Pennsylvania State Park number 6 in my quest to hike at least two miles, find a box and plant one in each of Pennsylvania's 120 state parks, proved to be the toughest one yet for me to achieve my goals. My friends, the Crayola Posse, joined me on a slightly foggy Mother's Day morning at Colonel Denning State Park. Thanks to the fog and the PA turnpike being completely shut down for road work, I got a shaky start but just seeing my friends soon made the day a whole lot better.
And, if I hadn't been with True Indigo and RGBisMe, I probably would not have ever achieved even one of my three state park goals. I have the fortune to have a lot of hiking companions who are very patient with my slow pace but the Crayola Posse have been by my side longer than any other of my friends and have accompanied me on some of the toughest hikes I have ever been on. Today was to be no exception. After I had completed the hike, I read that the elevation of this trail was 1987 feet. I guess that is the reason that I have very few pictures of the trail up and down, I was too focused on putting one foot in front of the other to take the time to take pictures. The picture below is of a mild part of the trail, a little steep but not as rocky as the majority of the trail was.
We made the trip about three quarters of the way to the top when I took some time to plant my box, aided by my very capable assistants who played Vanna White for my clues to my box.
We soon passed the expected shelter used by hikers on the Tuscorora Trail which also crossed the ridge top but I was totally amazed to see an outhouse next to the shelter along the ridge of the mountain.
We continued plodding along.....well, I plodded, True Indigo and RGBisMe ambled... finding two boxes on the way and noticing this little heart shaped lichen on the side of a rock at one of the boxes. By this time, I was beginning to think that this walk was never going to end even though my friends assured me it would. Unbelievably, they had made this same hike a few weeks prior. Even more unbelievably, when they did this hike from hell, they did it on a snow and ice covered trail. Because of the snow and ice, they were not able to uncover the boxes so they did get some benefit from repeating this very tedious hike with me.
Soon enough, we did reach the object of our walk, the Flat Rock Vista. As I snapped this picture, I suddenly became extremely aware of how clumsy I am and developed an immediate fear of tripping over a root and rolling down the hill and right off the edge of the rock.
My friends had greater and more realistic fears though. We had passed a group of young men, perhaps in their twenties, who had spent the night camping on the rock. They had left behind a live camp fire. It was smoldering and occasionally licks of flames appeared as RGBisMe and True Indigo tried to figure out the best way to extinguish it.
While still pondering True Indigo set up a group photo op.
Knowing my fear of heights, we stayed well away from the edge of the rock. I can not imagine the young men who slept up there the previous night, I would have stayed awake all night worrying about falling off.
This was as close as I could get on my own. The panorama view that is currently the picture in the headline of my blog was also taken here.
Here I am again!
And my good friends and hiking partners.
Meanwhile, the Posse went back to work on dousing the remainder of the fire.
On the way back, which was almost as harrowing as the trip up the mountain, because we were walking almost straight downhill the whole way, I wasn't even phased when RGBisMe pointed out the big fat black snake that slithered across the path in front of us.
I have to admit that I am happy that this park is now crossed off of my list because the walk was tough. My toes which had jammed against the front of my boots on the two mile downhill walk were so sore and when I took off my boots in my car, I couldn't help but groan with relief. My many thanks to my friends for urging and encouraging me through this experience.
It was a great hike with you Janila!
ReplyDelete