Collecting Rocks in the Appalachian Mountains (Part 4)

Charles and I had three full days left before having to return our beloved Chevy Cobalt to the rental car agency at the Baltimore Airport, but we still had a lot of ground to cover. We were mostly done with collecting samples for him, so the days were mostly mine. Tensions were still riding high as we moved into the Susquehanna River Basin in Pennsylvania, but luckily my sampling sites would not be too far from the road and we could literally park, walk to the rock, chisel off some pieces of it, and get back into the car. I think it also helped that Charles had collected most of the samples he wanted to get, so he was no longer worried about missing any of his sampling sites.

We started driving around Tuscarora State forest, just east of State College, PA. Our first site was on a great little trail (Rim Trail) which led us down into a cool, damp hemlock forest. Not knowing what type of rocks we'd find, we took anything that could possibly turn out good results for my research. Our next stops in the Forest were the Round Top Trail, just up the road from the Rim Trail, and the Pine Ridge Trail, an open forest setting in a valley between low-lying hills.. If you live in Pennsylvania and ever need a place to go commune with nature and get away from things, the state forests are amazing! Many of the roads are washboard dirt roads so traffic is never too heavy meaning you probably won't run into too many other hikers. Unfortunately, I do not have any scenic photos of these places worth sharing...

This region of the Appalachian Mountains is known as the Valley and Ridge Province and gets its namesake from bands of narrow ridgelines running parallel to narrow wooded valleys and wider farmland valleys. The area would make for a perfect Sunday afternoon drive! This part of Pennsylvania is also well known as being Amish country and Quaker-central, so things can kind of get religious. This worried me just a little as we were driving over one of the ridges and I saw some perfect rocks from which I could sample. The only problem is that the location was called Prayer Rocks and a little shrine was situated near them where people could come and offer prayers and thoughts to God. I took the rocks anyway, but we got out of there quickly in case what we were doing was considered sacrilege.

Looking east over the PA farmlands from Prayer Rock

Sample site at Prayer Rock, PA

Rothrock State Forest proved to be less fruitful and as evening set in our stomachs started gurgling. We drove into State College, where we met up with one of our former classmates, Shay, and her husband. We parked at their apartment and they took us downtown. Zeno's Pub was the place to be and for something like $3 each, we got a basket heaping with the best BBQ pulled-pork sandwich, a pile of delicious french fries, and a pint of beer. To make things better, in the corner was a fantastic live Bluegrass band. After downing a few beers, we headed to the Meyer Dairy Store where you get homemade ice cream, shakes, and sundaes. And since you're in Pennsylvania, you know the milk is probably coming from right out back. Not only was the ice cream some of the creamiest and best-tasting ever, but the ice-cream-to-cost ratio has to to be the highest anywhere!

Shay's apartment was small and stuffed with bicycles, so Charles and I camped outside of town. The next morning we moved up onto the Appalachian Plateau, a relatively flat, featureless landscape where we collected some rocks from the hidden locations of Turtle Rocks and Panther Rocks in Moshannon State forest. The rocks we found here were pretty boring themselves, but the way that they stuck out from the rest of the flat land makes them the most dominant and imposing things around! In fact, we parked the car looking for Panther Rocks and almost missed them in the underbrush. Turns out, we were walking on top of them and their bases were actually a good twenty feet below us! Very cool place to get out and explore for a little bit.

Turtle Rocks in Moshannon State Forest, PA

Panther Rocks in Moshannon State Forest

Panther Rocks

Trillium at Panther Rocks

The day was not over and we made the long drive over to Duncannon, PA, where we collected some samples from a section of the Appalachian Trail. We had seen numerous millipedes on our hikes, but in Duncannon, the bugs were everywhere! I don't know why they were drawn to the openness of the trail; they would probably live longer if they stayed in the brush off on the side!

Duncannon, PA and the Susquehanna River as seen from the Appalachian Trail

The day pressed on and we moved down to the Michaux State Forest and after whacking some rock off of an outcrop in someone's backyard, we quickly hiked the Pole Steeple Trail and got some rocks from there, too.

Rocks at Pole Steeple in Michaux State Forest

Pole Steeple, Michaux State Forest

Pole Steeple

As we headed into Gettysburg for dinner at the Plaza Restaurant and Lounge, I looked down at the gas meter and noticed we were below empty and miles outside of town! We hadn't filled up in a while and needed to get to town, but every single gas station we passed was closed (must have been a Sunday?). We ended up slowly chugging up hills so as not to waste any gas and putting the car in neutral on the way down and coasted as far as we could get before putting the Cobalt back in gear. As the last droplets of gasoline were burned off, we rolled into a gas station minutes before it closed and filled up. I have never, in my life, been so worried that I would run out of gas! Gettysburg is a great historic town and I visited there twice before on family vacations when I was younger. As we drove into town, we passed some of the monuments and memorials in the National Military Park and though I desperately wanted to visit again, I even more desperately wanted to eat.

We had one more full day in the field and as we drove to my final sampling site we took a few detours along the way for Charles to retrieve a few last samples in Maryland. One of his sites was in the rolling hills between Emmitsburg and Taneytown, Maryland. Once again, I was amazed at the rolling, forested hills, dissected by small rivers. The road we were on just wound between these hills, past little family cottages, following various rivers. I really can't get over how nice this part of the country is. It seems to be so unexplored but so settled and peaceful. Definitely a place I could see city people wanting a country home. Some of Charles's other sites were in more open farmlands and since he didn't really need much help from me here, I made friends with the locals.

This idiot cow had its head soo far under the barbed wire just to get a little piece of dandelion...

Finally, we made it to Rocks State Park in Maryland - a seemingly perfect place in the lower Susquehanna River basin for us to end our sampling mission. It was at this site they filmed parts of the movie, "Tuck Everlasting," but I never saw that film so I didn't recognize anything.

Rocks State Park, Maryland

Rocks State Park

Our flight left the next morning so we drove from the state park to the nearest car wash where we cleaned out our little Cobalt as best we could and booked a room at a hotel just outside the airport. The next morning we first stopped at FedEx and made our third shipment of rocks and bags of sand back to Vermont. Each time we sent samples back, the staff at the FedEx centers always got a kick over the fact we wanted to mail five-gallon paint buckets and small coolers filled with sand and rock and duct-taped over and over and over. So with our last shipment sent, we brought the car over to the rental agency, and bussed over to the airport.

Traveling for work can be stressful at times, especially doing field work in a small group, but when all was said and done, Charles and I had a great time in the field and came back with some good stories and memories of terrible sampling sites. Oh! And as it turns out, over the course of two weeks, we kept to our budget! In fact, we came back with $4.75 in change! The Appalachian Mountains are beautiful and a pristine wilderness, a hard thing to come by in the eastern United States. No matter where you are on the East Coast, you're never far from them, and sometimes you just need a break from life, and there is not a better place to wander and explore than these mountains!