Monday, July 3, 2023

Day Two, On the Road with the Youghiogheny

 Ward and I recently spent a few days exploring the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania. This is part one of the second day of the trip.

We got up early this day and decided to change the plans we had for the morning of going to Fort Necessity. Hoping to beat the predicted thunderstorms of the afternoon, we headed to Ohiopyle State Park for a hike. And we were successful with no rain during our visit there. Highlights of our morning are below.



When we arrived, we went to the visitor's center to figure out what part of the 79 miles of trails in the park we wanted to hike that morning. Along the walk to the center, there were signs about the different kinds of craft that navigate the Youghiogheny River in the park. I had never seen 3-D signs quite like this before.


We decided on the Ferncliff trail and took off. The first part was a nice path through a hardwood forest.


But soon, we were scrambling on rocks along the river.


The rhododendron were in bloom along the river bank.


The river has many rapids and falls, making for exciting raft trips. Wally and Theo were on some of those exciting trips as Boy Scouts.


After a while, the river banks became sandstone cliffs, and the trail returned to the woods.


We saw interesting black fungus,


and yellow fungus along the way.


At the end of the trail, we finally saw the trail's namesake - ferns.

After our hike, we did make a short stop at Fort Necessity, but I will include that in another post about when we did a return visit there.

Tune in next time for a visit to an incredible art project we saw.


4 comments:

  1. That looks very similar to the pictures from our recent vacation. :) We also chased the weather to find less-rainy or non-rainy times. The sign is neat, and you got a fantastic picture of the rhododendron.

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    1. We were both in the Allegheny Mts, so I'm not surprised that we have similar pictures. We really liked the park and hope to go back sometime to explore it more.

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  2. I've never seen a three dimensional sign before! Lovely river - it looks so calm and smooth in the first photo and yet, full of rapids and falls in the second photo! Interesting fungi on the logs, too. Thank you for sharing the photos of your hike. :)

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    1. I think, in general, it is a roiling river. Next time, we hope to see more of its waterfalls.

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