half smashed.

Went and got myself all shook up there in early May.

Saying goodbye to a friend, breaking the news of that goodbye to the family, and then trudging through the days and weeks that followed in a lonely daze.  Usually, I'll write my way out of a funk like that, the letters initially fumbling around in the darkness, forming at last alliances in the eventual shape of words that finally band together into sentences that generate light enough to illuminate, however faintly, a way back onto the path.

Didn't happen this time, at least not in quick fashion.

The letters remained lifeless for weeks on end, not even making any noticeable effort to get to their feet much less team up with others to grant my sorrow voice.  To be fair, they'd given what they could in allowing me to give first report of the loss, but then they, I don't know, went into mourning or perhaps just fell over too exhausted from the effort to consider a return to action any time soon.

When runners can't run, they sulk and they fester.  They rot.  Even crap runners.

The same for writers, even if they are just hacks.

The letters, the words would not come, but I could and did still run though without the normal spark and certainly without the usual joy.  And, if you know me, that joy is pretty much the only point that I'm driving at in the first place.  To move forward without joy was heartbreak on top of heartbreak.

No sign of recovery in the letters, no hope of words, sentences, or healing paragraphs.

Deafening silence.

I tried to shrug off the not-writing.  "Just taking a little break," I'd tell myself, relieved that no one else was listening or needed convincing because the pitch was too poor to possibly end in a sale.

I tried to look on the bright side.  "You've got your health!"  Yep.  Lotta good that was doing me.

Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.

What happened to seeing the glass as half full?  Had I really become a half empty guy?

There was a teetering on the brink of becoming a full blown "shit, that glass is bone dry, long since empty" guy until I really stopped and gave the whole how-much-water-is-in-that-damn-glass proposition a proper think-through.

Half full, half empty, what's the difference?

Well, Leon, the difference is...ahem, let me just stop you right there.  I get it, but, the thing is, pondering that water level requires a recognition of the container and what space is available within that container and there's something inherent in the word "contain" that makes me immediately think of confines, of fences, of walls.  Here I was struggling to reclaim the joy while using an expression that relies upon confines, fences, and walls, constructs that certainly do not bring me any joy in the first place. 

None whatsoever.

Confines are shackles and I can't bear the idea of being restrained in any fashion.

Fences conjure up thoughts of selfishness, entitlement, "mine, mine, mine" tantrums, and the expectation of being told to keep out.

Walls make me think of being indoors which makes me think of not being outdoors which makes me restless.

And restlessness motivates me, gets me moving, shoves me out of doors to scale walls and climb over fences.  Restlessness drives me to shed confines, wiggle free of shackles, and...MOVE.  Movement, especially when openly acknowledged and celebrated as a counter to confines, fences, and walls brings me joy.

Some obstacles exist beyond our control, but other times we put them in our own way.  Often we are personally responsible for the walls and fences that stand in the way of whatever has the greatest potential to heal.  Sometimes we block out the joy. 

It was there, cloaked in a fog of sadness and loss, but there all along.

I was still moving but not acknowledging the gift of that ability to move.  But it was there, as were the letters.  They hadn't been lying there unresponsive.  They'd been pressed flat to the floor of my brain by the weight of my guilt and grief, gasping for air and trying to hold fast long enough for me to step aside and let them rise.

That guilt and grief filled a depressing glass all the way to the brim and there was nothing positive in its being full.

Curse that glass, full or empty.

Well, that glass is no more.  I smashed it.  Not half way, but all the way.  Shattered it.

My heart can go on hurting while on the move, healing too by no longer being safely hidden, "protected" by those glass walls.  Those walls had me not moving, not fully.

Those walls had me sulking, festering, rotting, but that's over.

Those walls are smashed, shattered, gone.

Sulking, festering, rotting is not doing glad and that just can't be.

I'm going running in the morning with my eyes, arms, and heart wide open.  I'm going moving and let it be known, joy, I am coming for you.

Just saying that makes me think I may have already found you.

you old buzzards, you.

Knowing full well what a cut engine in an unpaved lot at the end of a long car ride portends, Mamie had burst from the back of the car the second I popped open the rear window. Darting into and then immediately back out of the woods, she gave me a distrustful glance as she jogged to the other side of the lot to privately investigate the treasure she had excavated from the moldering leaves.

Following her and having a look myself, I couldn't decide if this skull and its Mamie-detached mandible were good or bad omens.

We were in Buzzards country after all.

Omens or not, dawn had broken, the sun was rising up off the eastern horizon, and all of Stony Valley invited adventuring from its roost just on the other side of Second Mountain at whose base we sat gawking from the valley of Fishing Creek.  It was time to lace up the shoes and get lost (or what felt like lost) for a few hours.

Neither Brian or I have ever run the full Buzzards Marathon course, weren't even sure we knew what trails or sequence of turns made up the course (which is to say, more truthfully, we were sure we didn't know), but we were certain that we were departing from the official, ahem, unofficial starting point of the infamous race that never was.

For those of you who are wondering what the hell I'm talking about, there isn't much I can tell you since the race really doesn't, perhaps never really did, exist.

Or did it?

Hard to say, but if you're curious (as I was and still am), here's a link that will let you draw your own conclusions:  Fact or Fiction? Lore of the Buzzards

As a quick aside, I believe I may have found the man who can tell me all there is to know (or not know), but my instincts suggest he may not give me straight answers, especially if I propose to write a definitive history of this near-mythical non-event.  Musings for another day and a different blog post.

Almost as soon as we stepped from the parking lot, our route began a steady climb of 700 some feet over about a mile and half.  The familiar yellow blazes of the Horse-Shoe Trail welcomed us early in the climb and I was reminded of coming the opposite direction on this same trail a few years ago when I had traveled the first 34+ miles of the trail on a long birthday run.  Going the opposite way and with the passing of even just a few years, I didn't recognize a thing, but that hardly mattered as we fell into a steady rhythm of movement and conversation.  We quickly reached the top of Second Mountain where the early morning sun cast long shadows and Brian and I gestured from one ridge to another, commenting on prior explorations.

Leaving the summit, we began a brisk downhill plunge that followed the straight arrow of an aging pipeline before hanging a sharp right to follow the Horse-Shoe Trail as it descended the ridge in more rolling fashion for the next 3 miles.  I did recognize this section of the trail and, as was the case on my first visit, I couldn't get over how long it seemed to take to cover that distance despite the fact that we were actually chugging along at a pretty healthy pace.

We had noticed fairly fresh bear scat near the top of Second Mountain and when Mamie crouched down into a defensive position and raised hackles I'd never seen her raise before, I was pretty sure we were about to get an up-close look at an Ursus americanus.

I don't possess any inherent fear of Pennsylvania's black bears, but, all the same, encounters remain relatively rare and the possibility of one definitely arouses a little adrenaline.

No such encounter materialized, however, and the at-attention stance of the hackles relaxed, signalling an end of our immediate concerns and allowing the adrenaline to seep away.

Down, down, down we continued before finally crossing the bridge over Stony Creek and then banking left to log a mile or so of rail trail on our way to the Water Tank Trail.

I wrote about the Water Tank Trail less than a month ago and, as it turns out, it isn't any less punishing in broad daylight than it is at night.  It was nice, though, to get on it this time without having first beaten up the legs with miles of self-correcting demanding ice, as was the case back in March, so it actually was a bit more manageable this go round.

Manageable is certainly a relative term and the rocks, downed limbs and steep grade still made for slow going and the rushing water of natural springs and winter run-off made for nice photo ops/chances to slow the pulse along the way.  Brian and Mamie began putting some time on me, but both were kind and patient enough to wait on me every now and then.

Rather than making the entire climb up Stony Mountain on the Water Tank Trail, we took a right-hand turn about a third of the way up the slope, following a trail dubbed Marcia's Madness and its orange blazes the rest of the way up the ridge.  Rumors would have us believe that this was true to the Buzzards course, but who can say?

Together, those two trails took us from the valley floor at roughly 180 feet to 1266 feet on the plateaued top of Stony Mountain in about a mile and a half.  To keep even the finickiest of masochists happy, they also threw in a healthy dose of rocks and roots in case the severity of the slope wasn't enough to render actual running a near impossibility.

Making yet another right hand turn, this time on to the Rattling Run Trail, we settled into one of the few real breaks of the day, a grassy track running north and east across the ridge top for a mile to a mile-and-a-half.

Red blazes to our left announced that we'd reached the H. Knauber Trail, our shortcut down to the Appalachian Trail below on the northern side of Stony Mountain.  No more than 100 yards onto the trail, we crossed paths with a hiker just about to top out on his way up from where we were headed.  The temperatures were maybe in the mid-60's but, despite looking strong and moving solidly (maybe because of this), the guy was sweating like it was a mid-summer 90 degrees with humidity to match.  After we put a little distance between ourselves and the hiker, I made mention of this to Brian and silently felt fortunate that we were going down rather than up.

Suffice to say, every drop of sweat staining that adventurous soul's shirt was hard-earned.  The descent of the H. Knauber Trail was a full-on screamer with big, deep in-cut steps and technical terrain the entire way.  By my Suunto's account, it gave away almost exactly a 1000 feet of elevation in 8 tenths of a mile.  By the time we reached the trail marker at the junction of the A.T., we were 10.5 miles into our day and my quads were well aware of the work we'd already done (and trying to ignore what might be left).  All I could think of was what that other guy had tackled by traveling the opposite direction.

Sheesh.

We swung west (left) on the Appalachian Trail and continued to wind our way down into Clark's Valley, a section with which I was more familiar, having been on that stretch of trail several times before.  Once we reached the bottom of the valley, we peeled away from the A.T. on a blue-blazed, new-to-me trail and began slowly working our way back up the ridge we'd just descended.

The sun continued to inch higher in the sky and the temperatures climbed too, marking the first real warmth of Spring. Our gradual ascending wasn't too taxing but I was beginning to want for calories, actual food to accompany the electrolytes that I had been doing a decent job of consuming along the way.  We walked for a bit while I tried to choke down a Snickers but, finding my always cranky stomach to be rather disinterested, I put the half-eaten candy bar away, knocked back a couple of salt tabs, and returned to running.

Soon thereafter, our route, having grown impatient I guess with the slow climbing, turned sharply left and started beelining for the top of Stony.  And, just like that, we were off on another 1000-ish foot climb squished into just over a mile.  Brian machined his way up the ridge with Mamie in tow while I trudged from behind in not-so-hot pursuit.

I may have imagined it, but I believe somewhere along that ascent, a small box was handed to me inside of which I found my own pathetic, beaten, scrawny ass, a humbling gift to receive, I'll have you know.

The top of the mountain did finally arrive, as it always does.  Or, to put it another way, I did finally arrive at the top of the mountain, as I sometimes do.  Even with beaten ass in hand, I was smiling.  My friends were waiting, the surroundings were beautiful, and the weather was absolutely perfect.  None of these things made me not-tired or any more filled with energy, but, all the same, they were there waiting and I was grateful.

We were back on the Rattling Run Trail, this time heading west instead of east but I was no longer cruising along the smooth, grassy double-track.  Not hardly.

I gulped down water, downed another salt tablet, and plugged away (this is an ego-protecting alternative phrase for walking) with knowledge of the long, gravity-promising descent of Rattling Run Road just a mile or two ahead.  That promise pulled me like a tractor beam.  Yep, like a slow, but persistent tractor...sputtering...in first gear...but, still, you know, persisting.

We made far better time on the meandering 3 mile drop that is Rattling Run Road and were rewarded with a view of the two miles of right-straight-up-the-mountain-and-damn-your-switchbacks pipeline that we'd need to cover to top out one last time on Second Mountain.

But not so fast.  The pipeline would disappear from view before we got started.  There was a creek that needed crossing and it was running high, knee-high at some parts, scrotum-high at others.  

Trust me.

Brian made quick work of the crossing, squealing and screeching, perhaps involuntarily from the effects of 50 degree water on vulnerable parts of the anatomy.  Or maybe he just likes to squeal and screech.  Again, who can say?

Mamie had a good long look at the situation and even without the same anatomical concerns as her companions, she still wanted no parts of our fording.  She doesn't mind water actually or mud or any type of questionable footing, but she is resolute in her wanting to be able to touch bottom and Stony Creek wasn't offering that luxury at the moment.

There's nothing quite like hucking a nervous 50-pound dog across a swollen creek on fatigued legs and a queasy stomach while your nuts shrivel up so tight they feel like they might burst.

Trust me.

We made it to the other side and I'm happy to report that Mamie couldn't have been any more dry.  Whew.

And then it was time for that pipeline.  I mean, then it was time for trudging through some of the thickest muck this side of the Everglades and THEN it was time for that pipeline.

Brian cheerfully said something about running up it and off he went.

What?

I watched him and Mamie go.  Watched them for a good 10 seconds.

Then I got down on all fours and vomited.

For real.

Once the spasms passed and I got back on two legs, I looked back the direction they'd gone and they were...um...gone.  Somehow I could see the whole way to the top of the mountain but couldn't see them.  I'd been man-downed for a few minutes, but they weren't that fast, not by that point in the day anyway.  A hundred yards away or half a mile, the point is they were long gone and I needed to start moving that way too.

Surprisingly, my legs weren't completely shot and I was still able to power hike which, while not as effective as running, is a whole lot faster in getting up a climb than walking, sitting or lying prone beside a puddle of your own puke.

Again, trust me.

It took a bit longer than I might have liked, but eventually I reached the intersection where earlier in the day the Horse-Shoe Trail had chosen a different compass setting.

I still had a good bit of ascending left to do, but I was getting there.  I vividly recalled the last time I'd come this direction and how brutal the climb had been from that point to the very top of the ridge.  I also, fortunately, remembered that there is one distinct false summit about 100-150 yards from the true top of Second Mountain.

Moments after mentally patting myself on the back for remembering that fact and avoiding the psychological letdown I might have experienced if I hadn't remembered, I found myself throwing up again.  True to my ridiculous form, it wasn't the kind of puking that produces any output, since my stomach had already been wrung dry.  Instead it was just a bout of spasms, a painful going-through-the-motions until my body accepted the fact that there wasn't anything else to evacuate.

Whether as a defense mechanism or some other character flaw, I always seem to find myself laughing after these episodes.  Perhaps it falls into the "might as well laugh about it" category and as stupid as that sounds as I type this, yes, you might as well.

So, topping out and discovering Brian and Mamie basking in the sun like two trail running pin-ups, I found myself laughing and happy, like always, to be out in the woods, among friends and still in possession of my flawed body and tenacious spirit.

"It's all downhill from here" is a dreaded cliche in ultrarunning, almost never true, but in this case it really was.  Less than 2 miles later, we were back in the parking lot, reflecting on the preceding hours.

Mamie humored me, as she always generously does, posing for an archival photo of the day's journey.

While I don't always bother to summon all the powers of my GPS, I decided to see what its charts had to report on our wandering and learned that we'd put in nearly 4400 feet of climbing and almost 21 miles.  My legs, like their owner, aren't very good at math, but they definitely concurred that work had been done.

Seems a full-blown Buzzards might have added my sun-bleached bones to those that Mamie had scrounged up earlier in the day.

Only one way to find out.

I can't wait.

out of doors.

As promised, Brian and Eric were waiting for me (and Sugar Pie) at the Dauphin Boro/Stony Creek exit off of 322.  The sun hadn't been below the horizon for all that long, but the darkness after we passed through the town of Dauphin and proceeded into the valley between Second and Stony Mountains had the deep quality of a much later hour.

The road we followed would only remain paved for a few miles before transitioning to dirt pocked and grooved from an unforgiving winter and a lack of maintenance.  Neither the dark nor the broken track fazed us much and it surely didn't dissuade the sizable black bear that rose up in the glow of our headlights from continuing on its search for easy-to-be-had scraps in the trash cans that accompanied the few houses colonizing the western end of State Game Lands #211.  Suge seemed to sense the bear's presence without actually casting eyes upon it, perhaps having caught its scent through the window I had cracked to let the night air creep in to acclimate us to the cold.

After weeks, months, seemingly years of winter, the day had actually been surprisingly moderate, but relatively clear skies had let the fleeting warmth escape back into the atmosphere.  Having reached the end of the road, the closed gate that marks the start of the Stony Valley Rail-Trail, a recreational re-purposing of the long abandoned Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad line, we stepped out into temperatures hovering right around the freezing mark.  Cold, yes, but, without the determined wind that had seethed most of the preceding week, it was brisk without being bracing.

Rattling Run Road in the light of day - Photo courtesy of John A Kilmer

Rather than progressing along the remote but flat rail trail, we were headed up, up, up along the Rattling Run Trail which begins as a smooth, runnable (but not without work) uphill grade until nearing the top of Stony Mountain and bending off to the north east and rolling across the top of the ridge for several miles.

I'd run with Brian and a few other friends the weekend before and it had been one of those days that my body just didn't have any interest in cooperating.  This night felt very different and it was a joy to run steadily along, gaining ground all the way while, as is always my want, laughing and chattering the entire time.  My legs felt much more responsive after the relatively low key week of running and climbing that had followed the aforementioned disheartening performance.

It wasn't until we topped out and transitioned from the broader jeep road to gone-to-wild double track that we encountered snow, ice and the muck that lurked beneath the two.  Though it slowed our progress...what, oh...right, it didn't slow Sugar Pie's progress in the slightest...anyway, though it slowed our progress, the messy conditions didn't dampen our spirits as the relative stillness and the moonglow off of the snow added to the captivating beauty of the night we'd wandered into.

We passed various trail intersections and tried to piece together the topography from differing memories of past visits to paths in the valley that may or may not have overlapped with one another. I don't think we actually drew any solid conclusions and our mental maps remained full of question marks.

The footing became a bit more treacherous as the trail headed downward and the terrain, more sheltered from the sun than what we'd already encountered, stubbornly clung to a blanket of polished ice.  Our slipping and sliding eventually delivered us to the place where the Horseshoe Trail collides with (or departs from, depending on the direction you are traveling) the Rattling Run Trail.

This intersection lies just below the Devil's Race Ground, a long boulder field that shelters the headwaters of Rattling Run beneath it.  You can literally hear the rushing of the invisible river under your feet but are unable to catch a glimpse of the water itself despite endless cracks and openings between the pile up of thousands of tons of rock.  I attempted to capture an audio recording of the stirring music, a music that early settlers feared was emitted from the devil himself, but, I did so in vain.

Sugar Pie whined her plea to move, move, MOVE along and we fell in line behind her as she led us down the shared route of the Horseshoe and Rattling Run Trails as they descended to the rail trail that had paralleled the course we'd traveled.  Along the way, we passed the cool old historical marker I hadn't seen since running the first (or last) 34 miles of the Horseshoe Trail on my birthday two-and-a-half years earlier.

My imagination likes to picture the hearty individuals who stood there on that October day back in 1934 being the very "interested" people who still returned each year to pay tribute.  It's a cruel math that makes that improbable and so my leaning-to-the-left brain did what it tends to do and left the arithmetic undone.

A 90-degree turn had us reoriented to the southwest.  Persistent tree cover, a resting point in the shadow of Second Mountain, and the ever present moisture of Stony Creek just a few yards away made the rail trail a rather nasty sheet of unsure footing that required a subtle but constant focus and consistent, tiring auto correcting to remain upright.  I don't believe any of us took a legitimate fall but the threat was persistent and our pace definitely suffered, making the 2-3 mile straight line feel like twice that.

Our only diversion was a quick visit to the creek itself at the point where the Horseshoe Trail breaks ways with the rail trail and crosses water to begin its climb up Second Mountain.  We gave Sugar Pie time to hydrate while we enjoyed a momentary respite from skating.

That break didn't last long, as another round of whimpering signaled that we had dallied long enough and it was time to get back to work.

We had another mile to go before we could put the rail trail behind us once and for all.  Not that doing so meant any relief, as our escape route was the Water Tank Trail, a relatively short pitch of mangled singletrack that mirrors the route of an old lumber incline that had one intention which was to get from the top of the ridge to the valley below as directly as possible.  Switchbacks are nowhere to be found.  Rocks, roots, downed limbs and runoff gouges are prevalent and the sustained grade is not even remotely runnable.  Hell, it's barely hikeable. On the bright side of things, it was free of ice and snow.  Had it not been, it may very well have been completely impassible.  Regardless, it was a punishing climb and I felt the first tinges of leg cramps well before the top and wondered how much more climbing we'd need to do and how interesting things would get if the severity of the cramps progressed.  I knocked back a couple of salt tabs, knowing full well that it was too little too late.

As is always the case (I always tell myself to remember this, but sometimes it's harder than other times), the grade did finally relax, announcing our arrival at the top of the ridge.  A sharp left returned us to the Rattling Ridge Trail we'd been on an hour or two earlier and we began again to navigate the mixed bag of snow, ice and mud.

Brian, having vowed to take things easy ahead of the Terrapin Mountain 50K a week later, was not taking things easy, at least not comparative to Eric and me.  I kid, but, well, no not really.  Thankfully, his cool badass-meets-kind-heart personality convinced him to check in with us now and again as we crept across the ridge.  I chased the salt tabs with the last of the water I was carrying and throttled back from running to hiking whenever the cramps threatened to intensify.

Our little group reassembled at the western edge of the ridge and together we tackled the downhill plunge to the parked cars waiting below.

We had covered 16.5+ miles and those 4 hours had passed by in what in hindsight felt like half that EVEN with the slogging that had happened on the rail trail and the Water Tank.

That disconnect from the clock is one of my favorite magical aspects of running "out of doors" at night.  The minutes pass imperceptibly when there aren't any pending appointments, shift starts/ends, or television show airings that demand to be adhered.

With my fitness not yet where it will be after months and miles of glorified hiking but little real running, I was definitely fatigued and happy to be done, but my mind was already plotting a return to Stony Valley and further exploration of its network of trails.  After a long drive home and a couple hours of sleep, that hadn't changed one bit and I decided to do a little multitasking at breakfast.

general specific.

A number of want-to-go-heres and got-to-go-theres have been taking shape in this rattletrap of a head of mine, but holiday bustle and proper priorities have the fruition of those schemings waiting on another day.

Opportunistically (always), I have continued in the meantime to explore bite-sized adventures more easily digested in the snack-length windows of time available in late December/early January.  Sticking with the introduced theme and accepting the gift of mild post-Christmas weather, I went to visit a real-life rattletrap that lies mouldering a few hundred yards off of the Appalachian Trail in the St. Anthony's Wilderness east of Harrisburg.

But I'll get to that in a bit.

December had ushered in snow, melted it off, brought a bit more and then turned around and jacked up the temperatures.  On the morning of the 28th, the sun was beaming and the prognosticators were calling for the mercury to top out well over 50 degrees.  The only acceptable reason for not being out in it was putting in a few fun hours of indoor rock climbing with my wife and daughters.

While the girls headed from the gym to the movie theater for a viewing of the latest Pixar film, Mamie (a/k/a Sugar Pie) accompanied me to Clark's Valley between Peters and Stoney Mountains about 10 miles east of the Susquehanna River.  I didn't have any specific mileage in mind, but our intent was to point ourselves east, following the Appalachian Trail northbound toward and perhaps past Rausch Gap.  A couple years ago, I had come the opposite direction, starting in Swatara Gap and turning around just 4 or 5 miles shy of the parking lot from which the dog and I would be departing.  The first few miles would be a retracing of the route Jefferson and I had followed the day I ran the Horseshoe Trail from its start/finish on the top of Stoney Mountain to Campbelltown to mark my 37th birthday.  Many more miles had been logged on the AT since then, but it had continued to bug me, pettily I suppose, that those few miles in between had remained unexplored.

Mamie couldn't have cared less about what had or had not yet been covered, but she was ready to go wherever it was we were going. In the rush to get started, I had forgotten to fill the hydration bladder in my pack before leaving home, but the stream at the trailhead just off of Route 325 was running high and graciously lent a few liters of water to which I added a purification tablet before uttering the "go get 'em, girl" the dog had been patiently awaiting. 

The first 3.2 miles came and went quickly, as Sugar Pie set a brisk pace climbing the 1,000+ feet to the summit of Stoney and the intersection with the Horseshoe Trail.  Curiosity coaxed me to peek at the HT trail registry and, remembering how fun the initial descent is from there down to Rattling Run, I nearly modified our plans but shook off the temptation, nodded toward the monument that marks the terminus of the trail in a vague manner meant to indicate that I would return soon, and then jumped back on the AT for the first true ground-breaking mileage of the day.

The next section proved wonderfully runnable, tracking mostly along the top of the ridge and eventually downwards, all with little rock, comparatively, to the terrain with which I was more familiar in the miles that would come later.  There were a couple of melt-fed streams to cross and passageways of rhododendron to glide through, but, except for a few slushy footprints, we had the trail to ourselves.

We clambered over the rocky gouge where an old incline used to once reside, shuttling coal from the mined shafts higher on the ridge to the waiting-to-whisk-away rail lines in the valley below.  Soon we reached the ruins of Yellow Springs Village which was abandoned in 1859 after what coal could be harvested had been depleted.  Except for some diminishing foundations and crumbling stonework, little remains besides the mailbox that has since been erected to house an AT trail registry.*

Another 5 miles would deposit us in Rausch Gap but, having heard many tales of an old stranded steam shovel (my research revealed that it's actually an early gasoline-powered shovel, but that's not nearly as aesthetically pleasing to the ear/eye) on a spur trail somewhere in between, I was strongly entertaining the idea of a side trip.  After tiptoeing through a minefield of good old Pennsylvania rocks for the next 2 miles, Mamie and I were staring at the sign that signaled the arrival of our detour.

I wasn't entirely certain how far we'd need to travel along the Sand Spring Trail to lay eyes on the General, but with only 1.7 miles from where we stood to Route 325, I figured we couldn't be looking at more than a 3 mile diversion.

The trail descended from the AT and required a rock hopping across Rausch Creek.  A two-foot-long panel of rusty metal wedged in a notch of a tree confirmed that we were still on the right track.  I was surprised to see that the trail climbed steeply soon after and it was nearly an all-fours endeavor to gain the top of the slope.  It was apparent that there hadn't been much recent foot traffic and between the severity of the grade and the leaf litter, my climbing was a pretty sloppy showing.  Reaching the high point, I expected to see this rumored shovel greeting our (my) huffing and puffing arrival.

No such luck.

Faded blue blazes announced that we hadn't managed to lose the trail but there was no sign of any ancient machinery.  Before we'd gone more than 100-200 yards, yellow blazes advertised a side trail heading in an easterly direction and I was sure that the General was waiting just around the bend.  The trail dead-ended at a Jenga-worthy stack of conglomerate rock that provided a breathtaking overlook of Second and Blue Mountains to the south.  It was a vantage point well worth reaching, but offered no sign of our quarry.

We backtracked to where we had left the Sand Spring Trail and hung a quick right to continue on our hunt.  Almost immediately, the trail aggressively gave ground, heading down into Clark's Valley quite steeply.  A few inches of snow and even ice on rocks and downed trees clung to this, the leeward side of the ridge. Sugar Pie vanished from sight while I struggled to keep feet beneath me.  The sun had fallen low in the sky over the last half hour, but it was significantly darker with the shadows cast by the ridge now rising behind us.  It didn't seem like there could be much more trail remaining before we would hit 325 and that either meant that we'd passed the General or that it rested much closer to the road than I had first believed.

A good spill was followed moments later by a second fall.  I decided that pushing on and losing any more light would likely mean having to follow the road back to where we'd parked the car as clawing our way back up this side of the ridge and then picking our way down the Sand Spring Trail again on the other side was going to be some difficult navigation after the sun had set even with the headlamp that I'd brought along.

With a whistle to cue Mamie back my direction, I began the climb back the way we had come.  The ascent worked out better than expected, mostly because I was guided by the holes I'd just punched in the snow moments before.  The amount of sunlight still available when we topped out was a pleasant surprise and the differences between either side of the ridge due solely to their positioning to sun and wind was a marvel.

Still, more light didn't mean much light and I hurried to get back down to Rausch Creek before darkness arrived.  As the hunk of metal in the tree came back into view, it became apparent where I'd made my mistake.  That metal was actually the indicator of where to turn to find the decrepit shovel.  Though there was nobody there to appreciate the gesture, I rolled my eyes at my "duh" and hustled to find what we'd come seeking.  The trail was faint and grown nearly shut with rhododendron but after following it for no more than 50 yards, I discovered the path widened considerably and soon the old machine materialized.

In the low light, the dog cowered at the sight of the once-mighty General.  The moniker, I've since learned, comes from the word now just barely visible on a rusty rear panel and the last visible remnant of the namesake General Excavator Company that manufactured the shovel.  As noted, it isn't an actual steam shovel, but considering that GEC is said to have gone out of business in the 1920's, it is a pretty impressive example of an early gasoline-powered shovel.  It rests in a slight depression and the surrounding area bears signs of the excavating that the General at one time must have been capable.  Even with evidence that it was once fully functional and put in work right where it still sits, it is hard to figure out how the General ever arrived in its perch and at least as strange to understand why it was left there.

I nosed around a bit longer and, yes, in a fit of childhood imagining, I even pictured myself operating the old shovel.  Not for long, though, as I decided to take advantage of the final moments of light to hop dryly back across Rausch Creek and return to the AT.

I checked the GPS.  We'd covered just under 10 miles and had to be another 3 miles from Rausch Gap.  My legs still felt great and Suge, no doubt, had plenty of gas in her tank, but I had been guilty on other occasions of pushing on because of feeling fine only to discover shortly thereafter that I didn't feel fine anymore and had that much more ground to cover in returning to the trailhead.  I chuckled over the fact that due to my out-and-back modus operandi, the day I can say I've traveled every inch of the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania is the day that I can also say that I've traveled every inch of the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania twice (at least).

Fifteen to twenty minutes later we were back at Yellow Springs and the sun was gone.  Mamie and I stopped to enjoy a makeshift in-the-dark dinner of water, crackers, cheese, Honey Stinger waffles and dog kibble (we both had some of everything, though I did pass on the kibble).  I took advantage of the darkness to strip down and slip on a pair of tights under my shorts (don't be fooled, I am, to the world's chagrin, not so modest as to wait on the cover of darkness...consider yourself warned).  Other than donning a pair of lightweight gloves and turning on my headlamp, I didn't need any other bolstering, as temperatures still hovered in the low-to-mid 40's.

The rest of the return trip to the car was lovely though uneventful.  My fitness held up, but we did slow the pace considerably on the the final descent off of Stoney due to a thin and initially deceptive layer of ice that had begun building up on the rocks and logs that had been merely wet during the daylight hours.  Not being careful in those last couple of miles would have definitely made for a tale full of events, but I was much happier (and healthier) for having nothing to report.

We got back to the car just under 5 hours after we'd left, having whiled away 19.5 miles.

An ever present grin kept me company the whole way home as Mamie snored loudly and contentedly from her backseat roost.  Who knows if we'll be back specifically to visit the General, but we will definitely return to St. Anthony's Wilderness as there is much more exploring still to be done.

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*Over the years I've found little snippets of information here and there on Rausch Gap, Yellow Springs and the surrounding area.  The first half of my childhood was spent in nearby western Berks County and my father and uncle spoke reverently about this part of the state and I always hoped to do my own exploring one day.  After we moved to Lancaster County, I spent much time adventuring closer to home and didn't actually get up to Raush until many, many years later.  While doing a bit more digging in the days before and after this outing, I stumbled on the following page, compiled by J.W. Via, that included several photos, maps and illustrations that I hadn't before seen:  St. Anthony's Wilderness

I'm grateful to have found it and encourage you to check it if you're interested in far more detailed information on the area and its history.

old bloggers path.

Sugar Pie (Mamie, when formally introduced) was quite antsy as we crept along the old unpaved roads leading from Ralston deep into the Loyalsock State Forest.  The sun had set long ago and we had already ventured down one set of rural, wooded roads without the payoff of a run for the dog when two hours prior we had dropped Lily and Piper off at a Juniata cabin with their grandparents.  By now Sugar Pie had waited long enough and her four fidgety legs delivered her from one side of the backseat to the other as she surveyed the fringes of the shadowy forest outside the windows.

On the off chance that Suge could translate my slangy English to Dog, not a word was uttered to explain that we would not actually run a single step until morning or before we managed a few hours of in-the-car sleep.

We reached the end of our road (for the night) at the State Forest sign that calls out the former location of Masten, a long abandoned logging town that has been housing nothing but ghosts since 1941.  A single still-standing fireplace and its chimney were landmarks enough to confirm that we'd reached the site of a handful of DCNR primitive campsites situated right atop the crumbled foundations of the former mill and its once surrounding lodging.

This also meant that the traditional starting point of the 27+ mile Old Loggers Path stood somewhere nearby.  There, a few hours later, Sugar Pie would get her chance to run.  But first, ghosts or no ghosts, we needed to catch some shut eye.  Suge took me for a short walk so I could pee and then we crawled back into the car and were soon, fittingly, sawing logs.

From what little history I've been able to turn up, many, many logs were sawed during the roughly three decades during which Masten was founded and thrived before operations were abandoned in September of 1930.  The Civilian Conservation Corp established a camp on the site in 1933 but, less than 10 years later, the last family moved away, leaving Masten completely uninhabited.

In its heyday, the town, in addition to the mill and a tannery, consisted of over 90 homes, a boarding house, a hotel, a barbershop, a pool room and a dance hall.  Grainy photos reveal the large structures of the mill itself and the old Susquehanna and New York railroad station.

Those photographs are now completely disconnected from the the ongoing natural reclamation project that has reforested the hills and encroached upon beds and grades where rails once lay.  It is along those very contours that the Old Loggers Path wends its way and watchful eyes can find remnants of rails, old wooden ties and man-made this-or-that but these glimpses are brief and other than periodic crossings of logging and fire roads, the route feels worlds away from civilization, old or new.

It was in great anticipation of wandering out into that remote, abandoned landscape that Sugar Pie and I awoke.  Jeff Calvert, one of the organizers of our little group outing, was already up and tending an inviting fire.  The three of us made our introductions and the dog set about exploring while I heated up some coffee and oatmeal and pondered how much clothing was just enough for a cool, crisp day in the woods.

We were soon joined by the final three members of our party, Thomas McNerney (Jeff's co-organizer), David Walker and Roth Reason.  David and I had met a few times in passing, but didn't know each other well and I had never met Jeff, Tom or Roth.  As is so often the case amongst trail runners, that unfamiliarity didn't seem to matter one bit.  Within just a few moments, it was obvious that I was in good company and the day became just that much more full of promise. 

Our intent was to travel the entire misshapen loop of the OLP, traversing first north and then south by following the trail in a counter-clockwise fashion.  Being early November, a week after the clock fell back, and getting off to a not-all-that-earlybird 8:00 AM start, we would have roughly 9 hours of daylight to make the circumnavigation and we expected to be able to accomplish the task in less time than that.

The trail climbs immediately and Jeff set a healthy pace with the rest of us strung out behind him.  At the rear, Roth and I were busy producing steady streams of snot, he from a nasty cold that he was just getting over and me from one just settling in.  This wouldn't prove to be an issue for either of us, but, at the start of our long run, it left us both wondering how the day would go.

Sugar Pie just grunted from the couch behind me as I type this, I suspect to remind me that it was actually she who was out in front of the pack, but, be that as it may, it was Jeff who made sure we followed the proper orange blazes.  It was also Jeff, not Suge, who did the proper thing and recorded our presence in the trail register that greeted us within the first mile-and-a-half.

After topping out and running the ridgeline for a short time, we began dropping down toward Rock Run, one of the loveliest creeks I've stumbled upon in this state or any other with its in-cut banks, overhanging mountain laurel and deep, clear pools.  It was beside one of these large natural bowls that we made one of our first brief stops of the day to investigate the ways in which water had carved the spectacular ravine into which we'd descended.

The landscape was so serene and the lullaby of moving water so soothing, it took effort to pull ourselves away and get back to work.  And work lay just ahead, as one of the few really relentless climbs of the route began immediately as the trail hooked a hard left away from Rock Run and shot straight up the ridge.  For the first time, our running changed to hiking but we continued to make steady progress, soon reaching Yellow Dog Road and Tom's parked car/aid station.  We'd reached it too early in the morning to break open the cold beers stashed there, but it was nice to sneak some water without having to dip into the little water that we each were carrying.

It was there that I remembered reading about the Molnick brothers (though I couldn't recall their last name at the time) who somewhere in those hills had run a successful still as the lumbermen of Masten couldn't score any booze in the "dry" company town.  Apparently, business wasn't good enough to keep the Molnicks from brazenly stealing the Masten safe only to be captured and jailed for the offense shortly thereafter.  I suspect their restless spirits were out there somewhere and would probably have loved to have hoisted one of those beers to their thirsty lips.

Time for that later.  For we runners, if not the Molnicks.

The climb continued but soon leveled and revealed the first of several sweeping views of the gap cut by Rock Run looking out over the McIntyre Wild Area and, off to the northwest, the hidden-by-trees town of Ralston.

The trail continued to track across the ridgetop and soon began bending south.  There were many rocky outcrops that we all agreed were pleasantly devoid of rattlers thanks only to our not having attempted the route earlier in the season.  We were making good time and moving at a healthy pace across the slightly rolling terrain that topped the ridge.

At least we were before Sugar Pie, who had continued to pinball between the front of the line and sidetrack ventures to chase sounds and scents to which the less-sensitive bipeds were impervious, showed sudden signs of distress.  Though not one other member of the group witnessed the encounter or heard even a whimper from Mamie, she'd managed to jump her first porcupine and suffered the inevitable consequences.

Quills protruded from the end of her snout, her upper lip and, most disconcertingly, the roof of her mouth.  A full-fledged pitb...what's that, Mamie...oh, American Bulldog, she has a jaw not easily unclenched without her accord.  Initially confused and upset, the dog wouldn't allow us access to the inside of her mouth, but I held her in my lap and the other guys gathered round to help calm her.  She slowly let me get her jaws opened more widely so we could do our best to remove the quills lodged there.

While we did our best, I'm not sure we would have accomplished the job right there on the spot were it not for the two backpackers who happened upon us, the only people we actually saw all day if I'm not mistaken (earlier, we saw three packs leaning against a tree but spotted no backpackers to match to them), and kindly lent a Leatherman multi-tool to the affair.  

With all quills removed and the bleeding stopped, the wag of Sugar Pie's tail instantly returned and she was again ready to move.

I thought I was too, but the minutes spent cradling the dog (and stressing about her condition, perhaps) on the heels of our first 14 miles of running found my troublesome back acting up when we got back on our feet and headed on our way.  There were some wonderfully runnable downhills and I grit my teeth and hoped that I'd shake out the stiffness and my back would settle back down. That wishful thinking didn't prove out and by 17-18 miles into our day, I was laboring to keep up.

Sugar Pie seemed to sense that I was flagging and began halting in mid-trail to let me catch up which wouldn't have been as problematic if she hadn't first placed herself just ahead of whichever human was at the front of the line.  I tried to talk her into sticking with me as a duo of a caboose but as soon as I would catch up and offer a word of encouragement, she would again reclaim her spot as the engine of the train only to repeat the brake-and-wait process anew.

Thankfully, for both she and I, we were with a most patient and understanding group of fellow runners.

Reaching one of the most southern points on the trail, the Sharp Top Vista served up an incredible view of ridges stacked one upon the next, jostling for position in the lowering afternoon sun.  Had the entire trail been a bust, this view alone would have been worth the effort.

 It was beautiful, but whipping winds, taking advantage of all that open space, brought a biting cold that we'd been spared most of the day and persuaded us to head back to the shelter of the woods.

We settled into a mile of downhilling and I managed, stiffly, to run a bit of it before a sustained uphill reminded me that my back was very much on the fritz.  We reached a spur trail that led to another high overlook and I lay flat to regroup while David and Roth sought out the advertised rocky vantage point.  After a few minutes of rest, I decided to begin hiking to cover whatever distance I could before the group caught up again, as I knew it would, in hopes that this tact would keep us on track for our time goal.

The first teammate to catch me, not surprisingly, was Sugar Pie, who couldn't initially resist getting a peek at the overlook with David and Roth.  She came upon me at a dead sprint but then peeked back over her muscular shoulders to make sure that the others were coming too.  It seemed like a good opportunity to get a photo of each of them on the run.

Jeff

Roth

David

Tom

Putting the camera away, I tried to give chase but, with little more than 3 miles to go, I was likely going to be hiking the remainder of the Old Loggers Path.  I found the group, including Suge, waiting for me several hundred yards later, but I urged them all on their way comfortable in my ability to follow the blazes home before the sun set.

While I would have loved to still be running, walking those next few miles was nearly as invigorating.  The OLP had again dropped into one of the second growth wooded valleys that seem the signature of the Pennsylvania wilds.  The trail itself was smooth and forgiving and the yellows, oranges, reds and browns of late Fall were enthralling.  I had a bit of solitude to replay the wonderful shared moments of earlier in the day while enjoying some quiet, reflective time alone with my thoughts.  Not feeling the need to push the pace and being able to ease off the throttle, I could give my back a chance to relax.  Taking a little bit of edge off that pain reopened my eyes to the beauty of the landscape in which we had played all day long.

David, Roth and Sugar Pie dueled to the very end and I wasn't there to see who closed the Old Loggers loop first.  I happened upon Jeff and Tom with about a mile to go as they had paused at a hard left intersection to make sure that they were headed the right direction.  The three of us jogged to the trailhead from which we'd started some 7:43 minutes earlier.

Sugar Pie saw us coming and darted over to welcome us home.  According to my Suunto, Jeff, Tom, David, Roth and I had covered 27.6 miles and I wish we had outfitted Suge with her own GPS so we could see how many extra miles she had on us.  Whatever the final tally, she earned the crash that came after the adventure.

Before parting ways at Masten, we cracked open a couple of cold beers to wash down the effort of the day.  I knew my back would tighten up on the drive back to Juniata, but right then, right there, I felt fantastic, having made new friends and together enjoyed nearly every second of the day's available light on the move along another incredible Pennsylvania trail.

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I mulled over Masten, loving that it and all its history had "been" but also thrilled that it was no more.  The idea of the wild woods that we had just passed through being razed and the hills stripped bare was appalling but the testament of restoration that had occurred by man simply vacating the premises was truly inspiring.

This area of Pennsylvania is very much threatened again, this time by the encroachment of natural gas drilling.  It's weathered many a storm, at least one of them man-made, and here's hoping it isn't forced to withstand one more.  With one inspirational story already written, we don't need another.*

I tipped a beer toward the approaching darkness and wished the Molnicks well before heading back down the lonely road that had brought me and Sugar Pie there.

*If you're interested in joining the chorus of voices urging current PA Governor Tom Corbett to disallow further drilling in the Loyalsock State Forest, check out the following Penn Environment link:

Tell Gov. Corbett: Protect the Old Loggers Path

If you have greater interest in Masten or other abandonded settlements in the Keystone state check out Pennsylvania Ghost Towns: Uncovering the Hidden Past by Susan Hutchison Tassin. Most of what I've learned of Masten came directly from her book.