The Old Logger’s Path Trail, Forksville PA the, traditional trailhead at Masten
Special Note:
27 mile loop trail
Sweeping vistas, cascading streams, rock outcroppings, Pleasant Stream and Rock Run Stream, make this one on PA’a premier hiking trails
Thursday, July 9th
We hadn’t been out in the woods much this year, with the crappy weather and all, so when I saw that we were going to have a nice Friday and Saturday, I thought it would be fun to do a little overnight backpacking trip.
Through the week John has been working hard on the house, ripping down the old chimney (cement, very heavy, hard on his back), tearing siding off of a high peak and then residing that same high peak (climbing up and down a ladder all day, hard on his legs and ankles). I’m thinking he would really appreciate a little get-away. An overnight backpacking trip, out in the quiet of nature would be just perfect. I mean who wouldn’t want to strap about 25 – 30 pounds of gear on their back and go hiking up and down big hills after a week like he had, right?
Always eager to accommodate me, John says "OK". Now mind you he is not fully recovered physically from the trauma of his week, but I don’t know this because he rarely complains. I ask him to pick out the location and length of trail for each days hike.
When I get home he shows me that he has picked out a section of the Old Logger’s Path (OLP) that we have yet to do. The first days hike in to camp will only be only a few miles, but our hike out is going to be significantly more. Not really what I was hoping for, I just wanted two short day hikes with lots of resting at camp, but I’m a trooper so I don’t say nay.
That evening we pack up all of our gear so we are ready to leave when I get home from work on Friday.
Friday July 10th
Now John didn’t tell me that he had a bunch of stuff planned for himself today. He spent most of the day running around and didn’t really take the time to eat….AT ALL. On Friday’s I take Me-Me out to lunch so I had a good lunch, and I snacked all day and drank lots of water so I was well hydrated.
I get home after work to find John running around crazy trying to finish up some stuff before we leave. He mentions he hasn’t eaten anything all day, which is probably why he is looking so frazzled. (oops #1) Little warning bells go off in my head, but since he said that he had been drinking I relax a little (hmm, that sounds weird). We get the packs strapped in the Jeep, the dogs loaded and head north. We stop at Cowdan’s Mini Market on Lycoming Creek Road in Cogan Station. John orders a foot long hoggie, a drink and a Red Bull quick shot energy drink. While we are waiting for his hoggie to be made, I go out to the car, get the map and figure out how I’m going to get us to our parking spot, since I will be driving while John is eating.
We are off. John’s eating, I’m driving, Cooper is whining.
We arrive at the spot John’s picked out, but it turns out we can’t get back to the parking area listed on the map, as the road is only open during hunting season. (oops #2) We drive up a road that leads to Sharp Top Vista, so John has a chance to decide where we are going from here. Sharp Top used to be a great spot to camp but the sight has been abused in the past so now camping is off limits. The view is quite spectacular.
John finds a different parking spot that will take 3 or so miles off of our journey to Sprout Point Vista which is where we want to be by nightfall. So off we go again, me driving, Cooper whining.
We arrive at the new parking area, strap Sophie’s pack on her (with all of the dog food, treats and dog water), get ours on and head off. Did I mention stopping to orient ourselves or the map to where we were in relation to the trail and what direction we should be heading? No, because we didn’t. (oops #3)
We are about 3/4 of a mile into the hike when John says "I want to check which way we are going, I don’t want to have happen what happened on that other hike we did. This doesn’t feel right." (On the other hike we didn’t orient ourselves and we went the wrong direction, and it turned into a torturous 7 mile hike, that I couldn’t walk right for 2 days afterwards.)
It turns out, we were supposed to be heading North East, we were heading North West. We did it again, we were heading in the opposite direction from where we wanted to go. (this is oops #3 biting us in the butt) In fact as it turns out, we were heading right towards Sharp Top Vista where we just were!!! AAAH! Not again! Oh well, we were going to make the best of it. John remembered from a hike we did months before that there were a couple of camp sites close to Sharp Top.
Knowing there would be no more chance for water, we stopped at the first stream we found to fill our water bottles.
Cooper found some great mud to lay in too. Thankfully we don’t sleep in a tent any more so we won’t have to share it with him…phew, he smells! With all this stopping and starting John’s Red Bull shot was doing a number on him. He said he wanted to get moving because he was crawling out of his skin.
Having set a fairly fast pace on the low flat areas to help John’s skin crawling, I barely noticed when it changed to a steeper up-hill grade. I looked back and John is just coming around a corner and not looking so good. I ask him how his energy shot is doing. He says it is all gone now. So I slow down. As we head into the last major "straight up" section, John begins to feel sick to his stomach and crampy (this is oops #1 revisiting John). Did I mention that he has been whining the entire time about not orienting himself before heading out? (this is oops #3 haunting me).
We passed up two camp sites close to the vista and settle on the one that was only about 100 yards away. It was the least used camp site out of all of them so we had some maintenance to do before we could relax.
I got the fire ring in good order while John was cleaning up debris and organizing firewood. The mosquitoes were bad so I asked John to start a fire before we spent any more time setting up camp. He’s going through his pack and suddenly asks "Honey, do you have any matches?" I said no, because he normally takes care of all of the fire starting stuff. Now this is a major fear of mine…not being able to start a fire. I ask "Why dear?" trying to keep the tension out of my voice. John says, that he apparently forgot to pack matches. (oops #4) I calmly ask if he has anything to start fires with and he says that he has the magnesium stick. Phew, that is a relief. He eventually gets a fire going.
Time to crawl in the hammocks for a good night’s rest….yeah right. There was a shortage of trees in a configuration well suited for hanging 2 hammocks. We ended up tying both ends of our hammocks to this little tree, and each of the other ends to 2 other bigger trees. I thought the hammocks and the bug netting and tarp were tied up pretty tight. (oops #5) Well by morning the poor little tree had bowed down so far that I was almost sitting on the ground and we were both sagging in the middle which does not make for very comfortable sleeping, not to mention that I woke up periodically to find Sophie breathing in my face.
Saturday, July 11th
Around daybreak, John rolls out of his hammock. He starts looking around and asks me where my dog is? Now I’m just waking up, how should I know. So I give a whistle. No Cooper. I give another whistle. No Cooper. John walks out to the trail and I give another whistle. He says that he sees him coming, he is way down the trail. As he gets closer, John sees that he has quills sticking out of his nose and legs. Apparently he was off finding his own adventure. (oops #6) I have him lay down and rest awhile. John then proceeds to pull all of the quills out of his nose, lip and leg.
No worse for wear, Cooper heartily ate his breakfast. We walked up to the vista to eat our breakfast. It was really windy which made it a little chilly, but the gnats are very bad on the vista so the wind made it tolerable to hang out for a while and enjoy the view before heading back to the Jeep.
John has to have his coffee in the morning so that was the first order of business. The Jet Boil spark lighter wasn’t working and we didn’t have any matches to manually light it. (oops #4 coming back at us) Luckily the flint on the magnesium stick was enough to light the stove.
Now we were out of the instant coffee filters that are like tea bags (oops #7), so we used one of the emergency instant filter packs that we have for the big coffee pot at home. Well…those filters aren’t as strong apparently and the whole pack opened up in brewing pot. Ooooo, was John mad. He drank the coffee anyway, grounds and all.
With everyone fed and rested we were ready to head home. I found some wild roses and John took a picture of them before we left.
The hike out to the Jeep was mercifully uneventful. The hermit thrushes sang to us the entire hike back to the jeep. We almost avoided muddy dogs, but Cooper seems to have a knack for finding black stinky mud where ever it may be.
By 9:00am we were back in the Jeep and on our way home.
Around noon, Brittany and her boyfriend Zane, stopped by to pickup some gear before they headed up to a different section of the OLP for an overnight campout. (not backpacking) I just heard some thunder rumble and a couple of rain drops hit our tin roof. Hope they aren’t getting wet.
