Frankfort Mineral Springs

McConnell's Mills State Park, PA

Mathew Mooty, Ameya Kanitkar, Tamar Melman, Brendan Ryan, and I departed for hiking at McConnells Mill State Park at noon on Sunday. Amy and Lux also set off for the park to do some climbing. After the hour drive, we began the hike at the mill under a sunny blue sky with a temperature in the low 80s. After hiking along the Gorge Trail for a few hours, we stopped for lunch on a large rock next to Slippery Rock Creek. Before heading back, we took advantage of a nice section of the creek to skip some rocks and discuss the merits of rock skipping as a competitive sport. At the end of the hike we ran into Lux and Amy, back from climbing. Back at the mill we watched some kayakers fool around above the waterfall before returning to Pittsburgh.

-E. Goldblum

Rachel Carson Trail Challenge

Raccoon Creek State Park, PA

Ryan Miller, Glenn Willen, and I set out for Raccoon Creek State Park on Sunday to hike the beautiful loop trail that runs a perimeter around the main part of the park. The trail pinches together at the midpoint, near the visitors' center and park office, like a giant figure eight. This is quite convenient because it allows hikers to hike either section of the loop or the whole trail. The day was brutally hot and humid but thankfully breezy. Ryan and I hiked the whole trail mainly to train for the upcoming 34-mile Rachel Carson Trail Challenge, and Glenn was along for the first half for what turned out to be a vigorous hiking experience. (Glenn was very generous by allowing Ryan and I to continue, meeting up with him at the parking lot after the second half of the total loop.) Ryan and I stopped for a rest next to the lake and watched several dogs (as well as their masters!) play in the water. In that heat, not getting to jump in was truly torture, but some of the dogs shared the cool refreshment by shaking off right next to us. One of the dogs' owners offered us both a cold soft drink to keep us refreshed. It turned out that he's a skydiver who jumps at a dropzone that I and a few of my friends have been intending to check out for quite some time--so I'll probably run into him again sometime in the future! Throughout the day, discussions about Santa Claus, zombie movies, music, pest control, the oil crisis, and roommate experiences (both good and bad) kept us entertained. In terms of wildlife, we saw at least three toads along the trail, several very impressive ant mounds (as well as an "ant interstate" that followed the trail for a few hundred yards), and some birds. We heard more chipmunks than we saw.

-M. Jehn

Hickory Creek, Allegheny National Forest, PA

Mike Jehn, Kevin Qi, Josephine Palencia, Mahin Mahmoodi, Ivan Jager, Glen Williams, and I ended up going to the Hickory Creek wilderness in Northern Pennsylvania in the Allegheny National Forest. The weather was a bit chillier than back in Pittsburgh, with the temperature getting into the low 20s over the night we stayed there. In some places that were well shaded, there was still almost 2 feet of snow! The snow made hiking a bit difficult, but the scenery was absolutely gorgeous because of it.

We also found the trail difficult to hike because often there was not a trail to follow. The park organization has been allowing the trail blazes there to fade, so we invented a game (out of necessity) to find the next blaze to continue the trail. Fun!

We had a nifty campground next to a small river and kept a blazing fire up all night to keep warm and play with while "BSing" for hours.

Some of us returned home earlier the next day while a small group of 3 went to the Kinzua Bridge in the Allegheny National forest which had been literally knocked down over an enormous valley by a past tornado. A previous group from the Explorers club had actually been to this bridge as well.

-D. Stone