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.
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| 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. |
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| We decided on the Ferncliff trail and took off. The first part was a nice path through a hardwood forest. |
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| But soon, we were scrambling on rocks along the river. |
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| The rhododendron were in bloom along the river bank. |
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| 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. |
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| After a while, the river banks became sandstone cliffs, and the trail returned to the woods. |
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We saw interesting black fungus,
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| and yellow fungus along the way. |
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| 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.
