We raised our first toast to our own follow-through. Last August, Laura, Chris and I took an impromptu camping weekend at Ohiopyle State Park in Southwestern Pennsylvania and liked it well enough to promise a return trip. Last weekend, a mere fifty weeks from that first visit, we made good. The park is situated in Pennsylvania's Laurel Highlands. Crossing in from Maryland, one remarks on the change from rolling, farm-quilted Appalachia to the greener, wetter, middle Allegheny Range. Strong rivers, like Ohiopyle's Youghiogheny (yawkigaynee) cut through rock giving the hills their amplitude, and when water meets resistant rock, rapids and waterfalls form. The scenery is a draw, plus the park lies in-between Ann Arbor and Silver Spring (though closer to the latter by about a 1:2 ratio), and we were hoping to get into the natural waterslides this year. Last year, it was way too cold. It's always something.
It's funny how quickly experience sets patterns in the subconscious mind. When June wanes, it feels like it's time to go to Michigan; the first change in the quality of sunlight in September lets a body know it's time for football. When August struck, already it felt right to head to Pennsylvania, and the pleasure of the first evening there was the pleasure of re-acquaintance. We walked through the campground trying to locate our old site, the park's ampitheater, the patch of sites where local weekenders park their pop-up campers and eight-person tents and dining canopies for weeks at a time. We got in the registration game late, so were stuck with the last walk-in site in the park. New knowledge: when your walk-in site is furthest back on the map, that means it's at the TOP of the mountain. That damn trail up got our legs warm many times a day. Mine might still be sore.
Firewood was plentiful and we had no immediate neighbor first night, so of course, we cleaned that site of wood too. First dinner included corn on the cob, steamed in the coals with just enough char in spots to give it flavor. Chris and I shared a sockeye salmon filet while the potatoes cooked. Steaks marinated in wine and herbs finished the meal, though by then we were too full to finish them and leftovers were cubed up for morning's breakfast.
Knowing we had a walk-in site, we opted to bring mixed drinks rather than beer, because, let's face it, it's hard to carry a hundred beers uphill. The first night we were drinking rum and Vitajuice, a juice so chocked with vitamins you're guaranteed not to wake up hungover. Still, pacing's tricky when drinking liquor. Heavy with food and rum, we stayed awake long enough to watch distant flashes of lightning close the starry hole above us, and went to bed when the rain started falling. All night, it hammered down. I had recently read on NOAA's website that 1 in 5000 people is struck by lightning every year—shitty odds if you ask me—and that a tent is no protection from a strike. Now, I have weathered plenty of storms in my tent, but this new information made me skittish and I counted after each thunderclap, one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand… The heart of the storm drew ever nearer. When it struck right above us, thunder made the sound of a tree splitting almost simultaneous with its flash, and I made Laura run with me down that now-muddy mountain in a downpour to wait it out in the car. I may be getting a little soft.
Despite the storm, we got a breakfast fire on easily enough. Eager to put something in our stomachs, we began with the standard: Bob Evans Savory Sage. I folded mine into toast with Cabot Black Wax Extra Sharp Cheddar. Laura then began her steak and eggs project, searing leftover steak cubes in a pan. It was a delicious breakfast, and true, we've been perfecting our camping meat consumption over the years, but I don't eat that way at home, and all the walks uphill and log sawing you can do in a day doesn't burn off that many protein-and-saturated-fat calories. By the time we took our hike, my guts were punishing me. I remembered then that an older, and wiser, first breakfast is oatmeal and berries. Next time.
Our hike took us around the Ferncliff Peninsula, an appendix of land that juts out into the Youghiogheny and, as such, has a slightly different habitat that the rest of the Laurel Highlands. It's a bit wetter, of course, and apparently bird droppings have deposited tree and plant seeds there of species that grow in neighboring Maryland and West Virginia but are not typically found that far north. To the untrained eye, the habitat looked about the same as the "mainland": rhododendron forests, ferny meadows, tall hemlocks, mossiness. At the edge of the fast river, muddy from the night's long storm, we saw a sign warning hikers not to sit on the boulders as there were poisonous snakes about. On down the trail, we saw a little one swimming in a puddle. Other signage told us about the history of Ferncliff Peninsula a natural area and tourist attraction. When folks used to travel by rail, a local train station made Ohiopyle a tourist boomtown. We saw the overgrown foundation marking where a grand hotel once stood on the peninsula. Long before, much of the area was covered by a sea and islands teemed with tropical plant life. What looked like a tire-track in rock was an ancient fish fossil.
After our hike, we headed to the natural waterslides which had been too cold to get into last year. It was a steamy day, so we knew that wouldn't be the case. As we approached and heard the roaring water, we knew that it was not to be. Perhaps the wet spring is to blame, but already high water inundated with the long storm's rain made the chutes treacherous. A few brave kayakers went through, but they had helmets, wet suits, and from the look of it, a lot of experience. A plain old body would have surely been smashed. Still, upstream we found some calmer places to sit and cool down in the flux and beneath an overhang of rhododendrons that had strewn the rock path with blossoms.
God, we felt like a beer. We'd hiked all we cared to; we'd sat in the river; ahead of us lay another night of food and gin and in between, we all really wanted a beer. We went to the bar in the Ohiopyle Café, sidled up and got to talking with the barmaid. She put Ohiopyle's population at 56. She said the barracks where the seasonal (whitewater rafting) employees lived was quite the party place and there'd be an underwear drinking party that night. She recommended microbrews from the Troegs Brewery in Harrisburg, like Sunshine Pils and Troeganator Double Bock. The pils was strong and hoppy for a pilsener with a creamy head and the double bock was smooth as root beer at 8.2% ABV. I recommend both. Looking out the bar-door, I noticed the distant mountain growing less and less visible, the day ever darker. When the rain ripped down it brought hail with it, cherry-pit sized hail. What serendipity to be where we were in the bar and not at the top of our mountain.
When Saturday's storm cleared, we were given back a beautiful day. At the campground we finally found the ampitheater we'd enjoyed last year—not the new one with its fancy benches and electric hook-ups—the old one, adjacent to the new but let wild, built back when a lengthwise-split logs made perfectly good benches and a firepit, not a stage, was the focal point. For dinner, fire-steamed trout, spicy grilled chicken sandwiches with sharp cheddar and guacamole, yams, gin and tonics, and of course, lots of s'mores. For breakfast in the morning, superior bacon from Knight's in Ann Arbor, eggs and pancakes. I made blackberry pancakes with fresh-picked berries, and tried a bacon, egg and pancake sandwich. Yum! After breakfast, we made it down the hill in one trip (after all, we'd eaten half of what we brought up to the site). Chris's drive was much longer than ours; he was eager to get on the road and we parted.
What did I learn this trip, what did I take from it? I know I like beer while camping. I know I need grains, fruits, and vegetables to survive. And I realized that I've gotten soft, all these years of car-camping where most trips are also reunions and as such are marked by feasting and excessive celebration. When I tried to simplify (knowing it was a walk-in sight, I emptied non-essentials from the camping bin) I just wound up bitching about the stuff I wished I had brought to make things easier, or more delicious. Propane stove to make coffee in the rain. Salt, spices, brown sugar. Towels. There was a time early in my camping career when I got better and leaner at it, going from a big-ass tent and 10-lb, 2'' thick sleeping bags to terrific and small tents, and everything smaller, smarter, more useful. I fear I've slid in the opposite direction. I'm not sure yet whether in the future I'll settle a little guiltily for relative comforts and indulgences, or fight back toward simplification. My next camping trip will take me back into Pennsylvania to end the month of August, so I'll soon find out. I think the greatest lesson I took from this trip was: if it's a good thing, do it again.
It's funny how quickly experience sets patterns in the subconscious mind. When June wanes, it feels like it's time to go to Michigan; the first change in the quality of sunlight in September lets a body know it's time for football. When August struck, already it felt right to head to Pennsylvania, and the pleasure of the first evening there was the pleasure of re-acquaintance. We walked through the campground trying to locate our old site, the park's ampitheater, the patch of sites where local weekenders park their pop-up campers and eight-person tents and dining canopies for weeks at a time. We got in the registration game late, so were stuck with the last walk-in site in the park. New knowledge: when your walk-in site is furthest back on the map, that means it's at the TOP of the mountain. That damn trail up got our legs warm many times a day. Mine might still be sore.
Firewood was plentiful and we had no immediate neighbor first night, so of course, we cleaned that site of wood too. First dinner included corn on the cob, steamed in the coals with just enough char in spots to give it flavor. Chris and I shared a sockeye salmon filet while the potatoes cooked. Steaks marinated in wine and herbs finished the meal, though by then we were too full to finish them and leftovers were cubed up for morning's breakfast.
Knowing we had a walk-in site, we opted to bring mixed drinks rather than beer, because, let's face it, it's hard to carry a hundred beers uphill. The first night we were drinking rum and Vitajuice, a juice so chocked with vitamins you're guaranteed not to wake up hungover. Still, pacing's tricky when drinking liquor. Heavy with food and rum, we stayed awake long enough to watch distant flashes of lightning close the starry hole above us, and went to bed when the rain started falling. All night, it hammered down. I had recently read on NOAA's website that 1 in 5000 people is struck by lightning every year—shitty odds if you ask me—and that a tent is no protection from a strike. Now, I have weathered plenty of storms in my tent, but this new information made me skittish and I counted after each thunderclap, one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand… The heart of the storm drew ever nearer. When it struck right above us, thunder made the sound of a tree splitting almost simultaneous with its flash, and I made Laura run with me down that now-muddy mountain in a downpour to wait it out in the car. I may be getting a little soft.
Despite the storm, we got a breakfast fire on easily enough. Eager to put something in our stomachs, we began with the standard: Bob Evans Savory Sage. I folded mine into toast with Cabot Black Wax Extra Sharp Cheddar. Laura then began her steak and eggs project, searing leftover steak cubes in a pan. It was a delicious breakfast, and true, we've been perfecting our camping meat consumption over the years, but I don't eat that way at home, and all the walks uphill and log sawing you can do in a day doesn't burn off that many protein-and-saturated-fat calories. By the time we took our hike, my guts were punishing me. I remembered then that an older, and wiser, first breakfast is oatmeal and berries. Next time.
Our hike took us around the Ferncliff Peninsula, an appendix of land that juts out into the Youghiogheny and, as such, has a slightly different habitat that the rest of the Laurel Highlands. It's a bit wetter, of course, and apparently bird droppings have deposited tree and plant seeds there of species that grow in neighboring Maryland and West Virginia but are not typically found that far north. To the untrained eye, the habitat looked about the same as the "mainland": rhododendron forests, ferny meadows, tall hemlocks, mossiness. At the edge of the fast river, muddy from the night's long storm, we saw a sign warning hikers not to sit on the boulders as there were poisonous snakes about. On down the trail, we saw a little one swimming in a puddle. Other signage told us about the history of Ferncliff Peninsula a natural area and tourist attraction. When folks used to travel by rail, a local train station made Ohiopyle a tourist boomtown. We saw the overgrown foundation marking where a grand hotel once stood on the peninsula. Long before, much of the area was covered by a sea and islands teemed with tropical plant life. What looked like a tire-track in rock was an ancient fish fossil.
After our hike, we headed to the natural waterslides which had been too cold to get into last year. It was a steamy day, so we knew that wouldn't be the case. As we approached and heard the roaring water, we knew that it was not to be. Perhaps the wet spring is to blame, but already high water inundated with the long storm's rain made the chutes treacherous. A few brave kayakers went through, but they had helmets, wet suits, and from the look of it, a lot of experience. A plain old body would have surely been smashed. Still, upstream we found some calmer places to sit and cool down in the flux and beneath an overhang of rhododendrons that had strewn the rock path with blossoms.
God, we felt like a beer. We'd hiked all we cared to; we'd sat in the river; ahead of us lay another night of food and gin and in between, we all really wanted a beer. We went to the bar in the Ohiopyle Café, sidled up and got to talking with the barmaid. She put Ohiopyle's population at 56. She said the barracks where the seasonal (whitewater rafting) employees lived was quite the party place and there'd be an underwear drinking party that night. She recommended microbrews from the Troegs Brewery in Harrisburg, like Sunshine Pils and Troeganator Double Bock. The pils was strong and hoppy for a pilsener with a creamy head and the double bock was smooth as root beer at 8.2% ABV. I recommend both. Looking out the bar-door, I noticed the distant mountain growing less and less visible, the day ever darker. When the rain ripped down it brought hail with it, cherry-pit sized hail. What serendipity to be where we were in the bar and not at the top of our mountain.
When Saturday's storm cleared, we were given back a beautiful day. At the campground we finally found the ampitheater we'd enjoyed last year—not the new one with its fancy benches and electric hook-ups—the old one, adjacent to the new but let wild, built back when a lengthwise-split logs made perfectly good benches and a firepit, not a stage, was the focal point. For dinner, fire-steamed trout, spicy grilled chicken sandwiches with sharp cheddar and guacamole, yams, gin and tonics, and of course, lots of s'mores. For breakfast in the morning, superior bacon from Knight's in Ann Arbor, eggs and pancakes. I made blackberry pancakes with fresh-picked berries, and tried a bacon, egg and pancake sandwich. Yum! After breakfast, we made it down the hill in one trip (after all, we'd eaten half of what we brought up to the site). Chris's drive was much longer than ours; he was eager to get on the road and we parted.
What did I learn this trip, what did I take from it? I know I like beer while camping. I know I need grains, fruits, and vegetables to survive. And I realized that I've gotten soft, all these years of car-camping where most trips are also reunions and as such are marked by feasting and excessive celebration. When I tried to simplify (knowing it was a walk-in sight, I emptied non-essentials from the camping bin) I just wound up bitching about the stuff I wished I had brought to make things easier, or more delicious. Propane stove to make coffee in the rain. Salt, spices, brown sugar. Towels. There was a time early in my camping career when I got better and leaner at it, going from a big-ass tent and 10-lb, 2'' thick sleeping bags to terrific and small tents, and everything smaller, smarter, more useful. I fear I've slid in the opposite direction. I'm not sure yet whether in the future I'll settle a little guiltily for relative comforts and indulgences, or fight back toward simplification. My next camping trip will take me back into Pennsylvania to end the month of August, so I'll soon find out. I think the greatest lesson I took from this trip was: if it's a good thing, do it again.
