Today I went hiking with George in the
Quebec Run Wild Area in Fayette county. I had been meaning to hit this trail area for a couple of years now, but time passed, now I wish I had gone there sooner. Hopefully I'll have time to hike and camp this area again before we move to England.
At first we thought we had covered about eight miles, but George noted her GPS had cut out for a bit of time in there and it's more likely that we hiked closer to nine miles. Not a small chunk of distance covered. The trails took us along Quebec Run under a dark canopy of hemlock and mountain laurels and through more open and light areas of maples. It was interesting to see on the drive in just how much further behind the trees are on the ridges, most were just starting to bud, giving pastel highlights in sharp contrast to the dark barks.
At one point we needed to cross an access road to continue on the trail we were on. We encountered a couple of trucks and DCNR folk on the grassy road. "Did you see a bear?" the ranger asked, "because we just released one here about fifteen minutes ago," he explained, "well, if you see one, just clap your hands and make a lot of noise to chase him off. We do have a lot of bears in this area."
With so much rain recently, many of the trails had turned into tiny tributaries to the tributaries. I was thinking we should have taken a picture each time we needed to cross water to keep track. Either by bridge, logs, stones, squishy leaves, muck, jumping, or simply finding higher ground for an alternate route around the blazed trail turned stream, I imagine the number is well over fifty.
One of the trails turned stream, note the blue blaze and George navigating around it.
Some of the wildlife highlights: Scarlet Tanager, Yellow Swallowtail, Lady Slipper:
Click for Quebec Run Photo Set
