Hemlocks and Railroads - Day 124

  Today was another tough one. It snowed off and on all day and was cold. There is so much muck, it's impossible to keep dry feet. And the walking was mostly really difficult despite the places I choose to show you pictures of.

The southern portion of the Allegheny has more hardwoods, but the northern section is covered with eastern hemlock. This is one of my favorite trees. Even when snow covered. Perhaps the snow even enhances its beauty.

I was pleased to see some hardy tent campers near Minister Creek, but their footprints indicated they were doing the Minister Loops, not the North Country Trail.

The bridge over Minister Creek was picturesque. All bridges are welcome, and there was a bridge at every serious stream crossing today.

Around the halfway point, I came across Jeff, from the Allegheny National Forest Chapter, doing some trail work. Thanks!

Now, let's switch to talking about railroads. In a number of places today, I'm convinced I was on old rail beds. Most of these lines don't match up with any railway maps of the era. This doesn't mean they weren't railroads, it probably indicates they were short/temporary lines for logging or other mineral extraction. And there were a number of short lines in that area that I found records of, but they don't show on maps.

Let's talks about railroads AND hemlocks. A number of the lines in this area were narrow-gage and built specifically to harvest hemlock trees. As was the case in the Adirondacks, at the time, all they wanted was the tannin from the bark. This was used in the process of tanning leather. Sheffield, PA, was a national center of leather tanning for a while. The trees were cut, the bark stripped and the logs were left on the ground to rot.

For the final four miles of the day, I was definitely on a wide well-constructed railroad bed. This one, I can identify. This is the Sheffield and Tionesta Railway. It was incorporated in 1900 and was dissolved in 1943. In this picture, you can see the regular sweep of the curve and the high berm on the low side of the benching. The S&T was a standard gage line, and it carried both freight and passengers, but was not a part of the tannin extraction. It was only 40 miles long. The rail bed is in remarkably good condition. One other interesting note: I'm pretty sure the grade on parts of this line is closer to 5% instead of the standard 2%. Not unheard of, but it used more fuel and limited the loads.

Marie walked out with me a little bit in the morning, and then walked to meet me this afternoon as well!

Tomorrow the topography will be even harder. Its supposed to be a little warmer and the sky isn't supposed to drip all day. I sure hope those two things are true because it took me a long time to hike the miles today.

Miles today: 13.7 (plus 1.1 that don't count). Total miles so far: 1634.

See 50 Shades of Allgheny Green