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Saturday and Sunday, April 21st 2000 This was the first "overnighter" of 2000, and myself, Lori, Jim Van Horn, and brother Joe all came out for this one. Our four hour hike took the lower half of the Greenwood Spur of the Mid-State Trail, and started in the Alan Seeger Natural Area (about 20 miles South of State College) over Broad Mountain and the Greenwood Fire Tower and ended in Greenwood Furnace State Park. A drenching rain made for an interesting hike . . . our ponchos came in handy! The Alan Seeger Natural Area is one of the best secrets of the State College Area. The Natural Area contains virgin forest that managed to survive the charcoal clear-cutting of the early 20th century, and it has some of the oldest trees in Pennsylvania. Two hemlock trees which recently fell over (1996) were believed to have been over 600 years old. An exact date can't be determined because the trees rotted from within. According to Tom Thwaites, father of the Mid-State Trail system, the entire state was burned over by a huge forest fire in 1650. These two hemlocks were some of the only survivors of that blaze. Clear cutting took many of their descendants, but somehow, the Alan Seeger area was mostly spared. While the 2 giants are no longer standing, they are still quite impressive lying on the ground. Their stumps are gigantic, and give an awesome glimpse of their living size. Rhododendrons 30 feet high surround and engulf the area, and the ancient hemlocks that are standing must be three or four hundred years old. Straight as arrows, they create a surreal feeling. The natural area has a small, half-hour walk that passes through the hemlock area, and this made a good warm-up for our real effort-a rise from 1100 feet to over 2300 feet in less than a half a mile up broad mountain The trail was well established and clean, and had it not been raining, the views would have been spectacular. As it was, they were still impressive. Most of the beginning of the climb up the hill is at about an 8% grade, but about 600 feet to the top, it turns into a real chore. The trail uses no switchbacks until about 400 feet to the summit, and even then, the switchbacks are about 15%. This hill is deceptively tall . . . no less than 10 times did I think it would be the last switchback, only to find another, steeper switchback ahead. After a grueling hour, we reached the top. I think Jim could have beaten us by 20 minutes had he not held back. The main attraction to the top of this hill is a 140 foot fire tower. Since it was raining, the top of the hill was completely covered by a low-lying cloud. Climbing the tower would have been pointless. I'd like to drive up there at some point in the future to see what we missed! The walk down the hill passes a number of charcoal flats and follows an old telephone line. I imagine in the old days, this was how they relayed fire sightings to the ground below. About two and a half miles downhill, we reached a trail register, and most of us singed in. I have taken to using the trail name "Yahoo!" not after the search engine, but from my first call-sign on Wing Commander . . . The last half mile of the hike took us through mostly flat woods, and the only really interesting thing was a small artesian spring bubbling out of the ground. The Greenwood Furnace State Park has a lot of information and mocks ups relaying the history of charcoal operations, but we were all too wet and tired to check them out. A short drive from state College will accomplish that goal at some point in the future. Since this is a modern camping facility, we decided to make camp in the park rather than hike back into the woods. our original plan called for a nice meal in the park, a short hike into the woods, and primitive camping. Due to the rain, though, we decided to cough up the $14 the park ranger eagerly took from us. Since we shuttled our cars to Alan Seeger, Joe's new VW camper was waiting for us, and it made for a much nicer camp out, and since we couldn't get a decent fire going, his propane hibachi made short work of our steaks. I got a chance to try out my new propane lantern, which threw out much more light than any flashlight I've used, and weighed about the same as my 6v floating lantern. Up at the crack of dawn (or so!) Jim still was able to make his 10:00am tee time . . .
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