoy the serenity.  During those early years, I don't think I ever encountered anyone else on my hikes.

Today, the Pennsylvania Bureau of State Parks has created a huge parking area at the mouth of the ravine (which also serves whitewater rafters on the Lehigh River in the summer).  But the serenity of the hike is gone.  Hordes of people ascend the trail every day, prominent rocks have been defaced by spraypainted graffiti, and discarded plastic water bottles are common in the undergrowth.  Nevertheless, the hike is still scenic, and the waterfalls impressive.

The biggest problem for Kali was that the trail is extremely steep, rough, and difficult.  Most of the original stone stairway has eroded away, so the "hike" is much more of a scramble up steep, sometimes slippery, rocks.  I didn't have any problems, but Kali is probably the least sure-footed person I know, and the outing was torture for her.  Ascending the ravine was tough enough, but descending was even harder.  At one point, she broke into tears, and several other times fellow hikers helped me to get Kali through particularly difficult sections of trail.

Kali scrambling uphill

I shouldn't have brought her on the hike, but I didn't want to leave her home on a really nice late autumn day.  Once we had returned to the car and shed our hiking boots, we concurred that we had made one another's day miserable.  Kali's got two huge black-and-blue marks on her right buttock and upper right arm to prove it.

One positive feature:  Kali's very slow ascent and descent gave me plenty of time to take pictures. 

Pennsylvania's tilted sedimentary rocks

First falls

Second (and highest) falls - about 60 feet

Cairn cavern just uphill of second falls

Visitors have created a wonderland of cairns in the rock overhang

Third falls

Approach to the fourth falls.  The stone steps are a Victorian-era remnant

Fourth falls through the rhododendron thicket

Fourth (uppermost) falls

Tree roots with moss and lichen garden

Fern and moss rock garden

Most intense color of the day

Next time, I'll do this hike alone.  In fact, the next drainage to the west is a stream called Jean's Run.  I've explored its valley before; it harbors a virgin old-growth forest.  The last time I was there, it was only penetrated by a fisherman's path, and there's one really wonderful and nearly impassible falls near the top of the mountain.  I hope it's still like that.

Spring Fever in Valley Forge

Opening day of trout season on Valley Creek

Today (Saturday, March 30) was probably the nicest day so far this year, with mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the low 60s. Because rain is forecast for tomorrow, Easter Sunday, Kali and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and repeat the circuit hike we enjoyed earlier this year (see February 4th post) which involved ascending (and descending) Mt. Misery and Mt. Joy in Valley Forge National Historical Park.  Lots of other folks had spring fever, too, because the park was crowded and parking spots at a premium.

A view back down the Mt. Misery Trail we had just climbed

There were no signs of spring in the woods, and the forest looked much like it did when we hiked here a few weeks ago, so I didn't take any new pictures in  he woodlands.  But midway along the hike, we reaches the bank of Valley Creek, a cold-water trout stream--a rarity in our area.  Fishers were using the nice weather to cast for brown trout on the opening day of trout season.  Valley Creek is catch-and-release only because the water is contaminated with PCBs.

All of the green on the hillside above the fisherman is...

...Lesser Celandine (Ranunculus ficaria), an extremely aggressive riparian invasive, just beginning to bloom

Playing on a log over the creek

A local sportmen's club has planted riparian buffers on the banks of Valley Creek in the the park.  The plantings have to be fenced to keep the park's superabundant deer away from the newly planted trees and shrubs.

The dogs didn't seem to mind, but the female half of this fording duo was squealing about the "cold water"

Valley Forge topography - that's wooded Mt. Joy, our next goal, in the background

An infected red maple tree

On the crest of Mt. Joy, we came across this solitary red maple (Acer rubra) infected with a fungus that causes these burls, carbuncles and swollen growths.  The tree was still very much alive and its leaves were ready to burst open any day now.

Misery and Joy on Groundhog Day

Classic view of Valley Forge - reconstructed soldiers' cabins and open fields

Kali's putting on pounds - she's the first to admit it - in part because she's very sedentary at work.  So, when I proposed a hike on Groundhog Day, she was up for the challenge despite overcast skies and temperatures hovering around 30 degrees.  I looked through my regional hiking guide and suggested that we walk at Valley Forge National Historical Park, a 40-minute drive from home.  We walk at Valley Forge fairly frequently, but we were afraid that our usual walk along the banks of the Schuylkill River might be muddy.  So, instead, I found a 5-mile loop hike that traversed two wooded hills in the western end of the large park,  I assumed that the elevated trails would be drier than the riparian path.  (I was right.)

The paired hills are named Mt. Misery and Mt. Joy.  They are separated by a sizable stream called Valley Creek that provided power for colonial mills.  Valley Forge had already become an important industrial community at the time of the American Revolution.  (Today, it's a sleepy suburban crossroads.)

Kali lunching on an energy bar along the Mt. Joy Trail

We first ascended Mt. Misery.  At the foot of the hill were ruins of a colonial mill with a small spring-fed stream flowing right through the building.  There were no interpretive signs indicating the type of milling conducted here, though milling operations changed frequently in response to local needs, so the mill easily could have processed a dozen different products during its useful life.

Ruins of a colonial mill at the foot of Mt. Misery

We continued our ascent through open woodlands with an understory of mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia), Pennsylvania's state flower.  The woods support mostly drought-tolerant chestnut oaks (Quercus montana), with smaller numbers of black oaks (Q. velutina) and Northern red oaks (Q. rubra).

Mossy log in the leaf litter

The Appalachian Piedmont is a geologist's dream (or nightmare).  The Piedmont features rocks that have been repeatedly tortured by the tectonic collisions of North America and Africa over the aeons.  As such, metamorphic, igneous, and sedimentary outcrops often occur in close proximity.  Mt. Misery, Mt. Joy, and Valley Creek are good examples.  Mt. Misery and Mt. Joy are composed of quartzite, a metamorphic rock derived from melted and compressed sandstone.  The erosion resistant quartzite hills stand several hundred feet above the surrounding landscape of sedimentary rock.

A quartzite boulder in the woods

A whimsical cairn along the trail

Like nearly all national parks, hunting is prohibited in Valley Forge.  As a result, the population of white-tailed deer has exploded.  Vehicular collisions are common on the roads through the park, the forest understory is completely decimated, and the deer have created a browse line on the vegetation as high as they can reach.  No young trees whatsoever are present to replace the mature canopy trees.  Fortunately, after a decade of documenting the damage, the National Park Service allowed U.S. Department of Agriculture sharpshooters to begin to cull the deer last year.  It's too soon to determine how effective the population reduction will be, but it couldn't get much worse.  Throughout the park's woodlands are dozens of fenced exclosures that were used to demonstrate the effect of deer browsing on the forest understory.

The depauperate woods at Valley Forge, here along the Mt. Misery Trail

After Kali and I descended the far side of Mt. Misery, we walked across meadows of native grasses and down to the banks of Valley Creek.  Valley Creek flows through a limestone valley fed by numerous springs.  As a result, it is the only steam with water consistently cold enough for trout in southeastern Pennsylvania.  There were probably native brook trout in the creek at one time, but fishers have stocked aggressive European brown trout in the stream for angling.  Regardless of the species in the stream, though, none of the trout can be kept - serious PCB pollution in the upper watershed from railroad yards has contaminated the creek, so all fishing is catch-and-release.

Kali on a footbridge spanning Valley Creek

We then ascended Mt. Joy and followed the trail high above the deep, steep valley separating the two hills, ending our walk where we started near the mouth of Valley Creek.  We both enjoyed the hike very much for its invigorating climbs and its novelty.

View westward from Mt. Joy across the Valley Creek gorge to Mt. Misery