Day 4 – Johnathan Run
Today’s Blog Entry
Saturday night at Ohiopyle State Park was rainy and quite cold with temperatures in the upper 30’s. Our propane furnace is definitely earning its keep! There was actually some snow not that far north of us at the Seven Springs ski resort but we didn’t knowingly have any here at the campground.
Sunday morning remained rainy and cold, so we had a nice brunch in the rig and monitored the weather via the surprisingly good internet connection from our cellular hotspots. Luckily a weather window developed around mid-day so we set out on what was supposed to be just a short jaunt out and back to a nearby waterfall. That short jaunt turned into a hike of just under 8 miles as the rain held off (for most of the time, anyway).
We left the campground on the Kentuck Trail, a nice single track that descended through a stand of hardwoods into a large hollow. At the bottom of the hollow we found Johnathan Run, a very scenic stream with a number of waterfalls that were running strong thanks to all of the recent rain. The weather was still holding, so instead of turning back to the campground at this point we turned right and followed the Johnathan Run Trail all the way down to the Great Allegheny Passage.
We then headed east on the GAP, which took us on a big loop around a fairly large peninsula and through some amazing stands of wild geraniums and rhododendron (in the rockier areas). Give it a month or so and the rhodos will put on quite a show in this area. When we reached the entrance for our usual scramble back up to the campground we just kept going towards Ohiopyle as the heavy rain forecast for the late afternoon and evening was still holding off.
This last extension allowed us to go back into the Ferncliff Natural Area to search for some fossils that we had seen the day before, but didn’t recognize until reading about them on a trail sign later in the hike. After crossing the High Bridge over the Youghiogheny we turned onto the Ferncliff Trail and soon found what we were looking for – some surprisingly large plant fossils in the sandstone ledges exposed along the riverbank. The fern fossils were so large that they literally looked like dirt bike or ATV tracks somehow set into the stone!
With our Indiana Jones exploit behind us we wandered across the High Bridge into Ohiopyle and hit the ice cream counter at the Falls Market on Main Street. Cindy ordered a waffle cone with peanut butter chocolate chunk and I went for a waffle cone with mountain berry cheesecake. We enjoyed our cones on the walk back to the campground where we settled in for the night as the rains arrived shortly after our return.
Today’s Map
Today’s Photos
