Photo by PA Hikes
(Click on the following link to listen to an audio version of this blog … Charles Lewis Natural Area Part 1
This hike narrative was originally published in 2008 on my now defunct “Between Stones and Trees” website. I think that it clearly describes the deep, geological history, and the ecological complexity and resilience of Western Pennsylvania’s forests. Enjoy this walk in the woods!
Charles Lewis (1890-1962) was a journalist and the first director of the Buhl Foundation in Pittsburgh. In 1956, he was elected the second president of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, a position he then held for 13 years. Lewis was a significant force in expanding and publicizing the efforts of the Conservancy to conserve and protect the natural resources of Western Pennsylvania. Many of our present day natural areas and significant sections of our state parks exist because of the land acquisition and donation programs of the Conservancy under Lewis’ leadership.
The Charles Lewis Natural Area is a 384 acre section of the 1503 acre Gallitizin State Forest. It is located at the southeast edge of Indiana County off of PA Route 403 in the gorge of the Conemaugh River about six miles north of Johnstown and three and a half miles south of US Route 22. Two trails connect to form an approximate 6 mile loop hike: the Clark Run Trail (which is confined to the Lewis Natural Area) and the Rager Mountain Trail (which extends into Gallitizin State Forest and Cambria County).
Photo by D. Sillman
The Conemaugh River cuts a deep, southeast to northwest gorge through the long anticline ridge of Laurel Hill. On the eastern face of this gorge Clark Run has eroded a steep ravine into the rocky face of the bisected Laurel Hill. The Clark Run ravine also runs roughly southeast to northwest before turning to the southwest to join the Conemaugh River. For most of the ravine’s length, then, there are two distinct steep slope faces: a north-side slope that is open to the sun-lit southern sky, and a south-side slope that is in almost perpetual shade. The picture (above) shows these two distinctly different sides in the ravine: the wetter south-side slope is in the foreground and is covered with ferns and variety of understory plants and moisture loving trees like American beech, red maple, and hemlock. The drier north-side slope is in the background and is covered with layers of dry leaves, only scattered understory growth, and an abundance of dry soil tolerant trees like the oaks.
Photo by D. Sillman
The ravine exposes a number of the layers of the bedrock of Laurel Hill. The capping stone of the ridge is dominated by the distinctively layered sandstones that formed during the Pennsylvanian Period of the Paleozoic Era some 300 million years ago. This sandstone, called “Pottsville Sandstone,” is hard and resistance to erosion which explains why it has persisted on the upper sections of this ridge. This stone is also significant in that it serves as the foundational strata for most commercially significant coal deposits throughout Western Pennsylvania. You can imagine this capping sandstone layer diving down from this ridge top beneath the layers and layers of sedimentary rock that have accumulated over the plains to our west. Lower down in the ravine an even older layer of rock is exposed. These rocks are the sandstones, shales, and limestones formed during the Mississippian Period of the Paleozoic some 330 million years ago. If you were to continue down into the deeper cut of the bed of the Conemaugh River, you would find even older, Devonian Period rocks that were formed some 360 million years ago.
The Pennsylvanian and Mississippian Periods are frequently combined as the later and earlier, respectively, sub-periods of the Carboniferous Period of the Paleozoic Era. The Carboniferous is the ancient time period in which Western Pennsylvania was located near the equator and was bordered to our present day west by a shallow, inland sea. The land that would become Western Pennsylvania was a relative flat, low-lying coastal swamp that was densely vegetated with early land plants. When these plants died they fell into the anaerobic swamps and were slowly transformed into vast peat deposits that were in turn periodically covered by the shifting seas and, thus, sealed away from any potential decomposition by accumulating layers of ocean sediments that were eventually transformed into sandstones, shales, and limestones. These Carboniferous peat deposits became our present day coal, oil, and natural gas deposits.
Photo by D. Sillman
The first section of the Clark’s Run Trail follows the southwestern side of the ravine. It is cool, moist, and shady. The trail surface is rocky, covered with moss, and very slippery from recent rains. The forest surrounding the trail is strewn with rocks and boulders. Clark Run pours over the exposed rocks in its stream bed and makes dozens of interconnected waterfalls and pools. The sound of the roaring water fills the space of the trail. The rise of the trail from the parking area to the top of the Rager Mountain section of Laurel Hill is over 1300 feet in just slightly over 2 miles. It is a steady, moist and slippery “up.”
There are dense growths of trees of varying sizes in this section of the trail. Moisture loving trees like sycamore, striped maple, yellow poplar, basswood, sugar maple, red maple, and yellow birch grow in profusion around some tall, isolated eastern hemlocks. Witch hazel is an abundant component of the dense understory. Mosses and ferns (including Christmas fern and polypody fern) grow among and on the rocks on the forest floor between the trees. Rhododendrons grow in the wet spray along the stream, and mountain laurel fill in the spaces on up the slopes. A shady, wet, “greenness” fills this part of the trail.
Blue cohosh. Photo by D. Sillman
At the trailhead there is an abundance of Japanese knotweed growing on both sides of the trail. Fortunately, this aggressive invasive has not penetrated very deeply into the ravine and was not observed on the long “up” trail. In between the tree seedlings and the ferns, Canada mayflower, mayapple, blue cohosh, and Indian cucumber root grow in dense patches in the wet soil of the ravine forest.
Photo by D. Sillman
As we walk toward the junction of the Clark Run Trail with the Rager Mountain Trail, a fine rain of confetti-sized, white flakes floats down on us. These tiny, white pieces cover the brown, dry leaves on the trail and all of the green, new growth of the wild flowers and plants. This “white rain” continues along the upper ridge trail and all across the top of Rager Mountain. Looking at the pieces with a hand lens, we determine that they are the shed petals of the flowers of the black cherry trees that grow in abundance among the oaks and maples of the ridges.
After a little over a half a mile, at what seems like a peak of the trail (but it is just a pause in the long, continuing rise), there is a jog back on an old logging road and then a set of crumbling, timbered steps that climbs out of the ravine and up onto the ridge. The soil is drier here and the sounds of the Clark Run waterfalls have faded away. There are abundant oaks (black, white, red, and chestnut) growing here along with black cherry, and red and striped maple. The undergrowth is much less dense than it had been in the ravine. You can see for many dozens of yards in all directions. There are distinct spots of intense sunlight and dark shadows alternating through the understory vegetation. Only now, in this open, breezy section of the trail, do we realize how claustrophobically close and still the ravine trail had felt.
The trail surface is covered with empty acorn caps and a good supply of still intact acorns. In the Fall, it is difficult to walk this trail because of the unsure footing generated by the rolling acorns. The acorns are an important food source for not only gray squirrels and chipmunks but also deer, wild turkey, and black bear. The feel of the place up here on the ridge is wider and more open with fewer obstructions to movement and vision. There is a sense of relief and comfort here. BUT, the trail still is going up!
The trail surface is still covered and lined by rocks (mostly fragments of the Pottsville sandstone). It is very hard to step without watching carefully. We have to walk slowly and then pause from time to time to look around. Not making very good time, more like a 1 mph pace.
Photo by D. Sillman
At the peak of the ridge we come to a large set of power lines. We take a break and sit on the concrete footers of the tall, steel girders and have some water and a handful of gorp. The wires above us crackle with the passing electricity. The power plant is located just beyond the ridge. We can see the tops of the smoke stacks and the plumes of smoke blowing out across the horizon. We can’t see the line of coal trucks and train cars pouring the locally mined coal into storage areas of the plant, but we can imagine them. The energy in the coal is being transformed into heat to boil water into steam that then turn the electric turbines. Waste materials and partially combusted carbon in the coal pour out the smoke stacks and ash accumulates in the burners.
The coal is the old swamp vegetation we mentioned before: ancient photosynthetic materials synthesized by the giant ferns and lycophytes of the Paleolithic swamps from carbon dioxide removed from the ancient Earth’s atmosphere. These plants fell into peat bogs some 300 million years ago and were sealed away from the atmosphere by ocean sediments. Millions of years of steady pressure and time allowed the conversion of the plant matter into coal. Now the coal is being dug out of the bedrock and is once again in contact with the atmosphere. Tens and hundreds of thousands of years of photosynthetic fixation is being burned back into carbon dioxide in the coal furnaces. This release is occurring in present-day time periods of weeks and months. The carbon dioxide content of our atmosphere is rising steadily with potentially drastic consequences.
Our feet are sore from the rocks and our legs are tired from the steady climb. The view out over the edge of Laurel Hill and the Conemaugh Gorge is a bit hazy from the power plant smoke, but it is still beautiful. There is a nice breeze and the sun dries the sweat from my shirt and hat.
The trail disappears into the tall weeds and grasses that fill the open spaces of the power line right of way. There is a hint, though, of a narrow, flattened path in between the dense thickets of wild yellow loosestrife, briars, and rich variety of old-field weeds. One of the concrete footers of the power girders has a trail blaze on it as does a half-buried stone about 20 feet away.
Photo by D. Silman
Not many hikers have been up on this trail of late. We follow the trajectory of the two blazed points and finally find the blazes that mark the re-entry into the woods. Once among the trees, painted blazes are almost on every tree in this section of the trail!
The blaze colors strobe out ahead of us….it would be very hard to lose the trail here. There is not much evidence of any recent hiking here, though. The path is overgrown and feels neglected. We keep our eyes on the blazes and follow the ridge through the dense, dry forest.
The ridge is narrowing! We see steep drop offs on either side of us as we walk along the middle spine. There are great blocks and masses of beautiful layered sandstone all around us. They have an organic, kinetic look to them, like just frozen frosting all bubbled up and smooth. The blocks of stone are set at varying angles off of perpendicular as if they were just momentarily paused in their inevitable cascade down the surrounding slopes. The trail then reaches the top of the ridge. It is very narrow: just a footpath on the spine of rock shaded by the large red maples and red and black oaks that tower over the trail.
(Continued next week!)