Tuscarora Mountain
-
Day Eight:
Overnight south
of the turnpike, just west
of Fannetsburg. -
Day Nine:
Cowen's Gap
State Park, a couple miles
north of the lake. -
Day Ten:
Buchanon State
Forest, south of U.S. Route
30. -
Day Eleven:
State Game
Lands, on the long ridge
walk south of PA Route 16.
At Fannetsburg I take most of a day to go into town for supplies and mail a letter. A local farmer invites me to lunch at his house, with his family. Later on I discover that my mother knows them.
At Cowan's Gap State Park I take advantage of the campground to take a hot shower: two bucks seems well worth the price. My clothes may smell but my hair is clean.
Crossing Route 30 is deja vu: I have been here before. When I was a small child we came back from Ohio this way so that we might have ice cream in Chambersburg. I have a late-afternoon hamburger and fries at the Mountaintop Bar and Grill. On the other side of the road I pass through an enchanted forest, with perhaps the best overlook of the entire hike. There is a memorial plaque: someone else dearly loved these woods, and his family has made it available to the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club in his memory. But it is getting late, and I press on looking for a camping spot.
Beyond Route 16 is a dozen miles along the ridge without roads or radar installations or broadcast towers: this is as wilderness as you get in this part of the country. Needless to say there is also no water. When finally I come off of the ridge and come to a springhouse, the water is as delicious as possibly it could be.
