not small at all.

Being in the woods makes me happy.  Sometimes simply not being indoors is enough.

Add a predawn start with a bunch of good companions (including my favorite four-legged pal) on a favorite local ridge finally beginning to rally to life after a punishing winter and, well, things couldn't get much better.

Except sometimes the body doesn't cooperate.  It's tired, disinterested, unresponsive. And sometimes, no matter how non-competitive or goal-oriented a runner you might be, you bog down on not performing the way you hope to and allow frustration with momentary physical weakness to be a bigger, a MUCH bigger, deal than it should be.

By "you" I mean me and "sometimes" was Saturday.

Yes, I muddled through another 2700+ feet of climbing in a challenging season in which miles have been hard and hard to come by.  Yes, I am on track for what spring and summer have in store (on track, not nearly all the way ready).  I know that, but I stopped knowing it for a time on Saturday morning because instead of heeding the signs that my body needed a day off, instead of listening, I shouted over those indications with the noise of more of the very thing that had me worn down in the first place.

That's what ultrarunners are supposed to do, right?  Gut it out, suck it up.  Push harder, work harder, BE harder.  Keep moving.  Get back up.

Over and over and over again.

I get it.  I like all that and wouldn't be out doing the things I do if that weren't the case, but...

...boy, do we ever miss out on all the lovely small things when we get so hyper-focused on the big thing that (shhh, don't tell anyone) isn't really a big thing at all.  We should know better than most that from time to time energy lapses and the indestructible body proves destructible, the unwavering mind wavers and, surprise!, life goes on anyway.

I smiled for my friends and genuinely enjoyed their company but, make no mistake, my attention was inexcusably distracted by not being able to enjoy the movement because it wasn't the quality of movement I expected of myself.

Which is ridiculous.

 Thankfully, even my numb skull can warm with enough exposure to the glow of life's little wonders.

The coffee waiting at home tasted just as good as it always does.

A book pulled off the shelf for ten minutes of reading before Lindsay and the girls were ready to accompany me to the diner for breakfast did what books so often do, floored me with the power of words orchestrated by a conductor finely attuned to not just language but also to the essence of human interaction.  The words wouldn't have been any more or less stirring had I charged through my earlier workout instead of bumbling and muddling along.

The thaw continued at breakfast with relaxed laughter, a recap of the girls' individual adventures at school that week, and the sweet, reassuring touch of a daughter's hand in a shared restaurant booth.

Off to the rock climbing gym from there.  I resigned my tired body to belay duty while Lily and Piper were their normal roller coaster rides of grit teeth determination alternating with who-could-care silliness.

They were having fun, purely reveling in play and exploration, too busy to bother measuring the fun they were having by increments of accomplishment.  Hard to think of that concept as a "small thing" when you're forced to examine it, but too often our stressed-out by everything adult minds fail to grasp that simple wisdom.

Seen off by a round of hugs, Lindsay left the gym for a shift at the hospital and we three who remained headed back to the house to pick up Sugar Pie and then together we returned to the forest to retrieve the dog leash that I'd forgotten at the top of Molehill that morning.

Sugar Pie whimpered her want to move fast, fast, faster, but I and my battered legs were far more content to slowly amble along the Horseshoe Trail while the girls flitted about in search of scavenger hunt targets.

Hours before I had surveyed the ground beneath my feet through the narrow lens of a runner's eye, seeking traction and confident footfalls in a threatening landscape of ice, snow, mud and rock.  Now, with my daughters by my side, the terrain was full of hope and promise.  Receding snow revealed little pockets of life below and Spring suddenly seemed not so far away.

It wasn't that Lily and Piper were more attuned to the small things so much as they seemed enamored of everything.  Of ALL things.  I marveled at just how many different things caught their attention, at Lily's endless stream of questions, and Piper's tenacious tracing of every one of her big sister's strides.

We scavenged, successfully, finding most everything on our list, including Suge's leash.

My legs ached, they must have, but that isn't part of my recollection of our time together.  

The thaw was complete and I was lost again to living in the moment.  Lily was actually the one to remind me that I was tuckered out by suggesting that when we got home I sit and relax while she and Piper rode their bikes and played on the playground of the old decommissioned elementary school behind our home.

I could not and did not argue with her.  It sounded like a great idea.

That's when another not so small thing happened.

Lily decided that she didn't need her training wheels anymore which was news to me.  But, take them off we did, and except for a few fairly harmless slow-motion tumbles, she figured it out despite being perched atop a bike that seemed two sizes too small for her growing-too-fast-for-mom-and-dad legs.  It seemed like I should make a really big deal out of the accomplishment, but she seemed satisfied by my wide grin and more interested in riding than hearing me heap parental praise upon her.

She and Piper Bea whooshed around and around and around the small playground until hungry bellies won over their will to keep pedaling. I was hungry too but could have gone on watching them at play forever.

Lily dashed towards the house as I shuffled behind with two little bikes in tow.  Piper had been right by my side so I was taken aback when my asking her if she'd had fun went unanswered.  Looking back over my shoulder, I found her summiting a lingering pile of plowed snow at the edge of the schoolyard.

"What are you doing, Pipe?," I asked.  "Why'd you climb up there?"

"Why not?," came my answer as she thrust out her arms to beckon for rescue.

"Why would you climb up there if you can't get down?"

"I figure it out once I get up."

Yes.

My child, a small thing herself (for now), had blessed me yet again with another not small at all example of why life isn't so much about how well or how poorly you climb the hill so long as you appreciate the gift of a hill to climb in the first place.

resolved in children.

Someone asked me recently about the tattoo on my right bicep, artwork that depicts Lily's footprint at birth encircled by cursive text.  The writing is the final two sentences of lyrics from a defunct, but forever favorite band of mine from Baltimore, the oft overlooked and most certainly underappreciated (not by me...to a fault, perhaps) Lungfish.  I've written of them before and spoken of them ad nauseam.

Yes, I know that band lyric tattoos have become a modern day cliche but this world as inhabited by humans, frankly, is a magnificent bundle of such things and she who is without guilt, well, you know what to do.

Digression.  As the years pass, the words of Creation Story mean more not less to me.  Like any well-written lyrics, the words are widely open to interpretation, to bending, to repurposing as fits the listener.  This song continues to help tell the story of civilization as I believe it to have been, its evolution and regression throughout the millenia, while helping to explain and express the teensy part I feel I play in its current production.  With each passing day, I find more truth in the song, more connections and even closer connection to "now".

I will share the lyrics and a link (from the title) to the song.  Know that it is poem, more than song, but filled with rhythm and music that earns it, in my eyes, the title of song.

You may read or not, listen or not, but know that when you cross my path, be it on the trail, in the workplace or on city streets, these very words dance behind my eyes and interweave around the voices and sounds I hear, the images that I see, and help to filter my processing of those messages and instruct my responses.

Songs are rarely written expressly for any one listener, but the best of them seem to be uniquely adapted for every listener.

Resolved in Lily Harper and Piper Bea I shall live.

-----------------------------------

Creation Story by Lungfish (lyrics by Daniel Higgs)

Paranoia warped into a gravity.

Which spread a smothering blanket on an evolutionary launch pad.

Vision was tested on blank sky and voice said, "Let me tell you about the time that something occurred."

Medication caused an ear to hear and a conflict of interpretation arose.

Landscapes were drawn from a plague of particles, and the burden was distributed.

The law would return as inflated skins.

While music initiated architecture.

Animals, living through a velocity of fear began to modify their behavior to comply with human observation.

Thus dropping a keystone into the eggshell honeycomb of anthrocentric history since.

As for the plants, they had been with the music.

Science procured a steepled shell dressed for immortality, hollow to hold the music.

Emotion repelled all opinion and refused to consider it's origin.

Apples happened bringing acids and enzymes, the spinning recorder disguised as an endless bouquet.

Things became erotic at the drop of a hat.

A tyrant placed an apple on a table and lorded over it.

As a fish realized it held a monkey inside itself and expelled it on the beach in a larval salamander form.

The voters clamored for more circles and the whole rig began to rotate.

Books were used for fuel and money and everybody was writing them.

The planets turned inside out to expose their freight.

No charges were pressed because all involved agreed that they could die.

These are secrets a world sung to me truer than the truth.

A young order of birds that eats the eyes of believers.

Science predicted forms of worship and reveled in them.

An orgy of mutation took place for many years.

Between stones, near water, and inside clouds.

The people bound their feet with the skins of the animals to trample their own cities and each other.

They developed external organs like guns and television sets.

They believed that they owned things.

One mind in a generation will hear the eternal broadcast of the voice saying, "Let me tell you about the time that something occurred."

And that mind's body will be strapped down and that body's mind will subject to testing or electric currents rippled through the brain.

But the music pervades.

It was music that gave the shove.

And resolved in music we shall breathe.

It was children that crafted a parent.

And resolved in children we shall live.

snow daze.

Nearly a foot of snow had fallen and my own two feet were restless to explore.  A lull in the weather, a predicted gap between the first round of the storm and its second appearance as a separate front pushed it back our way, left the roads surprisingly navigable.

Few motorists expected that to be the case or they were simply too busy digging out to venture onto the roadways.  Whatever the reason, traffic was sparse for the 10 mile commute from my driveway to the Horseshoe Trail at the intersection of Pumping Station Road and Route 322.

As expected, the parking lot at Pumping Station was unplowed except for a few vanishing tracks left by a vehicle or two that had apparently earlier used the lot to turn around and head the other direction.  I followed one of those paths, backing my car into a position I prayed could be escaped from a few hours later.

Most of this winter has been spent in Kahtoola MICROspikes, but they seemed in over their heads for the conditions lurking in the woods.  Besides, there are too few opportunities to dust off the snowshoes and this one wouldn't be missed.

My Crescent Moon Gold 9's are built specifically for running, but, to be fair, they also anticipate packed snow, not the deep powder to which they were about to be exposed.  Oh well.  It's been a year of resistance training thus far and this would just be more of the same.

The Horseshoe was buried, absolutely buried, and there wasn't any sign to suggest that anyone had been out on the trail since the snow had begun falling the night before.  Trail breaking would be required the entire way and the going would likely be slow.

Bearing left off the Horseshoe allowed me to gain high ground more quickly and I was immediately glad to have my Black Diamond Z-Poles as the depth of the snow stacked along the edge of the ridge the trail skirts made for some false footing that kicked powder down into the ravine below.

Reaching the top of the ridge, crossing the power line and ducking back into the trees, I began to establish a pace a bit more recognizable as running though the degree of difficulty had my heart pounding and my temperature rising beneath the warm layers donned to ward off the cold.  Throttling down just a bit to keep from sweating out, I pondered which way to turn as a number of trail intersections approached.

Following the Big Timber trail kept me off of some of the wider paths and had me ducking under limbs bent low from their cargo loads of white.  Other than my own breathing, the crunching of snowshoes and the occasional trekking pole clack, there were few sounds to be heard.  Exceptions were the melodic whew-whew-hews of titmice and the namesake chirping of chickadees.

There were few tracks to be seen, confirming that most animals had the sensibility to hole up and ride out the storm.  One rogue set of tracks in a tight one-hoof-directly-in-place-of-the-last stride seemed to indicate that a deer had been out for a rather casual mid-storm stroll.  Stray appear-disappear-reappear squirrel tracks were there to be found but even they seemed more scarce than usual.

I did also happen upon the work site of a hearty woodpecker that had clearly been rat-a-tat-tapping away recently enough to have left its wood scraps strewn about atop the snow.

In spite of not having seen any human visitors, the trails made themselves known by a dimpled, undulating surface that resembled the cartoon tunneling of Bugs Bunny on his way from that wrong turn in Albuquerque.  I have seen this phenomenon before and it has bailed me out a time or two out in the forest without a headlamp after the light has failed (unless provided by a man-made appliance, can light really "fail"?).

Here and there, fallen leaves skittered lightly across the snow or rested stoicly in the shallow berths that their last inherent warmth had carved, a defiant final proof of having ever really been alive.  If you look close, the leaves have often oozed the slightest stain of their brown and yellow hues into the snow itself, a natural farewell tagging that strikes me as both a sad and beautiful plea for remembrance.

Fatigue snuck up on me until all at once I was gassed.  The sign indicating the broad, smooth Explorer Lodge Road offered an escape route temptation but I was determined to take in the view atop Eagle Rock.

It may not be more than a half mile from there to Eagle Rock but my tired legs felt as though it was a three mile stretch.  A mix of sleet, freezing rain and actual rain was adding weight to what had been deep, but feathery powder.

Earlier in the week, on the ridge line just to the south and west of the one I was then traversing, I had noted quite a bit of damage from the ice storm that had swept the area several days prior.  Broken limbs, downed trees and brush that had collapsed beneath its own weight had cluttered the trails and in some cases made them nearly impassable.  I worried that similar debris was likely on the final approach to Eagle Rock but, other than a lot of snow, it was clear.

Even though visibility was a fraction of what it normally is, the view from Eagle Rock was really stunning.  The blanket of white triggered contrasts and highlights in the forest that otherwise often blend into a uniform sea of browns and greens.  Clouds socked in the next ridge and further muffled any audible evidence of a world beyond these woods.

Brisk winds took advantage of the exposure to whip swirling moisture into my eyes and sent cold air seeking any vulnerabilities in the clothes I was wearing.  Exhausted and concerned I might not be able to stave off the cold as easily as I normally do, I clambered down off the rock and moved on.

As soon as I turned away from the vista and stepped back into the trees, the wind fell away and with it any chill that had crept in.  It was, quite literally, all downhill from there to the car and I took advantage of that trajectory to settle back into an actual run.  Snow took some of the physical punishment out of this stretch of trail by padding the usually rocky footing and allowing me to move along briskly, sometimes running, sometimes glissading.

I paused just long enough to snap one last intersection photo and then barreled the rest of the way down the Horseshoe Trail toward Hammer Creek and the final approach to where the car awaited my return.

I can't say how far I traveled, as my GPS was still sitting at home wondering why it hadn't made the trip.  Suffice to say, the mileage wasn't as far as my body was suggesting.

There's no device known to me that can measure how much ground the mind covers. I don't ever set out with a specific distance goal for my thoughts, but I can tell when a given workout has been a good one for my body AND my mind.

The legs are done in, the quads quiver.  The brain?  It's smiling.

I settled into the driver's seat, turned the key and, as the car freed itself from the lot and powered back onto 322, my body ached and the smile in my mind  grew wide.

constantly bee.

"Everything in nature invites us constantly to be what we are."

-Gretel Ehrlich

----------------------

Work, even work that you love, has a curious way of graduating from task to taskmaster, pushing us in whatever direction it chooses, sometimes by wheedling us with little victories to make it feel as though something is actually being accomplished and hence one MUST keep striving even harder.  Other times it simply tightens the figurative screws with deadlines and unspoken threats of the consequence of not plodding on.

My work screws get tightened every January.  No getting around it as competing priorities bottleneck.  Throughout most of the year which chore comes next is normally obvious and while they may not assemble in agreeable single file, my various duties, for the most part, do align in at least semi-orderly fashion.

But not in January.

I equate the first month of the year with regards to my work schedule to my driveway,  my family's two cars and the two cars owned by the tenants to whom we rent out our second floor.  Most days, the individual automobiles come and go freely without any obstacle, but every now and again, there's a car parked in the lane while its driver unloads groceries, a car idling in the road waiting to deliver its impatient, worn-out inhabitant from a day punching the cliche out of some clock, and another car waiting in the back with a passenger eager to escape to anywhere else but there.

Gridlock.

January.

The year wasn't even a week old and that old familiar weight was back.  Adding to the heaviness, there was snow and ice on the ground and temperatures were holding well below freezing with sustained winds that made it feel even colder.

I'm oddly fond of the cold anyway, but, regardless, the weekend would find me out of doors no matter the conditions as I desperately needed to expose my senses to something other than a monitor's glow, the obnoxious ring of a telephone, the bland scent of instant coffee being reheated (yet again) and the smooth, texture-less touch of keyboard keys.

My name had been added to the roster of a nearby trail race, but, not longing for only-talking-about-running company, directive flagging or stocked aid-stations, that entry was spurned for the lure of the percussive crunching of two and only two feet punching through crusted over snow, an unaccompanied, taxing uphill clamber and the nothingness-and-allness-all-at-once of a forest trail barren of billboards, traffic, machinery and chatter.

Early Friday evening I drove Lily, Piper Bea and their (and my) beloved Aunt Nancy north to Juniata for a weekend with my mother and stepfather at their cozy, forested retreat.  Peeling myself away from the no-don't-go charm of the cabin and its wood stove, I trudged back to the car, steered it home to Manheim and wedged in one final four-hour session at my desk before retiring to bed.

The scarce treasure of sleeping in found me rising refreshed at 8:00 and a couple more hours in the office ensured that I could wander away the afternoon in the woods unencumbered by obligation and spend all day Sunday sledding and playing in the snow with the kids.

The winds were howling along the Susquehanna River as I stepped out of the car in the lot that sits just beneath Route 322 at the eastern side of the Clark's Ferry bridge.  The southbound Appalachian Trail practically falls off of Peters Mountain and into that lot before crossing the bridge on a pedestrian walkway, hanging a hard left after departing the bridge, only to cross another bridge, this time over the Juniata River, before arriving in the community of Duncannon.

In order to reach Cove Mountain and leave humanity behind, you need to navigate the entire length of town.  The Appalachian Trail avoids the main drag by stepping one block further away from the river and following High Street to its end.  Perhaps it was the knowing that this was all just leading up to the elevation gain and quiet I was craving or an embracing of the simple act of movement after a week of too many sedentary hours, but, whatever the reason, this mile or two of sidewalk and concrete proved more enjoyable than I would have predicted.  Most of the inhabitants of Duncannon seemed content to spend the day indoors, protected from the biting wind coming up off of the icy river, and with rare exception the only faces I saw were hunkered down behind glass, staring obliviously at television screens, peering out the windows of their homes at the odd passerby (me) or fixed on the road ahead from behind-the-wheel perches.

Crossing the old, crumbling bridge over Sherman's Creek, I glanced to my left and caught sight of Peters Mountain in profile above the far riverbank from where I'd started.

A few hundred yards later, the AT left the road at last and, as though it was eager to lose itself as quickly as possible, it climbed 750 feet over the next mile and, not surprisingly, hadn't seen much traffic in the frigid conditions.  The grade was significant enough all on its own, but a couple of inches of snow and any icy sheath over every exposed rock, root and branch made me relieved to have lugged along Microspikes on the paved portion of the run that now emerged from my pack to provide traction.  Alternating between running and hiking, I inched my way around the ridge as it remained parallel to Sherman's Creek while climbing higher and higher above it.

There is basically only one switchback on the entire climb and a motionless runoff stood sentinel at that very bend in the trail.  Why I can't say, but the sound of water trickling covertly between rock and ice never ceases to give me thrills.  Pausing there for several minutes, drinking in the music, I did not fail to notice that it was THE only sound to be heard and for that I silently rejoiced.

After another short but steep slope, the trail passed right by Hawk Rock which offered a dizzying view of the valley below and, to the east, full visibility of Duncannon and the confluence of the Juniata and the Susquehanna.  If this vista could be accessed by car, complete with neat rows of vehicular parking spots and maintained bathrooms, it would no doubt be frequented by every inhabitant of this part of the state as well as anyone passing through.

Call me spiteful and selfish, but I'm glad it's harder to reach, its natural beauty already tainted by the spray paint and scrawling of disappointing (though enterprising) taggers.

There had been a couple of sets of aged footprints that had joined the AT from a bisecting trail a half mile or so before the overlook, but feet had gone no further and the track afterwards was completely devoid of any sign of recent ambulation.  Admittedly, Hawk Rock alone more than justified the effort but those other visitor had missed out on the easygoing miles that followed, as the singletrack ran the top of the ridge, slaloming gracefully through the trees while serving up just the slightest of undulations.  Even in the snow, I was able to move along at a brisk pace and my thoughts drifted for just a moment to the speed at which one could travel this section on surer footing.  No need to follow that thread as the day was too beautiful to waste wondering at others.

Because of my midday start and having taken many minutes decompressing at Hawk Rock, I gently reminded myself that I wouldn't be logging the miles my body wanted to as my heart and mind adamantly wanted to end the day in my children's presence.

I decided that reaching the Cove Mountain shelter would be goal enough.  It came up faster than expected, announced as all AT shelters seem to be with a proper wooden sign and indicators of the distance to the next opportunity for rustic lodging.

A spur trail to the left dropped down a 200 yard incline and led right to the open face of the shelter.  Two stacked bunks lined both of the interior side walls of the structure and hooks aplenty stood ready to hoist packs, clothes, gear and food out of harm's way or at least the reach of mice (or so the hooks would have you believe).

I lounged for a moment in one of the lower bunks and tried to determine which roost I would choose if I were to stay the night, on one of the upper bunks that were tucked slightly beneath the eaves or right where I was, closer to the floor and more exposed to the outside but with less room for cold air to swirl under me.  A matter to be decided some other evening with the proper gear in tow.

Having documented my stopping by, stating publicly my intent to return, and feeling refuled by some crackers, Gummi Bears and not-surprisingly-ice cold water, I was ready to be on my way when something pinned to the wall caught my eye.

Corny perhaps, but the sentiment made me smile and I hoped all at once to run into the WoodSpirit and to BE the WoodSpirit.  Maybe I would cross paths with another hiker making her or his way to that very shelter and he or she (or they) might look at that very sign and wonder, "could it have been?".

Who knows.

I hadn't seen another person since leaving Duncannon behind and I wouldn't see anybody until  getting back off of the mountain.  Did get another peek at Peters on the descent and the way it was framed so beautifully through a break in the trees seemed like all the luck I could have asked for.

The sun was slipping and sliding out of the sky, descending toward the river and casting Duncannon in shadows intermingled with hues of purple and orange.

Crossing back over the Susquehanna, the wind that had seemed subdued while in the forest reestablished its dominance in an intensity of sound and strength.  Hearing the whizzing of automobiles on the other side of the barrier on my left while gaping to my right at the current below, choked with creaking and colliding sheets of river ice, I shuddered at the thought of freefalling from the bridge into the dark water and  succumbing to its relentlessness.  I couldn't decide if the stark, miraculous beauty of the sunset was complement or contrast to the inhospitable cold and unapologetic gale.

It is what it is, as they say.

We are what we are.

As I always try to remember to do, I thanked nature for letting me be whatever it is I am.

January, do your worst.  February will be here soon enough.

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.