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.

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.