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[at-l] Black Forest Trail Trip Report (non AT)

The following is a very lightly edited version of my journal from a solo
hike of the Black Forest Trail in North Central Pennsylvania.  I started on
Friday, August 15, 1997 at around 4:30 p.m. and finished on Monday, August
18 at 3:40 p.m..  The Black Forest Trail is a 42 mile circuit hike.

I'm going to follow this post with a gear and LNT related post related to
my trip.

-- Jim Mayer

8/15/97 Friday Night

It is 2:45 a.m. right now, and it is raining hard outside.  I'm up because
I had optimistically hung yesterday's clothes on the tarp's ridgeline (not
the right word - the tarp is rigged as a lean to).  Anyway, when the skies
opened up I woke myself up getting the clothes out of the rain.  I need to
rig a line under the tarp for hanging stuff.

I'm snug in my bivy right now.  The door of the bivy is wide open for
ventilation, but the tarp is keeping me dry.  My legs feel the raindrops
(I'm just using a liner - no sleeping bag) which is an odd sensation.

I was so keyed up to start this trip that I left work right after lunch.  I
arrived at the trailhead around 4:20 and hit the trail a few minutes later.
 I decided to walk in about seven miles - I wasn't worried about running
out of light since I knew there would be plenty of good - but dry - camping
spots along the way.

The trail starts out by climbing (almost immediately) out of the valley and
then runs along the ridge.  There are some lovely vistas along the way.
Today was gray and, occasionally, rainy, and the mists and blowing clouds
were wonderful.  The ridge has wonderful blueberries - they are about knee
high and, in many places, crowd the trail.  Hiking poles are useless in
knee high blueberry bushes.  My boots are soaked from water coming in the
top, and the berries are slowing me down - I'm snacking on them!  Actually,
there are both blueberries and huckleberries (darker and seedier) here;
sometimes there are so many berries that I can caress a branch with my hand
and take away a handful of ripe berries.

At one point I walked through a flock of grouse - and nearly jumped right
out of my skin when the erupted out of the brush on both sides of the trail.

There is a spring at about the three mile point, and I got there around
6:20.  I finished my water, filled the bottle, and finished it again.

At 7:15 I came to a really gorgeous vista.

[oops... there goes my flashlight... bye]

[In the morning...]

As I was looking I heard the cry of a hawk, and again, and then I saw the
bird below me down the valley.  It wasn't raining then, and there were some
good sitting places, so I took a few minutes and squeezed the water out of
my socks and poured the water out of my boots.  It turns out that the
insoles of my boots act like sponges - they can be squeezed out too!

I thought that the vista was at the six mile mark, so I confidently set off
expecting to head down into the valley.  When that didn't happen, I checked
the map again and found another marked vista at mile 5.3.  Sure enough, I
soon came to the second vista right before the trail drops into the valley.

There was a nice (dry) campsite there too, and I made my big mistake of the
day by not staying at it.  Instead, I headed down.  Well, it got dark - the
going was slow (the rocks were wet and a bit slippery), valleys are darker
than the highlands, the tree cover was heavier, and the sun was going down.
 Soon I had to use my flashlight to see the blazes - at first for brief
periods, and later all the time.  I used my poles a lot to help make up for
the lack of visibility - I didn't want to fall, particularly since I was by
myself.  Eventually, the trail leveled out and became easier to follow.  I
came to camp after dark and set up by flashlight.

In a way this was fated to happen - I had carefully explained to Donna (my
wife) that, even though I was planning to finish up on Monday (taking short
cuts if necessary), I might get delayed until Tuesday because it would be
very foolish to travel on a rough trail alone after dark.  Hmmm....

The campsite is by a stream and is lovely in a heavily impacted sort of
way.  Of course, I would have been happy with a concrete slab by then anyway!

Just a few more notes before I grab a cold breakfast and take off.  The
bivy/tarp combination continued to work like a charm.  There is plenty of
room for my gear under the tarp and I have complete freedom to vary the
ventilation in the bivy.  At one point in the night I started to get cold,
so I added my long underwear bottoms and zipped up the bivy a bit - instant
toast!

My flashlight is out of juice, so I am down to my backup light source - a
Photon Microlight (a high output LED lamp).  That is fine for getting
around camp, but no more night hiking for me on this trip!

8/16/97 Saturday Evening

I finished up yesterday's journal entry at 7:15 and started out at 8:30.
My first surprise of the day was that the BFT has been relocated onto (I
think) the old high water trail.  I thing there was a sign to that effect
at the trailhead but I didn't look.  The new trail is longer than the old.
[note: this probably wasn't true... the sign said that this relocation, and
another in 1994, added about a half a mile to the trail - JLM]

The day was mostly uneventful hiking.  I took a long break around 12:45.
There was a really nice cisterned spring where I stopped and I saw a big,
six to eight inch, fat salamander in it.  My socks were still wet from
walking through wet underbrush so, since things were drying up, I changed
socks and hung the wet ones off the back of my pack.  Well, at 2:00 the
skies opned up with a terrific thunderstorm!  The sky had been getting
darker for a while, and I had been hearing thunder in the distance.  I got
my drying socks  under cover just in time, but, of course, my second pair
got soaked.

At 2:50 I met a day hiker who had started out to do a short hike and had
ended up with a long big one.  His map was soaked, so I showed him mine and
refilled his water bottle.

At 4:00 I stopped by a stream and ate dinner.  Then I rinsed myself and my
clothes in the stream.  I decided to sleep up on the plateau, so at 5:45 I
headed out again.

Up on top, I found a little flat spot overlooking the valley, and set up
camp there.  It is still light now, and I watching as the valley fills up
with mist.  This may not be the most comfortable spot I'll ever sleep in,
but my room has one heck of a view.

8/17/97 Sunday Morning

It is 6:30 in the morning and I would like to say that I spent a
comfortable night - but that would not be true!  It was spectacular though,
which may make up for the lack of comfort.

The evening started out warm, and I went to bed wearing nothing other the
silk liner and my bivy sack.  Sometime shortly after dark a wild
thunderstorm rode through - the whole sky was lit up with near continuous
lightning.  The valley below would leap out of the dark, and the thunder
rolled and crashed like a fireworks display gone mad.

The wind blew in, and heavy rain pounded on my bivy.  I had set the tarp up
elsewhere to cover my gear, so I was exposed to the full storm.  I thought
unhappily about the aluminum pole arched over my head.  The great thing was
that I could leave an opening at the top and one side of the bivy which
gave good ventilation and, more importantly, let me peek out at the storm.
At one point the rain and wind got so strong that I zipped up and lay
there.  I felt the wind shake my cocoon, felt each raindrop hit my legs,
and watched my little universe flash green with each bolt of lightning.

I also discovered that, despite being taped, the seams on the top of the
bivy still need to be sealed where the insect screen is attached to the
body.  I only collected a few tablespoons of water, but they were highly
unwelcome ones.

The light show continued for quite a while, and, when it was over, the
temperature started to drop.  First my long john top went on (not easy in a
bivy by the way), then my fleect pullover (a bit easier), then my long john
bottoms (not easy at all - particularly in the sleeping bag liner), and
finally my hat.  With everything on except my raingear I was barely OK.
This was a wet cold - fog had filled the valley and I was sleeping in (not
on) a cloud.

Finally I got to sleep, but kept waking up with strange dreams.

The morning remains cold and damp, but not raining, as I write.  The valley
is beautiful and filled with wisps of mist and the sound of running water
far below.  The sky is grey but without the promise of immediate rain.  It
is time to get my but in gear!

8/17/97 Sunday Evening

This entry will be short, mostly because I am using a "Photon Microlight"
to write by.  The light is fine, but it has a squeeze switch and my fingers
are getting tired.

Today was a nice day for walking.  It didn't rain, at least until a few
minutes ago, and the temperature was pleasant.  I got started at 8:40.

There is a beautiful section of trail after the intersection of the BFT
with the South Link Trail.  The trail there winds along the side of a
hollow - about half way up - and everything was glistening from the storm
the night before.

In that same section though, there was a short piece with over ten freshly
fallen trees down across the trail.  I had to bushwack below the trail for
a few hundred feet or so.  Since the trees looked fresh - the leaves were
not wilted at all - I left a note in the next trail register.  I had some
fun finding the register, since it has moved from the place described in
the trail guide.  I even retraced my steps a bit trying to find the thing.

At 2:30 I came to a place where two forks merge.  There is a small
waterfall there, so I took a break and rinsed myself of.  Nice.

Somewhere around 4:00 I realized that the second half of this trail is
harder than the first.  I got really tired for a while, so I rested a bit
and finished my trail snacks, which helped.

I reached this campsite around 5:40.  I ate, and checked the map to see if
I could push on a bit after dinner.  It goes up for the next three miles so
I decided to stay put.  This site is by a stream at the bottom of a hollow,
so I expect it to be rather dank.  I like pushing on after an early dinner
- I can camp nearly anywhere if I don't have to cook!

Good night!

8/21/97 (back at home)

It is Thursday, bit I haven't had a chance before to finish my journal for
this trip.  I rained much of Sunday night and, although I had my long johns
and fleece on from the start, I was uncomfortably cold through most of the
night.  This wasn't helped by my bivy still being damp from Saturday
night's storm.  My feet, in particular, were cold and I got to choose
between cold wet feet with damp, dirty, socks, and colder wet feet without
damp, dirty, socks.  The "silver lining" was that I got up at 5:00 a.m. and
got some beautiful early morning hiking in.  By the way, the weather
finally turned gorgeous on Monday.

I broke camp using my little LED light, which worked just fine (though the
squeeze switch is a pain).  I started hiking at 6:35, just as the light in
the valley got bright enough to walk safely by.  It was much lighter once I
got off the valley floor.  By around 8:00 I had been walking on the ridge
for half an hour and had arrived at a beautiful vista of the Pine Creek
Gorge.  The mists rising out of the gorge below were lovely.

I discovered later that a tornado had run through the gorge on Saturday
night (the night of the thunderstorm) and had ripped up trees and damaged
houses all along the road.  The storm front was apparently very large and
violent, and caused problems across several states.

From where I was the trail bounces over a series of ridges...down and out
of Slide Hollow... down and out of Foster Hollow... then down to Pine
Creek.  Each "bounce" is about one thousand feet down and then another
thousand feet back up.

By 2:15 though, I was on my way down for the last time.  I came to what is
easily the most stunning vista on the trail.  There is a rock formation
that just off a descending ridge line like the bow of a ship.  The
formation is cut from some layered rock, and from its flat top I could look
out into two valleys.

As I started down I saw the underside of the formation.  The layers of rock
were fractured and looked like a world class snake condo.  Then I noticed a
pretty little rattlesnake coiled up in the shade on a small ledge.  The
snake didn't seem to care whether I was there or not (it was about five
feet away from me) and I watched it for a bit.  It may have been getting
ready to shed - I think its eyes were cloudy - but I didn't stick my face
up to it!  This was the first rattlesnake I ever saw in the wild.

Earlier in the day I had met a dayhiker from the Philadelphia (only the
second person I saw all weekend), and he came by again while I was watching
the snake.  I showed the snake to him, then went on my way down the trail.

Forty-five minutes later I got my big surprise of the trip.  I was flying
along a section of the trail on a piece of old forest road.  I knew I was
near the end of the trail and was enjoying stretching out my legs on the
wide flat surface.  Anyway, here I am cruising along when, suddenly, I see
a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye and hear this excited
buzzing sound.  I nearly jumped right out of my skin!  This was another
rattlesnake, only this one was about three and a half feet long, nearly
black, upset as all get-out, and sitting right on a shady cool forest
trail!  I had walked right past it!

After moving a safe distance away (and calming down a bit) I looked at the
snake - still buzzing away.  The trail was all shadows and the dark snake
had been nearly invisible as I walked by it.  I turned to go, and then
decided that I really ought to encourage the snake to leave the trail.  I
was close to the trailhead and worred that the next hiker (or kid) to come
by would stumble over the snake as well... or that the next person to come
along would be the sort that kills snakes on sight.  Anyway, I found a long
stick and tried to get the snake to move.  This proved hopeless - the snake
just wanted to coil up and rattle at me - so I ended up flipping the snake
over on its back!  It would recoil itself, then I would flip it over again!
 I moved it this way over to the edge of the  trail, then flipped it off.
It slid a few feet down a slope then coiled up again and continued buzzing.
 I'm afraid this was not a very dignified way to treat the (justifiably
annoyed) rattlesnake, but it was the best I could do.  The snake wasn't as
far down the slope as I would have liked, but there was no way I was going
to get on the slope above the thing, so I went on my way.

Anyway, that is about it.  I finished up at 3:40, walked to my car, cleaned
up and changed, then stopped in at a general store where I got something to
eat and called my family.  The storm damage along the road was
impressive... there were splintered trees all along the tornado's path, and
extensive damage to some houses - including at least one tree sticking out
of a roof!

The Black Forest Trail is very pretty, and I had a good time out on it.  I
learned a bunch, and saw things I've never seen before.


 
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