if I go to the leafy woods
While everybody's attention is focused on this gigantic troublemaker of a storm on this coast, I am going to revisit a small camping vacation xuth and I took a couple weeks ago, Oct 13-14.
We had one of those rare weekends without the kids, and I wanted to go somewhere relaxing that didn't involve a whole lot of work (or money). After doing some looking to see what was available at the last minute (not much), I found a cabin available in Kooser State Park, about an hour east of Pittsburgh. The park itself was pretty tiny, but it is practically right next door to several other state parks, as well as Roaring Run Natural Area (pdf) and a stretch of the 70 mile Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail.
blue skies, yellow leavesOn Saturday, we lazed around for the chilly morning with the requisite bacon and tea. We finally got up to the nearest parking area about 2pm. Estimating that sunset was about 6:45pm, I guessed we should aim to be back at the car by 6pm. I hadn't been able to find a good map before heading out, but hey, there were trail signs and blazings. What could go wrong? We started off on the first trail we saw, the Kenna Trail, which meandered about 3 miles mostly up and into the woods, to an altitude peak of about 2900 ft. Kenna ran into Painter Rock Trail, where we stopped for lunch on some large rocks overlooking the gorge where, somewhere way (about 700') down below, Roaring Run ran through. After the big rocks, Painter Rock Trail turned into a steep decline down the hillside, covering close to 1000' in about a mile.
About halfway down we paused to reconsider our routing. At that point, we were slightly over two hours out. I had a good idea of where we were aiming for, but I didn't know how far it was, and we were still heading in the wrong direction at that point. We decided to go another short bit, which took us all the way down to the stream bed where.... we lost the trail. No blazings in sight. I knew there WAS a trail there, somewhere nearby, that would take us back to the trailhead, but late afternoon was not the time to be searching around in unmarked trees. So we had no other choice but to retrace our steps, uuuuuuup the gigantic steep hillside, back the way we came. We got back to the car around 7pm, as dusk was falling, sore and exhausted and hungry. Total was probably around 9 miles, with a LOT of climbing.
broken tree over the trailSunday was an earlier start, as we had to actually check out of the cabin in the morning. On our way out we found the paper maps we'd missed the previous day, but decided to tackle different trails. First up was a couple mile meander through the Lookout Trail and Lookout Loop, which was very beautiful, full of sections of fiery yellow-red autumn leaves from deciduous trees, and other sections of evergreen grids, tall and stately, with soft pine-needle pathways beneath. Unfortunately, Lookout Trail had no lookouts, and the looping was a lot more complicated than the map included, but it was a nice walk, and about an hour later, having covered probably 2-3 miles, we had circled back to the car for lunch and the next trail.
Finally, we set out on the initial objective, the big wide lovely trail in the top pic there, the LHHT. No, just kidding, that's not it. That is.... um... a path leading up to it. We actually never quite figured out what it was, but it did eventually lead us to the LHHT, which we followed for a couple miles to where the map we had for it claimed there was a "scenic lookout," which unfortunately turned out to be a pretty unspectacular view of a large cell tower and some hills. So we came back, for a total of about 4.5 miles. The scene on the trail itself was lovely though, with blue sky, fantastic weather, all the trees in peak fall mode, and a constant crunch-crunching of dry leaves beneath our feet. I can see why it's a popular trail, and I would be interested in finding other parts of it to try out sometime.
The main downside of the weekend for me is that I had injured my knee while running in races on weekends prior to this one, and while it seemed to be healing quite well, it turns out that walking aggravated it, and 4 hours of walking aggravated it a whole lot. So Saturday starting out I was fine, but by later afternoon was in pain, which felt better by Sunday morning, but was nearing extremely painful at times by Sunday afternoon. I had a super frustrating decision: do I go ahead and do the activity that we came here to do, and that I really wanted to do, or do I not hurt? Obviously I opted for hiking anyways, pain be damned, and just tried to take things more slowly. Fortunately, that doesn't seem to have been a fatefully horrible decision this time, and this week I am working on that issue.
Overall it was a good weekend out, and perked up more of my interest in hunting for this year's winter vacation spot. In previous years we've gone to Germany Valley, WV and Hocking Hills, OH. Our ideal is a comfortable, relatively inexpensive place in the middle of nowhere, in easy driving distance from Pittsburgh, with indoor plumbing and heating and at least minimal food prep abilities, with nearby trails for hiking, and no kids around.
Another thing we've been hoping for is company. Would you be interested in spending a few days with us sometime between Dec 22-31, with snow hiking during the day, and quiet board games and tea in the evenings (or maybe a book and a wood stove)? We haven't decided on location or time yet, and can be flexible. The vast majority of our friends already have holiday plans with family or traveling, but in case you don't and are interested in joining, let us know!