Home Again, Home Again

Jigitty jig.

Adolescent cat from Hell was perfectly chipper when I got home from work Friday. Looks like she’s strong enough to throw off the Kitty Flu without much more than a momentary *URP*. So the Professor and I took off for the mountains (such as they are in my state) for three days of hiking and photography.

We were lucky. They were calling for intermittent showers all weekend, but they never intermittented on us. The weather was a bit overcast, but the temperature stayed in the low to mid-seventies, which is perfect for some of the hiking we did.

There is a town upstate of us called Jim Thorpe. It’s a quiet, arsty-fartsy little town whose major claim to fame is being the final resting place of the legendary athlete Jim Thorpe. There are a multitude of state parks in that area, with enough trails to keep you busy for an entire year. We did a trail in Lehigh Gorge on Saturday, another trail in Hickory Run on Sunday, and a short hike along the Appalachian trail today on our way home.

The most difficult trail we did was the Glen Onoco Trail at Lehigh Gorge. It’s well worth the trip, because it follows along a creek that drops from the mountain in a series of waterfalls. The trail is poorly marked though, and was a huge challenge for me at times. Pity the Professor, though. The first thing we saw when we started the trail was this sign; The Prof was ready to turn back before we ever started! He did far better than I did on the trail though, and assisted me at a couple of the steepest spots where my right leg was simply not strong enough to hoist me over rocks or down a steep drop.

Here’s a picture of one section of the falls. This is just a small sampling of what we were treated to as we climbed the trail. And yes, that is The Prof posing in front – my first officially sanctioned Prof pic in the diary.

Another section of the falls juts so far out from the cliff face that you can stand behind the falling water. It’s quite spectacular – if you don’t mind getting a little wet and slimy.

I’m not going to bother with a thumbnail for this shot. I don’t think I’ve seen a scarlet tanager in our area since I was a child. I was practically jumping up and down from excitement when The Prof spotted this one. At first I rather dismissively told him it was probably a cardinal, but the joke ended up being on me as I attempted to sneak up on the poor bird to get a picture. This isn’t as good as I’d like, but at least it’s good enough for positive ID.

At the top of the climb, there is a wonderful overlook that shows most of the town of Jim Thorpe. The antique and crafts shops are in the part of town on the right side of the river, which you can only see a small part of from this vista.

Sunday we did a somewhat less strenuous hike in Hickory Run State Park. It was a four hour round trip hike out and back to a boulder field left by retreating glaciers at the end of the ice age. The hike is through thickly wooded and rocky terrain, with the woods ending abruptly at the boulder field. We had fun clambering over the boulders and taking pictures of the wolf spiders that seemed to be the only life out there. There were a few pits excavated by I know not who, one of which was deep enough to reveal the stream that flows below the center of the field. The area has an incredibly alien feel to it, as if someone had just wiped all the trees out of this one section of forest and left behind only dead stones. (The people you see in this photograph all cheated – they drove to the parking area immediately adjacent to the boulder field instead of hiking in from the other end of the park.)

I’ve been to Jim Thorpe perhaps half a dozen times or so, but this was the first time I stopped at the Jim Thorpe memorial. The site is well designed, with an area off to the side that gives a nice overview of Jim Thorpe’s life and times. Pictured here are the gravesite and the statue at the center of the overview area called “The Spirit of Thunder and Lightning”. Jim Thorpe’s Native American name, Wa-tho-huck, meant “Path lit up at night by a bolt of lightning”. I was fascinated by the statue; can’t quite decide if I like it or not, but it does capture something of essence of the name.

Finally, on the way home today we stopped by the Appalachian Trail, where it crossed the road we were on, and hiked in a short way. The timing was fortuitous, to say the least. I was able to get pictures of an orchid native to Pennsylvania, the Moccasin-Flower. I had never seen them before, and was absolutly taken with them.

The mountain laurel wasn’t quite in bloom yet, and the pink azaleas were on their last legs, but there were quite a few other small, delicate flowers blooming along the trail’s edge. The Fowler’s toads were also out in force, and The Professor helped corral a few for me so I could get some pictures. Here are two, one the brown morph and the other the red morph of same species. Both are small enough to comfortably sit on your thumbnail (were they of a mind to sit around, that is).

Coming home has been a jolt to my system. I dearly wish I had tomorrow off, but at least it’s only a four day week. I’ll take what comfort from that I can.