 |
 |
 |
|||
|
|
|
|
||||
|
Hellbender Journal Summer/Fall 2001 North Country Trail "Adventure" By Kristen Ruether The day before my hike, I met a man from Philadelphia. When I told him about my upcoming trip, he told me that he, too, had camped in the Allegheny. However, he said he really didn't enjoy it. "Why not?" I asked. "I heard gunfire all night, and the chainsaws started at 5 am," he replied. "Wow," I said, "You must have felt like you were back in Philly!" "Yeah," he muttered. "Except for the chainsaws." It was on this optimistic note that I began my six-day trek across the Allegheny National Forest portion of the North Country Trail. I met Kirk Johnson at Willow Bay, one mile from the New York state line. We camped the first night at a spot inaccessible from a road along the massive Allegheny reservoir. I was wondering if we were going to encounter gunfire like the man from Philly. Sure enough, early in the evening, I was jolted from my peace by a booming, rapid rat-a-tat echoing across the forest. Thankfully, it was just the hairy woodpeckers, trying to outdo one another by finding the hollow tree which resonated the best. Kirk informed me that the Forest Service had plans for our small peaceful campground. It plans to turn the NCT into a road for a distance in order to drive in large construction equipment! The reason is ostensibly to replace the john, but they will also expand the campground. This ill-advised plan illustrates why the National Recreation Area designation has its drawbacks... can't bulldoze a backhoe into Wilderness. The second night, we had another spot along the reservoir. I was wondering that evening if we were going to encounter chainsaws in our trip. As we wearily trudged into the camp, sure enough, I heard a deafening roar. Luckily, it was the roar of spring peepers peeping from the lake. I woke up that night to a grunty noise, "Oo-ee-oo-ee-oo-ee". I sat up. Had a prickly timber beast cornered us in the woods? With my bad vision I could only see a stump-sized furball right outside my tent door. Yikes! I whipped on my light and found another sort of prickly beast. I clapped and the porcupine grunted and ran away. Both Kirk and I had to get up later in the night to shoo her away from our packs. Evidently porcupines will eat anything. Many of the metal NCT trail markers were covered with tooth-marks and had their edges gnawed off. I think the North Country Trail motto should be a friendly porcupine holding a trail marker in her teeth. The next day we were joined by Dave Saville of West Virginia Highlands Conservancy fame. Unfortunately he arrived just as we entered the oil and gas zone. Although the trail is probably located in the most scenic parts of the forest, it would be impossible to make a trail through the forest without crossing oil and gas pipelines. The pipelines themselves aren't so bad, it's the drilling areas. For gas, we get blue-painted gizmos with blue pipes snaking from the earth. We could smell gas around almost all of these wells. For oil, it's the classic grasshopper pump. There was also a foul smell around many of these machines. There were several sites where water near the drills had a rainbow sheen. The worst part is that every drilling site has a road. Dave stopped us along a beautiful forest stream in the oil and gas zone to teach us about stream ecology. It turns out he has a hidden past life of teaching stream ecology at a college in West Virginia. We upturned rocks to admire mayfly, stonefly and caddisfly larvae. These "shredders" introduce energy to the entire stream by breaking down the leaves. This is a very important function, in case you were still on the fence about the wisdom of West Virginia mountaintop mining, which buries these upper streams under tons of rubble. In case anyone doesn't know how incredible caddisflies are, allow me to tell you. The larvae make cases out of stream debris to shelter themselves. Each species uses a different material in a different way. The cases are incredible. Just in one spot we saw cases made of perfectly circular leaf cut-outs neatly stacked in three walls to make a triangular tube; cases made of neatly lined up hemlock needles; cases of long sticks glued together to make a tube; and pebble cases made of various sizes of pebbles. Dave has a friend who puts caddisflies in aquariums with precious gem pebbles. The caddisflies make precious gem cases, then fly away leaving him with shiny tubes of caddis cases which he sells as jewelry.
The forest after the oil and gas zone was especially beautiful, with the trail meandering along small creeks. I did see my first big shelterwood logging unit. What a mess. All these magnificent trees chainsawed to the ground, including a massive grandma beech, to make room for the cherry to fatten up. I was especially distraught to notice all the logging debris on the ground. After all, the helpful Forest Service cartoon of shelterwood logging, as printed in their propaganda and reprinted in this journal, has no slash on the ground. I guess I should have read the fine print. Our last day of hiking brought us through the project area for the Duck-Sheriff timber sale, to be logged sometime soon. This sale illustrates the Forest Service's commitment to preserving the beauty of the NCT... the units are right along the trail. Our time ran out after 65 miles and we hopped off near the Heart's Content and inhaled large quantities of food at a greasy spoon in Sheffield. The Allegheny was much more beautiful than I thought. I had expected mile after mile of clearcuts, cherry plantations, and oilfields. In case there's anyone else out there like me, postponing that backpack on the Allegheny because of reading too many depressing articles in the Hellbender Journal... just go for it! |
|
|
|
|