Carole was driving up to see her mom, so I tagged along for the drive up to PA and we met Carl in Fairview, PA. Carl and I then did a loop hike in the Michaux State Forest near Waynesboro, PA. We started at the Old Forge picnic grounds and hiked the Appalachian Trail up to Chimney Rocks. An awesome view of the valley and Waynesboro Reservoir - would have been awesomer before Hurricane Sandy stripped what was left of the fall foliage. This is a very nice, very uphill hike to about 1940 feet, through pines and around streams for much of the way.
From Chimney Rocks you can head north on the AT and go by the fire tower Carl and I had hiked to, and operated from, previously. However, we made a loop back to the start by taking a blue blazed trail to a fire road that parallels the AT back down hill with some quite steep switchbacks. A few miles downhill and you come to this bridge that crosses the stream to get to the Hermitage cabin, which apparently is used as a staging area for rock climbing folks.
It is a very purty section, but it tricked us into thinking we should cross the bridge to follow the blue trail. However, that led us (after some bushwhacking) into a dead end, so we retraced our steps and went back over the bridge and found the faded blue trail blazes for the rocky trail through more pines and along the burbling creek back to the AT and back to Carl's Jeep at the start.
One souvenier from the hike, probably from the bushwhacking part: the next day I discovered a very large tick happily burrowing into my very large belly. I had to call Carole in for some emergency tick pulling, which always gives her joy.
Comments