A short Mont Alto Hike in the summer
Oct 29, 2014 21:12:25 GMT -5
Post by AegisIII on Oct 29, 2014 21:12:25 GMT -5
Photos
August is still hot. So, for my first hike I chose something nearby, familiar, and short. The Mont Alto area of Michaux State Forest qualified. A nice area, and I wanted to check the condition of a certain trail.
I did a five mile loop, starting at the junction of 233 and Staley Road. I took the old roadbed of the Mont Alto-South Mountain Rd uphill, then a trail paralleling the road to the fence by the Michaux tree farm. I followed the fence line south, and then took an overgrown logging road a short distance, hopping onto the golf course trail. This, of course, took me around a hollow and then past the South Mountain golf course, the only such course in a Pennsylvania state forest. I then took the flat logging road south along the South Mountain lowlands, then crossing over to a second one near Tarburner Spring. Then headed through the Eagle Rock clearing to get to the top of The Narrows. There is a chestnut tree here.
I then dropped into The Narrows, a beautiful but short stretch of trail through hemlocks, pine, and chestnut oaks. A stream flows through it. On the other side, I took a trail up the eastern side of a rock spine above The Narrows. At the top, I turned around and took the trail on the west side of the same spline. This Spine West/Ledges/Mennonite Vista/Base of The Narrows trail is at the point where it has started to see better days; a logging skid paralleling it certainly did not help. Nevertheless, it's a nice trail, first along the rock spine, and then flanking the steep ledges down to a couple of views (too hazy in August). I did spend some time clearing it of branches and weeds, so hopefully it's a little more obvious. When the trail drops back into The Narrows, a huge hemlock blowdown was blocking the path, but I could crawl over it. I then followed the stream through the heart of the Narrows, to the rock wall at its base. Unfortunately, this is an area seeing massive hemlock deaths.
While crossing the stream I saw something, "gee that's a rather ugly frog." Getting closer, I realized why it was ugly for a frog: it wasn't one. Instead it was a crawfish. Then I saw a second, a third, up to five or six. Apparently they were Appalachian Brook crawfish. Somewhat ugly looking still, doesn't look like something I'd want to eat. There was also a long line of ants crossing the stream on a narrow branch, then along the base of the rock wall, crossing the trail, heading to a charcoal flat, and likely continuing on in both directions. I'm not an insect fan, and so I did not explore the boulders in that area as much as I'd like. Past the narrows, I just had to take the sunken charcoal road back to the old roadbed I started with at a nice stone culvert, and then back to the start.
August is still hot. So, for my first hike I chose something nearby, familiar, and short. The Mont Alto area of Michaux State Forest qualified. A nice area, and I wanted to check the condition of a certain trail.
I did a five mile loop, starting at the junction of 233 and Staley Road. I took the old roadbed of the Mont Alto-South Mountain Rd uphill, then a trail paralleling the road to the fence by the Michaux tree farm. I followed the fence line south, and then took an overgrown logging road a short distance, hopping onto the golf course trail. This, of course, took me around a hollow and then past the South Mountain golf course, the only such course in a Pennsylvania state forest. I then took the flat logging road south along the South Mountain lowlands, then crossing over to a second one near Tarburner Spring. Then headed through the Eagle Rock clearing to get to the top of The Narrows. There is a chestnut tree here.
I then dropped into The Narrows, a beautiful but short stretch of trail through hemlocks, pine, and chestnut oaks. A stream flows through it. On the other side, I took a trail up the eastern side of a rock spine above The Narrows. At the top, I turned around and took the trail on the west side of the same spline. This Spine West/Ledges/Mennonite Vista/Base of The Narrows trail is at the point where it has started to see better days; a logging skid paralleling it certainly did not help. Nevertheless, it's a nice trail, first along the rock spine, and then flanking the steep ledges down to a couple of views (too hazy in August). I did spend some time clearing it of branches and weeds, so hopefully it's a little more obvious. When the trail drops back into The Narrows, a huge hemlock blowdown was blocking the path, but I could crawl over it. I then followed the stream through the heart of the Narrows, to the rock wall at its base. Unfortunately, this is an area seeing massive hemlock deaths.
While crossing the stream I saw something, "gee that's a rather ugly frog." Getting closer, I realized why it was ugly for a frog: it wasn't one. Instead it was a crawfish. Then I saw a second, a third, up to five or six. Apparently they were Appalachian Brook crawfish. Somewhat ugly looking still, doesn't look like something I'd want to eat. There was also a long line of ants crossing the stream on a narrow branch, then along the base of the rock wall, crossing the trail, heading to a charcoal flat, and likely continuing on in both directions. I'm not an insect fan, and so I did not explore the boulders in that area as much as I'd like. Past the narrows, I just had to take the sunken charcoal road back to the old roadbed I started with at a nice stone culvert, and then back to the start.