Ohiopyle State Park: Escaping the Rain

It rained a lot in the Mid-Atlantic last week. A Lot. Baltimore-Washington International Airport received over 5.5 inches of rain on Friday alone. By Sunday, we were ready to see some sun and dry out a little bit. With federally-managed lands closed due to the government shutdown, we figured it was a great time to visit a state park. We headed west with Wild Type of Horizontal Tread, away from the storm, to Ohiopyle State Park in western Pennsylvania. Ohiopyle State Park has been on the hiking to-do list for a long time, but it is a three-hour drive, so we just hadn't gotten around to it before. We did a series of relatively short hikes that added up to seven or eight miles and let us check out several of the park's many waterfalls, which is the longest distance I've hiked since January of this year.

We started with the Meadow Run area. We did a loop that took us to a series of low waterfalls. Ironically, the streams were all running low in Ohiopyle State Park. Although it had rained the day before, the park is too far west to have gotten much of the rain from last week's storm.

The Meadow Run Cascades.

Looking down Meadow Run at the first hints of fall colors.

After completing the loop, we drove to Jonathan Run trailhead. We hiked down the trail along the stream, meeting just a few other hikers on the way. The fall colors are really just getting started, but we were treated to some bright leaves.

A pretty yellow tree along the trail.

Looking down Jonathan Run.

A bright orange fungus on a downed log. Maybe Chicken of the Woods?

Upper Jonathan Run Falls.

Getting to the lower falls on Jonathan Run was a quite a scramble. Since there had been a little bit of rain the day before, slippery wet leaves and roots made it even more interesting. I think I made most of the descent on my rear end. The view was totally worth it.

Another view of the lower falls on Jonathan Run. After scrambling back up to the trail, we hiked a little further downstream to the Great Allegheny Passage Trail, which passes through the park. We took a short break before returning to the car the way we came.

Our next stop was supposed to be Cucumber Run, but the parking lot was completely full, so we decided to go see the main attraction:  Ohiopyle Falls on the Youghiogheny River.

The main falls from the Ferncliff Natural Area, across the river from the main viewing platform. The area was pretty crowded with sightseers and fishermen, but it was worth the walk to get below the falls.

These fossils were a neat surprise on the walk down to Ohiopyle Falls. This is a Lepidodendron (a type of tree known as a scale tree) fossil. We saw other fossils, but most of them weren't clear enough to photograph well.

After returning to the car, we made another, this time successful, attempt to see Cucumber Falls. It was worth the wait.

 Cucumber Falls.

The view from behind Cucumber Falls. We had a great day. I was really happy to get back out in the woods after a long absence. We will definitely go back to Ohiopyle State Park.

Oregon, Chapter 2: Forts, Waterfalls, and the Painted Hills

The next part of our trip was an exercise in contrasts:  We started in a yurt at Fort Stevens State Park on the mouth of the Columbia River - basically as far northwest in Oregon as you can go and ended up in John Day in eastern Oregon. We traveled from one of the wettest parts of Oregon to one of the driest over the course of three days, seeing amazing waterfalls, beautiful landscapes, and eating great food along the way.

We visited Fort Clatsop, which is between Fort Stevens State Park and Astoria, Oregon. This is the site where Lewis and Clark overwintered on their expedition. It was cool to see a site that I had read quite a bit about. The fort is a reconstruction based on Clark's drawings and some of the other men's drawings and descriptions. The museum has a nice collection of artifacts from the expedition as well.

A Banana Slug on a trail at Fort Clatsop. This is a little one - only about four inches long.

Mushrooms on a moss-covered log along the same trail as the banana slug.

After our visit to Fort Clatsop, we had to make our way to Portland to pick up a friend at the airport. In spite of my assurances that it doesn't usually rain in Oregon at the beginning of September, it was pouring in Portland when we picked him up.

We spent the night in a lovely hotel in Cascade Locks, Oregon. Cascade Locks is conveniently located near Oregon's most famous waterfall:  Multnomah Falls. The sun had nearly set by the time we got there, which actually turned out to be a nice thing.  There were only a few other people at a site that is usually completely overrun, the light was perfect for taking pictures of the falls,  and we got to eat a very nice dinner in the lodge. The upper falls are 542 feet high and the lower cascade is 69 feet high.

The view of the lower cascade from the bridge.

We got up the next morning and went for a drive and a hike in the Columbia Gorge to see more waterfalls. It was still raining.

Latourell Falls (249 ft) in the western end of the Columbia Gorge. We wound up driving more of the Columbia Gorge Scenic Highway than we had planned because it was raining so hard in the morning that none of us had a strong motivation to hike.

The rain finally let up somewhat, so we hiked the Oneota Trail to Triple Falls.

Triple Falls (~130 ft) on Oneota Creek. If you look closely, you can see a bridge across the creek above the falls in the top center of the photo.

Oneota Creek above Triple Falls.

After lunch, we began making our way east, towards John Day, Oregon and the beginning of Cycle Oregon. 

The weather improved as we drove east on I-84 through the Columbia Gorge. We stopped at a scenic overlook that had a great view of the Gorge. This is looking west towards Cascade Locks and Portland.

The plan was to drive south from Hood River and make a side trip to Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood, where we do a little bit of hiking (walking around, really) on the Timberline Trail. It seemed like a reasonable plan at the time. In fact, as we drove south from Hood River, this was our view of Mt. Hood. Unfortunately, on the other side of the mountain, it was about 40 degrees, raining, and the visibility was approximately 10 feet. We opted to sit inside at the bar at Timberline Lodge instead of hiking. Given the beauty of the building and the coziness of the bar, it wasn't really a loss.

Continuing east, we left the mountains and, just like that, we left the rain behind. This is taken from Highway 26, just 40 miles or so southeast of Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood. Mt. Jefferson is in the background.

On our way to John Day, we stopped at the Painted Hills unit of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. We didn't get to spend much time there, but it was spectacular.

The view from one of the overlooks in the monument. From here, we drove another hour to John Day.

Tomorrow, I'll post pictures from Cycle Oregon.

The Trek Part 2: Glaciers, Waterfalls, and a Hot Spring

After some rain overnight, we awoke to sun on day 3 of the trek.  With another glacier crossing ahead of us, we knew it would be another long day, but our food bags were starting to get lighter and everyone was in a pretty good mood.  We took a higher route up to the glacier, so we did not deal with nearly as much mud as the night before and we made good time getting there.  The glacier was beautiful in the bright sunlight.  There were meltwater streams everywhere as it warmed up.  Our guide was hoping to be across it by noon or one so that we would have an easier river crossing on the other side.  Glacial or snow-fed rivers are usually higher in the afternoon as the melting water works its way through the system.  A river that is a rock hop early in the morning can be impossible to ford in the afternoon.

We did not make his goal by a long shot.  It was nearly four in the afternoon by the time we were off the glacier and later yet by the time we got to the river.  We were lucky, though, that the river was fordable.    It was spread out in several braided sections, making each section shallower and slower.  I had been worried about the river crossings.  Immersing my feet in ice cold water causes pain and numbness in about 10 seconds (yes, we do this for fun).   Not to mention the consequences of screwing up a river crossing. Our guide had us cross in groups of four, linking arms, with the biggest person on the upstream side.  The river was fast and knee deep.  Going as a group made it a lot easier.  I had bought neoprene socks before the trip on the recommendation of our guiding company, thinking they wouldn't help at all.  Our guide extolled the virtues of them and I kept thinking, "yeah, whatever, your feet are not my feet."  They were amazing.  My feet still got cold, but they held a layer of water against them that warmed up slightly.  I will definitely be carrying them in the future.  

We camped in the mist near a pretty little stream, surrounded by bright green beds of moss.  The next morning, day 4, we were promised a visit to a hot spring.  We hiked for about an hour, past a completely new river (according to our guide), arctic fox tracks, and another river ford.  We arrived at a pretty little pool that was hot bathwater-warm.  We spent a couple of hours relaxing in the hot spring.  It felt great on tired muscles.  The afternoon was filled with beautiful waterfalls and flowers.  We camped in a canyon filled with pink Epilobium latifolium (Arctic River Beauty).  By the time dinner rolled around, it was raining hard.  After dinner, we hiked up the canyon to the end, but it was raining hard enough that we didn't take any pictures of the waterfall.  

The next morning, day 5, we hiked in the clouds, making our way south towards the coast.  By lunchtime, it was bright and sunny again.  We took a side trip up to a saddle overlooking Skeiðarárjökull, another glacier that is part of the large ice sheet, Vatnajökull.  We also had a great view of the mountains of Skaftafell to the east and, off in the distance, the ocean to the south.  We continued south and east, down a very steep canyon to the river valley below.  We camped that night on the valley floor, next to a four-wheel drive track and a little shack with two toilets and a sink.  The water pipes had been clogged by volcanic ash, so Michael and a couple of other people set out to restore water to the shack.  They were nearly successful, but for lack of a pipe wrench, weren't able to fix the final piece of it.  

We were halfway through the trip at this point and holding up pretty well.  Except for our first hike up Laki, all of our travel had been off-trail.  I only had one minor complaint:  My boot laces were full of volcanic ash (which is basically little shards of glass) and tying them was tearing up the skin on my hands.  They wouldn't dry, so I couldn't shake the ash out of them.

 Pictures (click to enlarge):

 Hiking on the glacier on Day 3.

 Day 3:  The amazing blue ice.

 Day 3:  Michael with a glacier "smore."  Peanut butter, chocolate, and two crackers.

 Day 3:  Finally off the glacier with a glimpse of the mountains.

Day 3: Our first large river crossing.

Day 4: The hot spring.

Day 4:  A pair of Harlequin Ducks working their way upriver.

 The first of the waterfalls on Day 4.

 Day 4:  Epilobium latifolium (Arctic River Beauty) in front of a large waterfall.

 A closeup of E. latifolium.

 Day 4:  Hiking into Flower Canyon, our campsite for the night.

 Day 5:  A relatively small waterfall early in the day.

 Day 5:  Bootshot overlooking the Skeiðarárjökull glacier.

Day 5:  Looking south toward the coast and the valley where we camped.  

Spring Flowers! Knob Mountain and Jeremy's Run

After hearing reports from friends of flowers blooming in the mountains, I was pretty excited about this week's hike.  It had been several years since we had hiked Jeremy's Run and Knob Mountain in Shenandoah National Park and those trails have a wide variety of spring flowers.  The downside is that they tend to be fairly crowded in the spring, but we decided it would be worth it.  Jeremy's Run can run high and be difficult to cross in the spring (the trail crosses it 17 times over the course of 6 miles), so we packed our crocs in case we had to take off our boots. 

We arrived at the trailhead on the west boundary of the park around 9:30 yesterday.  The weather could not have been better:  high 60s and sunny. The trail crosses about a mile of private land before climbing a small hill up to the park boundary.  We were immediately rewarded with flowers including Claytonia virginica (Spring Beauty) and Corydalis flavula (Yellow Corydalis). From the park boundary, we descended back down to Jeremy's Run, which was as low as we've ever seen it.  When hiking it in the past, we have actually bushwhacked short distances to avoid some of the deeper, faster crossings, so we were surprised to find out that we didn't need to take our boots off at the lowest crossing of the day.  That is the long-winded way of saying, "we need some rain." 

At the junction with the Knob Mountain Trail, we took a left, crossed the run, and immediately began to climb.  The trail climbs steeply for a little over three miles to the top of Knob Mountain.  Without any leaves on the trees and little breeze, it was actually kind of a hot climb.  We took a break for lunch at the top by the summit post.  There was a nice view through the trees of Neighbor Mountain to the south.  From there, it was an easy descent to the Knob Mountain Cutoff Trail, which took us down to the Jeremy's Run Trail.  The Cutoff trail was lined with purple and white Anemone americana (Round-Lobed Liverleaf or Hepatica).  At nearly every stream crossing, we marveled at how low the run was. 

We finished 13 miles in about 8 hours because we took so much time photographing flowers.  It was a very pleasant hike. We only ran into three people:  a trail runner and two guys hiking together.

Pictures (click to enlarge):

 Anemone americana (Round-lobed Liverleaf, Hepatica) on the Knob Mountain Cutoff Trail.

 Claytonia virginica (Spring Beauty).

 Corydalis flavula (Yellow Corydalis).

 Epigaea repens (Trailing Arbutus)

 Packera obovatus (Round-Leaved Ragwort).

 Anemone americana (Round-Lobed Liverleaf, Hepatica). 

 Antennaria sp. (Pussytoes). 

 Micranthes virginiensis (Early Saxifrage).

An interesting grass.  The flower heads on these were about 3/4 of an inch long.  When they were bumped, they released clouds of pollen.

I could use some help on this one.  The flowers are about 1/4 inch across and they are on stalks that are about 3 inches tall.

 Trees reflected in a pool on Jeremy's Run.

 Cardamine concantenata (Cut-Leaf Toothwort).

 A pretty waterfall on Jeremy's Run. 

A water-strider on a pool.