Hammersley Backpack: First Stream Crossing

There were rumors that some areas of Pennsylvania might get a first frost on Saturday night. So we decided to seize the opportunity to make good use of the cooler weather. We left for the Hammersley Wild Area on Saturday morning for our second backpack of fall.

The Hammersley is Pennsylvania's largest tract of land without a single road in it. It is truly the deep wilds, called "one of the state forest system's jewels" and "a true state treasure" by the Pennsylvania Audubon Society.

We left our house around 10 a.m. and arrived at our parking spot along the Hammersley Creek by around noon. We generally figure it's about a two-hour drive, followed by an almost two-hour backpack. It's one of the most difficult backpacks we know of, and I do not recommend it for the faint of heart, or for those with any sort of ambulatory or balance issues.

One of the things that makes the hike so challenging is that it involves multiple stream crossings, including traversing multiple up-and-down slippery banks on either side, some banks as much as 3 to 4 feet high. With a full frame pack on, that's pretty tough, and your knees will be giving you grief by the time you're done.

This is a shot of the first stream crossing. My Mazda was parked just outside of frame to the right. I have talked before on these pages about how tough the stream crossing can be when the water is running high. (See here and here, for instance.) And the rocks are always much slipperier than they look, so watch your step!

However, on this visit, the stream was running very low, and it was even nearly dry in spots. While the low water made our crossings less difficult, and the hike in less arduous, this is not how it's supposed to be. We really could use some rain.

We crossed the creek at the shallowest, narrowest spot, which you can see in the upper right of this photo, and then set about hiking in to the furthest campsite in the back country. This involved crossing a swinging bridge and hiking past numerous cabins. In the old days, my husband says, you could actually drive a pick-up truck in. But no more.

We arrived at our campsite around 2:30 in the afternoon, congratulating each other about how far we'd come, and how unlikely it was that we'd run into any other human beings this far from civilization. However, as we walked into our site and put our packs down (a very welcome feeling, after five miles with a full frame pack on), we heard loud swearing coming from along the creek!

One loud and forceful "GOD-DAMMIT!" was followed by several more, spoken in tones of increasing annoyance, volume, and ferocity. Was there a group of people camping along the stream already? Somebody lost a dog? So my husband walked down to investigate, and he met a lone fisherman who had driven all the way from New York state to come here.

They compared notes. The New York fisherman had been coming here for 27 years; my husband, for 35. (My husband won that round, I guess.) To think - the stranger had driven several hours and hiked several more to come here and swear at the fish! Fishing is definitely an odd sport and I do not think I understand it at all.

But the wilderness is for everyone, and perhaps he's not allowed to swear at home. We all have our own peculiar reasons for going to the woods. The fisherman apologized and promised he'd be gone shortly, and he was good as his word. Soon the woods belonged to us alone. We never saw or heard another person from that point on, not even on our hike out.

On our last visit to this place, I came nose to nose with a wild coyote (you may see its photo in the first link above) and we surveyed each other from opposite sides of the creek. On this day, the creek at that spot was nearly dry. How strange it felt to find the place looking so different.

Some things seem to stay the same forever in the woods, but others, oddly, change. The campsite where we used to put our tents has some logs and big rocks arranged by other visitors, and there is overgrowth of young saplings on it.

So we had to find a new spot for our tents, which we did in short order. We considered a spot further up the hill, but in the end, dismissed it for something closer to the creek. After all, if you've come here for the creek, why camp where you can't even see it?

We cleared the area and put our tents up. Me first, as I'm always the first to set up my tent on any trip. (My husband is always first to take his down the next morning, denying he's doing it all the while.)

We found a wonderful shiny green caterpillar and I relocated and photographed it. Turns out it was the caterpillar of the luna moth. What a fantastic green creature, in both forms! When I put it back down at a safe distance from our campsite, it marched away. Clearly it had Important Caterpillar Business elsewhere!

And then we settled into our campsite for good, as the half-moon rose above the trees at the exact same time that dusk fell, around 7:15 p.m. If you didn't have your tent fully set up by then, you'd be in big trouble!

We had our tunes box with us, as always, and the music on it provided a perfect soundtrack for the moment. The John Mellencamp lyrics that were playing just as the moon rose are as follows:

See the moon roll across the stars
See the seasons turn like a heart
Your father's days are lost to you
This is your time here to do what you will do
Your life is now your life is now your life is now

We had a lantern with LED lights in it, and we set that up and hung out around the campsite for a few hours more, just enjoying the evening and the moon. I went into my tent shortly before 9 p.m. and was asleep by about 9:15. It was 44 degrees F when I got into my tent, and I was wearing almost all the clothing I had brought along.

I was awakened shortly after 10 p.m. by the howling of coyotes about a half-mile away. We think they may have been hanging out on the hill above us, at the site we briefly considered, but dismissed, as our campsite for the night.

The coyote howls, which can be rather unearthly to hear (and always sound closer than they actually are), were joined by the loud hooting of several  owls. And so it was that we eventually did fall asleep, serenaded by the nightly music of the Hammersley Wild Area Hoot 'n Howl.  :-)

I'll share more about our Hammersley backpack in tomorrow's blip. For now I'll leave you with this song, which was our soundtrack for the moonrise and the falling dusk: John Mellencamp, with Your Life Is Now.