Bezabor: Bergman films, Victoria Trial, AT hike to Clark’s Ferry Shelter, (posted from home)

Friday, 21 April-
Time for a little break from the hiking. I have to be a little careful about over-doing it. I’m finding that my body isn’t recovering as quickly as I’d like from my little walks. I feel like I’m walking a fine line between pushing it a little and injury. This morning I rode the Concours in to Eastern Market for some fresh orange juice and of course a required stop at Starbucks for an iced mocha. This afternoon I mowed the ‘lower 40’ of the lawn and then helped Labashi with her favorite part, the ‘upper 40’. I cleaned up the Concours and covered it for the rainy weekend ahead and cleaned up Mocha Joe from my trip earlier in the week. We were thinking of taking Mocha Joe to check out some gardening retailers earlier this week but Labashi decided she’d rather enjoy the fine weather working in the yard. I spent the evening blogging and Labashi spent it shopping for gardening ‘stuff’.

Thursday, 20 April-
I wanted to see how well I was recovering from the recent walks so decided today I’d take on the climb of Peter’s Mountain via the Appalachian Trail at Clark’s Ferry. I rode the Concours to the little exit at the east end of the Clark’s Ferry Bridge and parked there in the commuter parking lot by the end of the bridge. I crossed the railroad tracks and started the long climb up. I was pleasantly surprised to find the steep trail leveling off to a steady climb that I could do without stopping to catch my breath. My goal today was Clark’s Ferry Shelter which the map showed lay about three miles from the start, almost all uphill. The climb went well though I did fuel up with a power-bar not long into it, thinking I’d probably need all the help I could get. After about three-quarters of an hour I saw a wild turkey come flying over me. That seemed odd—that the turkey would fly over me instead of away from me. But I soon saw the reason. Another hiker was coming down from above. I believe the turkey had been staying out ahead of him but then ran into me and panicked. The hiker turned out to be an overnighter. He had stayed the night at Peter’s Mountain Shelter and was now headed for Duncannon where he was to meet his wife for a ride home. We chatted just a minute since he had a schedule to keep. Not long after meeting him, I topped out for the first time. What I mean by that is the trail appears to be at the top of the mountain but it was a ‘false top’… there were more to come. It took me about an hour to get to the first top but then another 20 minutes and four more mountaintops to finally reach the toppiest top. That last 20 minutes was more rugged too, since the trail was now weaving around and in some cases going right up over large rock slabs and boulders. The views up there were great and were in both directions. You could look upriver and see the Clark’s Ferry Bridge and downriver you could see the Harrisburg bridges. And the water was a perfect blue-green with a ripple on it from the wind—very nice!
I finally reached the shelter a little after noon and took a break. I read the log and saw that two hikers had spent the night here last night. And I could see from the logbook that there have been some thru-hikers here, typically ones doing the trail by starting somewhere in the middle and going north, then catching a ride back to the middle and taking some time off before starting the other half. It won’t be long till the thru-hikers from Springer Mountain will be coming through.
That evening we watched the final two episodes of ‘24’ Season One and the DVD extras.


Wednesday, 19 April-
Today I needed an uphill walk on this wonderfully sunny, breezy day. I rode the Concours over to the Joseph E. Ibberson Conservation Area, a 350-acre park in Powell’s Valley north of Harrisburg. The park actually lies astride Peter’s Mountain and I knew its trails would serve the purpose. I chose the historic Victoria Trail which leaves the Ibberson parking lot in Powell’s Valley and intersects the Appalachian Trail at the top of Peter’s Mountain in 1.8 miles, then descends to SR325 in Clark’s Valley 1.2 miles later. I started out on rocky trail but once I reached the steeper part of the mountain I ascended to the top via a very pleasant two-track jeep trail with stonework supporting the downhill side. I stopped at the top for a power-bar pick-me-up before turning north on the AT for a hundred yards or so to catch the Victoria on the southern side of the mountain. The trail started switch-backing down and was just wonderful. I like side-hilling on a narrow trail and this was just perfect. There were no leaves on the trees yet so I had a great view down the mountain and I had a nice warming sun but also a gentle breeze. It was so pleasant I took my shirt off and enjoyed the feeling on my skin, alternating between front and back as I’d descend the switchbacks. Part-way down I came to a side trail, the Whitetail Trail and checked the map—it’s not on there--- I’ll have to look into that later. The rest of the descent went well, soon changing to set after set of rock steps. Somebody put a lot of work into placing those big rocks. At the bottom I took just a minute to orient myself on SR325 so I know where to find the trailhead, then turned around and headed back up. At the Whitetail trail branch, I saw that the sign said it intersects the AT so I decided to take it back; it shouldn’t add enough distance to be a problem and I’d get to explore the off-the-map trail. That turned out to be a good decision. The Whitetail not only topped out at the AT, it continued down the other side. Its intersection with the AT is .8 miles from the Victoria Trail crossing and I could have gone that way but I wanted to see what the Whitetail trail did in the steep talus rock on that side of the mountain. The Whitetail trail also had stone benches. I’ve not seen that before. The one on the south side of the mountain is best. The seat is a long, flat rock cut into the hillside and the back support two flat rocks placed perfectly into a deeper cut in the hillside. It looks like this perfect bench has always been there, patiently awaiting hikers needing a break along the trail.
The answer to the question of how the Whitetail Trail handles the talus comes in one word: steps. Someone spent many hours placing rocks to form the steps, including a set of steps radiating out in a gentle curve around a switchback turn. Very cool.
Once back at the bike I was pretty well tuckered out. I rested a bit in small open-air education pavilion. I was the only person in the park.
Back home that evening, we watched the commentary to Bergman’s ‘Wild Strawberries’. This commentary was done by film historian Peter Cowie and was really well done.
Tuesday, 18 April-

I spent most of the morning writing up today’s blog entry. I’m surprised how long it takes me to write the entry for how simplistic my entries read afterwards.
That afternoon I rode the Concours to Camp Hill for an appointment with my periodontist. The appointment had been originally made for yesterday but I had missed it while out hiking; I just never thought of it over the weekend. I was happy to learn from the periodonist that the day had been an extremely busy one for them so my missing the appointment had actually helped them out. The news on my bone graft was not great. The x-ray appears to show that the graft did not take as well as hoped. But we decided to go ahead and schedule the implant for next week and he will get a first-hand look at it then. If there’s a problem he will debride the existing bone again and try another bone graft. If instead it turns out to be okay at my appointment next week, he will proceed with the implant.
That evening we watched ‘Wild Strawberries’, Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film about a man (‘Isak Borg’) approaching the end of his life. Here’s a mini-review from imdb.com which seems to fit:

“The sweet things in life, the loves and honors, grow wild and uncontrollable. Often the basket gets spilled before they reach us. But in the end, enough of them do reach our lips to make it all worthwhile. The film is a journey from Borg's bitterness about the "strawberries" in his life that have been spilled, stolen, or otherwise lost to acceptance and appreciation of those he has received. There are no earthshaking discoveries or revelations for Borg. Nothing much changes, except for Borg's own awareness. All of the change is in terms of a subtle shift in perspective and understanding. But that change is enough to transform his life from the nightmare at the start of the movie to the sweet dream at the end”

I ordered this film on our Netflix account as part of a review of Bergman’s films. Back in the 70’s I used to check out a 16 millimeter projector and four or five films from our local library. Among those films was Bergman’s ‘The Virgin Spring’, and I’ve been fascinated by him but never got around to learning more about him and his films. I ordered the oldest Bergman film available on Netflix and that was ‘Smiles of a Summer Night”, which introduced Bergman to the world in the mid 50’s (the film was released in 1955). Bergman had been popular in Sweden but it was because of ‘Smiles’ that his popularity suddenly exploded. An IMDB.com mini-review says of ‘Smiles’:
“A rare comedy from director Ingmar Bergman.It takes place at the turn of the century. Fredrik Egerman is an old, cynical man who is married to beautiful, young (20) Anne. She can't have sex with him--she's too afraid. He knows and agrees to be patient. He also has a son from a previous marriage (Henrik) who is attracted to Anne. He's also attracted to the maid Petra. Then there's Desiree, a former mistress of Fredrik who is now sleeping with Malcolm (who's also married) and still attracted to Fredrik. Got all that? They all end up spending a summer weekend at a beautiful house in the woods. Things come to a head.”

I was somewhat disappointed in ‘Smiles’ when compared to the power and starkness of the later ‘The Virgin Spring’--- it’s just a different thing entirely. But it’s interesting to learn about Bergman’s background (from the extra features on the DVD) and to see the interaction of the characters and the representation of genteel Swedish society as well as Bergman’s dialogue.

‘Wild Strawberries’ was more interesting, particularly Bergman’s use of a harshly-lit dream sequence. The features include a 90-minute-long 1998 interview with Bergman which is very revealing of his character and life and art.