Winter 2011

2012 Annual STC Winter Frolic

Photo by Curt Weinhold

When: Saturday February 18, 2011 The Susquehannock Trail Club‘s annual Winter Frolic will Dinner: Begins at 6:00 PM be held Saturday February 18, 2011. It‘s Presidents Day Price: $12.00 per person weekend! That means it‘s a weekend for us to escape all the political banter and ads by getting outside to enjoy a Where: Gold Church weekend of adventure in northcentral Pennsylvania! Route 449 Day activities are still being planned. Stay tuned to our Genesee, PA 16923 website for detailed information. In the evening, the club Menu: Chicken will gather at the Gold Church for dinner catered by Corn Downey‘s Restaurant in Ulysses, PA Cole Slaw A short STC business meeting will follow the dinner. The Dinner Rolls evening program will a presentation by Club member and Mashed Potatoes hiking enthusiast Pat Childs about her hiking adventures in Macaroni and Cheese Washington state. Dessert RSVP: Saturday February 4, 2011 We hope to see you there! Program: Hiking the Evergreen State by Pat Childs

ALONG THE TRAIL Larry held the remains of the deer upright against a tree By Wil Ahn with his walking stick, and Diane took a picture of it. Years ago I was hunting with two good friends, Larry Once again we kidded Larry about being color blind, Peterson and Ed Vandegrift. It was the latter part of the because only he could see those hidden antlers. But I hunting season for buck deer and we were walking out the marveled at his eyesight. Billy Brown Trail behind Susquehannock Lodge. I was Larry and Diane have long dreamed of a trip to Alaska. As leading on our way to take stands in ―Hidden Valley.‖ I write this, they are now in Anchorage, AK. I just got a Near the Drumater Trail, Larry said, ―There are some deer post card from them. They are having a great trip and on down there on the hill watching us.‖ their way to Denali. When they get home, we will hear many stories of their trip. I wonder if Larry will see a Ed and I asked where, and Larry said, ―Over there in those green grizzly bear. beech saplings.‖ ‗Nuf set. See you along the trail. Ed and I looked in that direction but couldn‘t see any deer. As we watched for a few minutes, the deer moved and we Wil saw that they were three does. The yellow leaves still hanging on the beech brush had camouflaged the deer. I wondered how Larry could see the deer while Ed and I could not. 2011 Wild Game/Harvest Dinner Then Ed the joker said, ―It pays to be color blind.‖ Randy Cimino at the PCT Mexican border Sure enough, Larry said he was color blind, and the deer looked kind of green to him. Needless to say, we had a great time kidding Larry about the green deer. Many years later in September 2003, I led a day hike through the Hammersley Wild Area on the Susquehan- nock Trail System. We hiked from the McConnell Road to Cross Fork, a distance of about 10 miles. We had about a dozen hikers that day including Larry and Diane Peterson and their daughter Christa. Christa is a grown-up lady now, but I remember her when she was just a kid climbing in my apple tree at Susquehannock Lodge. Somewhere along the trail in the vicinity of Road Hollow, Photo submitted by Randy Cimino Larry said, ―Look! There‘s a The 2011 Wild Game/Harvest Dinner was held at the buck‘s antlers.‖ Gold Church with 26 members attending. Club members shared several home-made dishes as well as the occasional We all looked in the direction ones professionally prepared. he was pointing his walking stick, but I only saw a pile of The entertainment was provided by STC member Randy branches a short distance off Cimino of Roulette, PA who shared pictures from his six- the trail. No one else saw the month end-to-end hike on the Pacific Crest Trail while antlers until Larry walked over contrasting this experience with an earlier end-to-end hike and pulled away the branches on the Appalachian trail. from around the antlers. The After the slide show, Randy displayed some of the gear he antlers were still attached to uses on his long distance hikes. He explained that long the skull and part of the distance hikers quickly learn to eliminate as much weight animal‘s backbone. No hide as possible from their packs. He offered a number of or flesh remained—only ―insider tips‖ such that seemingly trivial decisions, like Photo by Diane Peterson bones. It was a nice eight- the color of your gear, can sometimes be life saving. point rack. Had the buck been shot and wounded by a Future issues of the Susquehannock Hiker will contain stories hunter, get away, escape being found, and die in the of Randy‘s long-distance hiking adventures. woods? That is a mystery to this day.

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Winter Hammock Hanging in the PA Quehanna Wild Area By Chris Bell It‘s been some time since I reported any of my activities in and star gazing. Home at the close of the day. the PA Wilds. I have been desperate to use my new snow I was not disappointed with a calm evening. The wind shoes. This past weekend I had hoped to do so as the first came and howled relentlessly. Just when you thought, gee, hand reports were of 15 inches of snow with a light 1/2 that was pretty loud and horrendous!‖ a new gust would inch crust near the Quehanna Wild Area of PA. come and surpass the prior. As viewed from under the Problem being that last Friday it was some 50 degrees and protection of the tarp, patterns of full moon light moved the days prior were above freezing. No snowshoeing for about its surface as the trees bent to the wind. me but I did take them to hopefully try them out. By morning I came out of the hammock safe and sound, However, I did take the challenge of going into PA's although a bit haggard and dark around the eyes. It was a largest wild area. Although it is crisscrossed with many comfortable night hanging there, but difficult to sleep with trails and roads, there is every type of wild creature to view all the noise around me. Short day hikes and a peach there from the smallest mouse to a large elk. I saw both. cobbler sure took the edge off things. The weekend was just great. Had some time early Friday Saturday night had its share of wind now and then but it to drive around and review the area near the Wykoff Run was quiet enough to hear the scary critters of the woods. and Quehanna Trail crossings for a possible loop hike this The stomping and snorting of a deer is one familiar thing year. It was a warm but wet slushy day. The camp area I to listen to. But the effect is quite different when coming went to was a mix of no snow under some trees to heavy from an elk close by. Trust me. Scary noises like snoring snow and some deep water from melt off collecting in can also be unsettling. I am told I do snore although I pools. have never stayed awake to find out. I utilize an 8 X 10 foot tarp for over head protection and Sunday I awoke at 6 AM which is sleeping in 2 hours for with the ends closed facing the wind. This is quite me. I lay there in stillness with no wind and about 17 effective and I rarely feel any movement of air inside. The degrees. Just a nice quiet start waiting on the rising sun. I hammock itself is insulated underneath by an under quilt stayed in the hammock long enough for daylight to make it with some 4 inches of down loft. Quite warm and easier to see what I was doing. Took down camp and instantly heats you when sitting or lying in the hammock. headed on out early for a nice drive back up north. I was When lying on a diagonal to the line of the hammock there greeted by the warming sunlit mountains that descend and is a flat area which does not stress the knees but is very touch the first waters of the Sinnemahoning. comfortable. Today on Monday, I shoveled about 15 inches of new For Friday night, a new cold front was soon on the way snow. About 3 hours of more fun than I should legally be and with it wind gusts projected to be in excess of 45 mph. allowed to have. Maybe I will have time to even use those I wandered off to the hammock after an evening of eating new snowshoes…. Quehannah Wild Area Trying to keep warm

Photo submitted by Chris Bell Photo submitted by Chris Bell

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2011 Trail Maintenance Summary In June we started work on the West Branch Crossover By Bill Boyd, STC Trail Maintenance Chairman Trail. This is approximately five miles of mostly an old Civilian Conservation Corps trail along the West Branch of Our 2011 trail maintenance season started off as usual with Pine Creek that had become severely overgrown over the Boy Scout Troop 432 of Jonestown, PA making their very past seven decades. The link provides a 23-mile loop from early spring STS maintenance trip to Potter County. The the Northern Gateway for those who don‘t have time for a troop maintains a 20-mile stretch of the STS from Ole Bull full circuit hike. Brushing out was finally completed in State Park to the Shephard Road. Due to the amount of mid-August, and involved Joe Allis, Wayne Baumann, Bill snow on the ground and a temperature of 8° F. the Boyd, Gary Buchanan, Art Huber, Jerry Johnston, Mary morning of March 26, they didn't make it all the way Lou Parker, Bob Ross, Wanda Shirk, Curt Weinhold, and. through their section that weekend. John Zimmerman. We put around 280 man hours into Normally they would have been the first crew out of the this project, and held a celebratory hike on September 24, gate, but Joe Allis had started his year in January. Joe had 2011. been out in mid-January and laid out some new cross- In between all of this we managed to get many other areas country ski connector routes to the White Line Trail, and cleared, some re-blazing done, nine posts set, about 17 also spent a few hours working in Jacob Hollow. new signs installed, and a start on a major relocation of the Things really picked up in April, with Jerry Johnston and combined STS-Donut Hole Trail in Long Hollow. (See Mary Lou Parker starting work on the Hogback section. separate articles in this and the Fall 2011 issue for details Pat Childs and her father, Clair Almeter, cleared some of of that project.) the trail from the Prouty Lick Road to the Rock Ridge Jerry Johnston and Mary Lou Parker are by far the front Road. I checked three of my shorter sections, and Chris runners when it comes to hours, having between them Bell did his Fire Tower Trail. Joe Wiskerski and Lois over 300 hours on the trail (166 and 140 respectively). We Morey cleared the Seed Study Trail, Wanda Shirk and John don't do this work for the fame and fortune of course, but Zimmer worked from the Wild Boy Road to the East Fork we should recognize efforts such as this. This pair not Road, and Scoutmaster Charlie Kern of Troop 432 was only spent time clearing the Hogback Trail, but also back at it on the troop‘s 20-mile stretch. worked at many other locations along the STS, helped with By early May, Lowell and Barb Luft traveled from blazing, setting posts and signs, digging new trail, and Columbia, PA, to spend three days on the section from clearing blowdowns. Short Run to Ole Bull Park. They also returned in late My apologies if I have missed anyone. We were fortunate June and went through that section again. Bob and Helen to have upwards of 54 people working on the trails this Bernhardy of Wellsboro, PA, worked on the segment from year. We feel that we've had a very productive year, with Lyman Run to the Sunken Branch Road. Jerry and Mary getting a crossover trail cleared, some sections re-routed, Lou, along with Daryl Warren cleared some of the upper and some decent maintenance of the STS. And the great Hammersley, and Joe and Barb Allis worked on the lower thing is, next year we get to do it all over again. It doesn't half. And Gary Buchanan and Gene Neefe cleared the get any better than that! stretch from the Prouty Lick Road to Patterson Park. Final total for 2011: 1,434 hours—972 hours of actual On April 30, 2011 fourteen of us dug about 1,000 feet of work time, and 472 hours of travel time to get to the trail. the new Lyman Run Park Connector Trail along the side hill on the south side of Lyman Run. The original trail cut through waterfowl nesting areas in the riparian zone along the stream and lake shore. This link ties into the STS at the intersection of the Fish and B&S trails. Next Newsletter On May 21, we were back and dug another 600 feet, and Deadline on October 22 we finished the job. The crew included March 10 The spring edition of the STC STC members Wayne Baumann, Bob Bernhardy, Bill Newsletter will go to press March Boyd, Joe Boyd, Art Huber, Tim Morey, Gene Neefe, 19, 2012. Email your articles to Marti Quigley, Lewis Russell, Wanda Shirk, and Curt [email protected] no later than Weinhold. Other volunteers were Kyle Franklin, Kathy Wednesday March 10, 2012. If Hengen, Joe Lewis, Veronica Martin, Lorie Olear, Ann you‘d prefer, you can also mail Reinhart, Greg Snowman, Scott Taylor, and Kay Williams. them to PO Box B, Robinson, PA 15949, by March 4, 2011.

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Long Hollow Trail Upgrade Eventually the Lyman Run project was finished, and the (Continued from Last Issue) STC trail crew wanted to keep our Long Hollow 100-foot By Tom Fitzgerald promise before the end of the year. A break in the Background: Long Hollow, located on the Potter-Clinton weather was predicted for Friday, November 18, so on county line, is part of the boundary between the Susque- that day nine of us met at Carter Camp and car-pooled in hannock and Sproul state forests. The trail in this hollow three pickup trucks the rest of the way to Long Hollow. is a link in the far southern edge of the Susquehannock (The Long Hollow parking spot is big enough for only Trail system. It‘s also a link in the Sproul State Forest‘s three vehicles.) Donut Hole Trail. The trail was constructed by the The club members consisted of STC President Wanda Civilian Conservation Corps in the latter half of the 1930s. Shirk, Vice President Wayne Baumann, Trail Maintenance Long Hollow is a narrow, steep-sided valley whose bottom Committee Chairman Bill Boyd, along with club members is barely wider than the stream. The CCC constructed Joe Boyd, Jerry Johnston, Mary Lou Parker, Lewis Russell, their Long Hollow Trail almost on the stream bank, and and myself. We also assisted by John Livermore, a guest the occasional flash floods during the past seven decades from Honeoye Falls, NY. have washed away most of the footpath in the bottom STC President Wanda Shirk lifts a rock while Lewis Russell and third of the hollow. (The stream in upper Long Hollow is Mary Lou Parker wait to place it along the outer edge of the trail. intermittent and subterranean, and has not eroded the original footpath there.) The bottom end of the hollow is also prime habitat for stinging nettles. Summer hikers— especially those wearing shorts—find picking their way up the rocky streambed an itchy experience. In March 2011, I was asked by the manager of the Sproul State Forest if the Susquehannock Trail Club could provide some volunteer assistance in relocating and constructing a new footpath in the lower end of Long Hollow far enough up on the hillside to be above any future flash floods. They told me the budgetary and personnel situation this year prevented the district from doing it themselves. I said that we would do it, plus construct a 100-foot sample of new footpath to CCC standards (as wide as the length of a pick-handle) as a model for whatever volunteers the Sproul District could Photo by Tom Fitzgerald bring in later to work on the job. The hillside was covered with a light skiff of snow which During the spring, I laid out a proposed route for the new had almost melted off by noon. The crew made their way, footpath, the Sproul Forest District approved it, and I slipping and sliding up the steep pitch from the parking returned later and marked the route with orange paint spot to the short previously-dug stretch where the footing blazes to prevent it from being lost if the flagging was better. From there they charged out in both directions disappeared before the new footpath was built. I chose the along the paint blazes and attacked the rocky hillside with Sproul State Forest side of the hollow because (1) the gusto. By the end of three hours, close to 150 yards of small parking spot is located on that side of the stream, new footpath had been roughed in, more than a hundred (2) the hillside is slightly less steep on that side, and (3) it feet of it to CCC standards as promised! That was far was the Sproul district who asked our club to help. more than I thought we could do. Everyone was tired and happy, and we decided to call it a day. No sense in turning During the spring and summer, the STC trail crew was a fun work detail into a grueling ordeal. Several of the occupied with a another trail relocation—the connector crew want to come back in the spring and hit it again. link to Lyman Run Park—so I went down to Long Hollow by myself and checked out the terrain. I quickly learned The most time-consuming part of the footpath was the that the surface of the hillside was littered with semi-flat initial pitch from the parking spot up to the level where stones too big to rake, but small enough to lift by hand. I the trail maintains about the same gradient as the stream spent most of my time picking and stacking rocks. After below. Several more hours of effort are going to have to two short days, I had built only 38 feet of pick handle- be spent on that first pitch. We‘re pretty sure that spring width trail. will also reveal some needed touch-up on the work we‘ve

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done. Some caving of the bank on the uphill edge of the Election Time trail is expected at the soil finds its ―angle of repose.‖ A winter‘s worth of freezing, thawing, and settling of the soil Every two years, the will show us high spots to be knocked off, sinkholes to be Susquehannock Trail Club filled in, and narrow stretches to be widened out to the elects officers. Nominations length of a pick handle. are usually taken at the March meeting, and ballots One disappointment: there were no good GPS readings, included in the spring even with the trees bare. I had hoped to get latitude and edition of the newsletter. longitude coordinates at the point where the new footpath This year, several officers tapers into the original CCC trail above the flash flood are retiring, and we are trying something new. We are zone in the lower hollow. But during the few hours we inviting all members to submit nominations for each were there, most of the navigational satellites were behind office. The requirements and duties of each office are the hills. We‘ll try again in the early spring. If we still can‘t described below. get good readings, we can always resort to old-fashioned methods with compass and chain tape. Please read over the requirements of each office, and suggest the name of an STC member whom you believe Most of the new trail is covered with lots of rocks and very would be able to serve in that office in a responsible little soil. More soil between the rocks would help future manner. Each nominee will be contacted to find out if vegetation (other than nettles) get a better foothold. he/she is willing and able to serve. If the answer is yes, Someone threw out the thought that if trail users could be that person‘s name will appear on the ballot. inspired to carry in bags of soil and spread it over the rocks as they hike through, the club might be able to PRESIDENT – The president presides at club meetings recognize them with a special ―STS Dirt-Bagger‖ award. A and makes sure that business is conducted in an orderly committee has not been appointed to explore the idea, manner. In between meetings, he/she may occasionally be draw up requirements, and suggest a design for a suitable called upon to make executive decisions in consultation certificate and patch. with the Advisory Council VICE-PRESIDENT – The Vice-President presides at meetings in the absence of the president, and assumes the

office of President upon the death or resignation of the STS Circuit Hiker Award President. Congratulations to the following for completing the SECRETARY – The Secretary records the minutes of circuit, and in turn earning the Circuit Hiker Award! each club meeting, and is responsible for all 1017 Richard Dunn 1022 Robert Bovard correspondence between the club and outside parties. The Pittsburgh, PA Wynantskill, NY Secretary must be able to hear well in the presence of 1018 Donna Hoffman 1023 Mark Ferwerda background noise, live close enough to Coudersport to Pittsburgh, PA Linthieum, MD check the post office box on a frequent basis, and be able 1019 Hugh Gale 1024 Steve Mandl to correspond in writing clearly and concisely. Massillon, OH Jamestown, PA TREASURER – The Treasurer receives money from 1020 Molly Bovard 1025 Jeff Mandl dues and the sale of merchandise, deposits the money in Quakertown, PA Palmyra, PA the club‘s bank account, pays club bills, provides a current 1021 Jacob Bovard financial statement at each club meeting, and files the Quakertown, PA necessary forms pertaining to the club‘s tax-exempt status For more information or ―insider tips‖ on the Circuit in a timely fashion. Hiker Award, you may contact the club at PO Box 643 ARCHIVIST – The Archivist maintains all records of the Coudersport, PA 16915 or email to [email protected]. club‘s past activities in an organized fashion. ADVISORY COUNCIL – The Advisory Council consists of three club members not holding one of the above offices. Their duties are to advise the club‘s officers on any action that needs to be taken between the regular monthly meetings.

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