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Saturday, August 5th 2000 I've always wanted to get to Little Flat Fire Tower, but I could never find a good route. I decided that without a partner to slow me down, I could make it from the Jo Hays vista to the fire tower in one day, and the day was beautiful. I packed 164 ounces of Gatorade and hit the trail. I took off on the Jackson Trail, and made very good time, meeting up with the Musser Trail after only an hour and a half. I really enjoy the Jackson, and it is becoming one of my favorite hikes, but that might just be because I have hiked it so many times! When the Jackson trail meets up with the Mid State Trail, the path takes on a totally different appearance. It is obviously less worn, and I suspect that it has been relocated several times over the years. I don't like this. I suppose it's because the eco-geeks want to 'preserve' as much of the natural stuff as they can, but it seems to me that a well worn path would actually damage less of the area. Instead, the MST meanders around the ridge top, and I found myself slowed down quite a bit, looking for blazes, walking north-south instead of east-west and bushwhacking in several spots. There are some spectacular views on the MST between the intersection of the Jackson trail and Laurel Run Road, near Boal Gap. One of the first is a 50 yard long rock outcrop overlooking Hubler Gap to the south (picture 8 below). With the exception of a small section of Rudy Ridge, the forest looks virginal. You can see the ridges beyond, and I believe, Broad Mountain, with Greenwood Furnace Fire Tower. The section of Rudy ridge that has been 'lumberjacked' is kind of distracting, since it looks like somebody took a large set of hair clippers to this otherwise pristine view. I saw several Red-Tailed Hawks and American Kestrals riding the waves overhead . . . probably looking for snakes or other animals on the rocks. The footpath here is very rocky, but not the kind of rocky that makes you leap from rock to rock like on a knife edge or boulder field. The rocks are all about the size of a clenched fist, and they are just the right size to twist an ankle and pound your feet into hamburger. Since this hike was over 10 miles long, I figured I'd have a tough time of it later on. Somewhere around here I spotted some bear 'scat' which was full of raspberry seeds. It looked fresh to me, and of course the first thing I thought about was that I was traveling with the wind in my face, and I just might startle the former owner of the 'scat'. Sure enough, after a few hundred yards, I heard a very low-pitched grunt, and heard a large rock slide on another rock. I glanced over to see a 250lb bear, with its head down low, wagging it from side to side. I didn't hesitate for a second, and quickened my pace slightly, but steadily. After I put a couple hundred yards between us, the adrenaline rush stared to fade . . . all the time I was thinking about how to turn a Gabel trekking pole into a bo staff to impale a charging bear. There are two excellent views of Happy Valley and Mount Nittany on this section of the trail, sometimes called the 'Skyline Trail'. The first is quite impressive even before you see the view. Somebody has constructed what the signage calls a 'Roman Tower'. It is basically a well executed tower of flat rocks . . . add a little mortar and it would be perfect. As it is, the sides are nearly perfectly straight, and even though it is about 12 feet high, you have no doubts about its stability. See pictures 11 and 12 below. At the top of the tower, I literally gasped when I saw the view below. A photo could never do this justice, unless it was taken in 3D with slide film. It is truly breathtaking. I'm told that a path leads directly from this tower to Shingletown Gap, but I'll save that route for another day. About a kilometer ahead of the Roman Tower is the 'Happy Valley Vista' and the 1-2 Link Trail. The Happy Valley vista probably gives a better view of the valley, but the Roman Tower is way cooler :-) The rest of the trail is pretty boring, and eventually leads to the old Shingletown Fire Road, which is gated off at Laurel Run Road. At Laurel Run Road, I was less than a kilometer away from Little Flat, but after taking a few dozen steps on the all-rock pathway, my tender feet turned me around and down Laurel Run Road to the Shingletown Gap Trail. By the time I reached the end of the trail, my feet felt like somebody was pounding on them with a hammer for a few hours . . . which isn't far from the truth! I hope to purchase the military version of the Altama Jungle Boot, which has much better protection against this sort of thing than the civilian model I was wearing. All in all, this was by far the most adventurous hike I had gone on by myself, and I made very good time, I think, completing the 10-12 miles in under 6 hours. The Gatorade really helped, and I've used it on all my hikes since then. Aside from my aching feet, I felt pretty good. 1 5 9 13
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