Ricketts Glen State Park

On the Saturday of the Memorial Day weekend, a couple of colleagues and I went to Ricketts Glen State Park. We had to take a slightly longer route than what mapquest gave us, but ended up in the park by ~11:00 am. The plan was to hike the Falls Trail (starting clockwise at the Lake Rose parking area). The DCNR rec guide for Ricketts Glen warned that this trail was “very difficult”. I therefore asked the other group members to wear their hiking shoes on a sweltering day.

Apart from the Midway Crevasse, we also came across a huge fallen tree and some vistas on the Highland Trail that would be nicer in Fall. The Midway Crevasse was very interesting. The waterfalls were really amazing. I tried my hand at getting nicer pics of waterfalls by playing around with my camera’s shutter speed and aperture. The Falls Trail, was in my (and my friend who has hiked some challenging trails around Central PA with me) opinion not a very difficult hike, at least in summer, compared to the Colerain Park/Little Juniata/1000 steps hikes posted earlier. This is not to say that it is very easy too; there are steep drops to the bottom of the falls if you lose your footing. It does get busy on summer weekends, though. There are some bugs on the trail, so if you have insect repellant, it might be a good idea to pack it. When we arrived at the parking area (from State College), we still some parking spots available. On our return, we saw a sign saying that the Lake Rose parking area was full. So, the earlier you start your hike, the better.

We also went to see some very old hemlocks, pines and the equally nice Adams Falls. This part of the park is usually less crowded and but is equally magnificent. On the same trail, we came across this plant. It was nice to see how its leaves at different levels had different symmetries to allow the plant to capture the most amount of sunlight. I saw some awesome pictures of the falls in winter (when they freeze) – it looked simply superb.

 

Seneca Rocks camping trip

Me and my friend Nari went on a camping trip to Seneca Rocks over the weekend. Similar to my earlier rock climbing trip, this trip also was organized by Penn State Adventure Recreation program. We got onto the list at the last moment due to cancellations. The trip was originally slated as “Dolly Sods backpacking trip” but it turned out in the pre-trip meeting that Dolly Sods, being at a higher elevation was still snowed in and access to the trails was difficult (most ppl hike in to the trailhead). In contrast, the trails around Seneca Rocks, at a slightly lower elevation and ~20 miles S, were snow free. I rented a sleeping pad and bag for this trip. We were told that the hikes would mostly be day hikes; this obviated the need to rent/buy/borrow a backpack. There were 9 of us (including the two trip leaders) in a minivan. We left Penn State around 5 pm and broke for dinner on the way at Tyrone.

Friday, 4/20 : Seneca Rock is a popular rock climbing site is located in WV. However, the layout of the state roads meant that we were in MD before WV. We passed Cumberland, a historic city with nice spires and a beautiful river on our way. PA is well known for the bad quality of its roads. One of the group pointed out that WV was the only state where roads actually got worser as we drove away from PA . We reached the campsite around 10 pm, (it took us a while to figure out where the restrooms were, we had to make a run to “Yokum’s store” to ask people about their whereabouts. Some of the group had seen ‘Deliverance’ and were apprehensive about the appearance of the local folk . We finally located the restrooms and afterwards went about setting up our tents. We had 9 persons in 3 tents. Setting them up took ~15-20 minutes. Our “Indian” campsite was located besides the Seneca Creek.

Saturday, 4/21 : I slept well till around 4 am. My sleeping bag was comfy, only my head felt a little cold. I was woken up by a persistent alarm that one of my tent mates kept. I am told by people that I sleep deeply and don’t get up easily on alarms, so I guess it was payback time for me . One of our trip leaders, Nate fired up the stoves and one of the group and started making breakfast. Us vegetarians had a couple of bagels with cream cheese. We set out to the visitor center to get some maps and local advice. The visitor center had information about early American Indians who inhabited places around Seneca Rocks. We got a map from the center and decided to hike parts of the North Fork Mountain trail, starting some 10-15 miles N of Seneca Rocks.

 

The trees and shrubs of PA forests

In my previous rock climbing post, I mentioned that my hiking partner identified a birch tree during our bush walking. I had to speed read the excellent “50 Hikes in Central PA” book by Tom Thwaites recently and came across many references to shrubs and trees that I did not know of. I finally stumbled across this nice resource. Although it says it is about the plants in Rickett’s Glen State Park, I think that it is much more general than that. The pdf files on the site have good, concise descriptions and pictures of trees and shrubs so that the next time you are out enjoying Penn’s woods, you can identify them and enrich your hiking experience . Using this resource, I could, for example identify that some of the flower pictures I took last Spring were pin cherry. Hemlock (the state tree of PA) grows at many places around the University Park campus and is therefore also easily identifiable. What other similar resources do you know? Let me know in the comments .

 

Rock climbing at Mocanaqua

Yesterday (3/31/07) I went rock climbing at a place called Mocanaqua (near Berwick, PA) with the Penn State Adventure Recreation Club. This is a relatively young outfit, different from Penn State Outing Club. I had never gone rock climbing before and so I jumped at the opportunity to do some physical activity after spring break. For starters, Mocanaqua is derived from an Indian word meaning little bear (more details here). It is located along the banks of the Susquehanna river in north central PA, two hours away from State College. It consists of various levels of rock cliffs rising ~80 ft above the ground. The climbing routes are typically named as XYZ’s Crack, referring to a person’s name or referring to the shape of the climb (Pizza route has a crack shaped somewhat like a < ). A route typically comprises of a system of fractures, nooks, ledges and supports in the face of the wall which help climbers get good grips. For more rock climbing/bouldering in central PA, check this out. Also see Scott and Ieva’s webpage.

 

My spring break

Spring break is a week in the Spring semester with no classes. Naturally, college students make plans well ahead for this vacation. I was hoping to convince one of my friends, P to go on a hiking trip with me to Dolly Sods. This did not work out and so, we had to settle for local hikes around picturesque PA countryside.

Saturday, 3/10 : Did nothing all day, asked P if he wanted to go hiking the next day.

Sunday, 3/11: P, C and me hiked the Thousand Steps trail mentioned in a previous post. It was a beautiful day, the first 55F+ day in a long time.

Monday, 3/12: My roomie, T and friends went tubing at the Tussey Mtn. ski resort. Part of the reason was that Mondays had concession rates . It was warm weather and I had my misgivings about going tubing. When we got there, there were only kids going down the slope. On seeing this, our group stopped and deliberated for a while whether to go tubing or instead go skiing. The tickets clearly mentioned that they were non-refundable and non-transferable. Most of the group did not want to ski, not wanting to spend money and partly due to a fear of falling down and injuring themselves. I weighed in my argument that I would rather be injured doing something I loved (hiking) rather than skiing. We finally decided to give the tubes and the rather tame slope a try. After the first time, interest in tubing grew in the group and we eventually tried combinations of two people (in two tubes) holding hands and coming down the slope and extended it to five persons. It was a lot of fun to have all that extra weight pushing us faster down the slope. I should have been a little more careful – increased speed means that you also tend to hit things faster – the pit at the end which decelerates the “tubes” was a bit hard on my bottom . In the evening, my housemate T sprung a surprise on me and we went to Kozy Thai restaurant to celebrate his success.

Tuesday, 3/13: Went running along my favorite running path, with N. My runs are timed around sunsets and I carry a point-and-shoot camera along with me (although it is inconvenient to lug a canon powershot, I think some of the nicest photos I have come from this place, therefore the “juice is worth the squeeze” ). Below is a picture of the sky after the sunset. I wanted to capture the pink color earlier during the sunset in my pictures but could not get it.

Wednesday, 3/14: N invited me over for a dosa party at his place. V came along and brought idli batter. V makes really nice dosas. We had a fun time learning how to make dosas from the expert. I made sambar, N made a coriander-coconut chutney.

Thursday, 3/15: Got inspired to write the Hikes to do in NE USA post

Friday, 3/16: Winter is going to end on a high note ! After sunny mild weather for the first part of the week, we have had a snowstorm come in Thursday night that will continue till Sunday. This put a damper on my plans to go hiking near Angel Falls on the Loyalsock trail this weekend. The storm caused atleast 6″ snow accumulation in parts. This is one picture of a snow covered shrub. In the evening, my housemates T and S planned to make dosa and sambar for dinner. I joined in and we enjoyed some dosas, nice utappams and excellent sambar.

Sat, 3/17: Did nothing all day, trawled the net looking for nice cars Saw “Zodiac” in the evening with N and C. It was a decent movie, only seemed a little boring in parts towards the end.

Sun, 3/18: Test drove a Toyota Camry with N. It was my first driving after I got my license, and so the seller initially was a bit jittery. Went sledding with N in the afternoon. Tubing is a variant of sledding. We improvised two sleds : one comprising of polythene duct taped to a flattened cardboard box, and the other polythene wrapped around a ironing board. N’s friend met us at the park and was kind enough to lend one of their “real” sleds. We also took some cooking oil spray along for additional fun After reaching the slope, we realized that the ironing board was not a safe way to come down and only used the cardboard box and the real sled for our runs. We had a father and his little daughter who were also sledding with us. The little girl could not stop talking after seeing our improvised sleds. I slid first on the cardboard box, and went a decent distance, considering that I went backward after the first slope. N did a downhill run on the real sled and went a little further. We then sprayed the cooking oil spray on the bottom of the sleds – both of us went atleast 2-3′ further with the oil . We did 5-6 runs , N once had to stop to avoid crashing into the park fence.

After ~1.5 h,we decided to return. On the way out, N hurled the cooking oil spray bottle at the snow on the roof of the enclosed eating area of the park – to see whether the snow would fall or not. Unfortunately for him, the cooking oil bottle spray remained lodged in the snow on the roof. He could only get it back after hurling both the sleds at the roof twice and covering himself in loads of soft snow in the process, adding to our evening entertainment

I think some of the dangers associated with this sport are falling off and injuring one’s neck and injury to the tailbone.  One also has to be careful of thin snow layers, and slopes with patches of no snow to avoid rough rides.

 

Hikes to do/places to see in the northeastern USA

I am a sucker for sunsets and nice clouds. The dynamic nature of a sunset, with its transient colors which transform the whole sky in a matter of minutes appeals a lot to me. Today (3/15/07) was a cloudy day with wintry weather and some rain. When I was walking back from my lab in the evening, I saw a very nice stratified cloud formation. This reminded me that I had to finish a book I was reading previously about how to predict the weather by identifying different clouds. It also reminded me that I better start writing down places I would love to go/things to do before I leave Penn State. This is one such collection, in no particular order:

Update: Click here for a map showing some of the places mentioned in this post.

• Acadia National Park: I do not have anything specific in mind, but I sure would like to hike to those seaside cliffs. A Summer/Fall hike.
• Colton Point: Close to the “Grand Canyon of PA”. I would like to hike it sometime in the Fall, the colors are remarkable. Also nearby are many hikes around Pine Creek Gorge area (check the map above for locations).
• Ricketts Glen Waterfalls: Saw some nice pictures of the waterfalls on the web. To do sometime during the summer.
• Backpacking on the Appalachian Trail: I did a couple of hikes in Rothrock, one in Summer 2005 with a couple of my friends (Spruce Gap Trail to Little Flat Tower, sections of the MST and returning to Tussey Mtn. ski area) and the other in Fall 2006 with a group of my friends (Alan Seeger Natural Area). I would love to backpack for a couple of days or more on this trail, especially starting at the MST near State College (Rothrock State Forest) and going NNE over those mountain ridges. The trail in PA is a little rocky, but it is ok with me .
• Canoeing/Kayaking: I do not have anything specific, but PA is known for its rivers more than anything else; so I guess I have to do this. I missed out on a Poconos canoeing trip last summer, but instead did a nice hike in the Little Juniata Natural Area mentioned in one of my previous posts.
  Update: Places along the Juniata river offer kayak and canoe rentals. It might be worth checking them out.
• Dolly Sods: Again, nothing specific, but am looking forward to do it sometime in Fall/Summer.
• More to come as I come to know more places

p.s. Check out my flickr photostream for pictures of sunsets

 

toponymy and last names

I was in the UK for a while and enjoyed hiking various places like Wales, Lake District, Peak District, Yorks, Dartmoor etc. During our various trips there, I became really interested in knowing how places came to be named so. This study of place names is called toponymy. Apart from being a purely academic interest, I guess it is also relevant for people because some last names/surnames are in fact the names of places. Therefore, the study of place names can yield more information about the origins of a person’s ancestors or their ties to places/persons, especially in cases where the surname is carried from generation to generation.

A few examples from UK, India and Iran:

Shirazi : from Shiraz ( a city in Iran)

Cunningham: probably from Cunninghame, a district in Scotland

Manningham: from Manningham, area around W.Yorks , England

Thornton: places in the UK

Panuganti: derived from Panakollu ( a place in Andhra Pradesh, India)

Oruganti: derived from Orugallu (modern day Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, India)

The story does not end here though, often places can be named after persons too. For ex: Lake Victoria (after Queen Victoria), Mt. Everest (Sir George Everest), etc. This is not only applicable to places named recently (within the past three centuries) but also is relevant to ancient/medieval toponyms as well. For example: Manfield (N.Yorks., UK) is from “open land of a man called Manna” – (source: Oxford Dictionary of British place names). In this case, the personal name Manna is transformed into a placename (Manfield) which is also a last name. This is what makes toponymy very interesting

Many websites have great information about place names. If you are looking for specifics, please see below:

British place names

1. Oxford dictionary of British place names, A.D. Mills, ISBN: 01985727586

Welsh\Cornish place names

1. “Welsh place-names and their meanings” by Dewi Davie, printed by Cambrian printers, Aberystwyth, UK., probably not available outside the UK/Wales.
2. “A Popular Dictionary of Cornish Place-Names” by O.J.Padel, ISBN: 0906720-15-X, Alison Hodge, Penzance, Cornwall, UK.

For those interested in south Indian place names in general,

1. Geography and toponymy of Andhra Pradesh by S.J. Mangalam, Sundeep Prakashan, Delhi

 

Juniata ?

 

I did one of the hikes mentioned previously in my Nice Hikes Around Central PA post, the Thousand Steps hike. Along with me were my officemates, P and C. Halfway into the hike, I became interested in the etymology of the word Juniata (the name of the river that cuts the gap through Jacks Mountain) and was pestering P and C with this. C speaks Spanish and ventured a suggestion that Juniata probably is a misspelling of Juanita (a feminine proper name meaning little Juan/Joan/Jane). After sharing a few laughs about this, we resumed our hike. On our return, I tried looking up the toponymy of Juniata but did not get any hits. I then search for the meaning of the word Juniata and this website says that Juniata is a variant of Juanita. So C was right all along !

While this explains the etymology of Juniata, it does not explain how the river came to be named after little Juan…or in other words, the toponymy of river Juniata. I guess that I will have to dig this up from a PA place names book or similar resource. Another tidbit is that there is a river called the Little Juniata – in other words, little little juan river

 

Nice hikes around central PA

I am a big fan of hikes which involve more than just ambling. Most of the hikes I have come across in central PA are not as challenging as you would find, for example in the Rockies or Wales (UK). While I am definitely not a stairmaster fanatic or a big time bouldering\rock climbing fan, I do appreciate the physical and mental challenges a little more strenuous hike poses. I should clarify that I have not done anything more than a day long hike till now and have not hiked on snow (yet ). I certainly believe that my ultimate goal is to enjoy nature. Sir Edmund Hillary said “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves”, I think of “conquer” in both physical and mental terms.
When I started looking for a little more challenging hikes around central PA, I came across scattered resources, namely excellent books by Jean Aron (The Short Hiker), Tom Thwaites (50 Hikes in Central PA) and informative websites (pahikes.com) . I have enjoyed some of the hikes mentioned in these resources and am listing them below.

• Little Juniata Water Gap – also known for its flyfishing, nice hike to do in the Summer/Fall. I also wonder if we could rent paddle boats/kayaks for the river. That would make this trip really worthwhile in the summer. I did this hike with a couple of friends in summer 2006. It was good hiking all the way to the top.

• Thousand Steps – Right off US 22 near Huntingdon and towering above Juniata river, this hike (Jacks Mountain) is not bad as it sounds – besides, you gain elevation really quickly with all those steps. Optimal hiking time : early Spring/mid-Fall. I did this with two of my friends in the second Sunday of March. It was a really nice day with sun and temperatures in the 40s. We took it nice and easy, stopping every 200 steps or so. We also goofed off by taking pictures in the middle. At the end of the 1036th step or so, we took a right turn on the trail that led to a mountain pine plantation and beautiful vistas of Jacks Narrows, Juniata River and Mapleton.

• Colerain Park – Near the Little Juniata Natural Area, good hike to do in mid/late Fall. Here is a picture taken from the “Indian Lookout”. We did this hike in late Fall and the pictures now look really amazing with the fog and the colors . I did this hike with three of my friends. We lost the trail on our way up (partly due to my navigational skills ) but after thrashing about in the woods for a while, we finally got on to the trail. It was good hiking after that point. We came back on a road that had a couple of nice overlooks. On the way, we tried an innovative method of transportation

Basically, lookout for “water gaps” for the more interesting hikes. Will post more as I re-discover them

Update: On Memorial day in 2007, I hiked the Bob Webber trail. The views of those “endless” mountains were simply amazing.

 

Whats in a name?

I recently came across another slouchpotato. It seems to be a pretty common term to use as a blogging alias. I guess no one has a trademark on it, so I am free to use it. In related (old) news, about 2 years ago, British farmers protested against the term couch potato and wanted it to be changed to couch slouch. Hey, not every slouch would like that term! So much for the Brits. I like the Irish soda farls though.