Bezabor: Fowler’s Hollow, mountain bike (posted from home)
Thursday, 13 April-
Today I pulled my old mountain bike out of the barn. The bike is a Raleigh Technium Obsession 18-speed I bought years ago when mountain biking was first starting. It was a decent bike at the time but that was in the days before front-fork suspensions (nevermind rear suspensions) had even been invented. I eventually upgraded it with a more comfortable seat, riser handlebars, and less-aggressive FatBoy tires and we took it along on several trips. I started taking it to work in the back of my work-van and would ride it at lunch occcasionally. In 2003 I got into motorcycling and put it away since I was riding the motorcycle to work daily. But after seeing all the mountain bikers at Rocky Ridge park recently, I thought I’d like to give it a try. So after giving the bike a general cleaning I dug out my old bike-repair stand and chain cleaner and gave the chain a thorough cleaning and paraffin lube and checked all the adjustments. I then loaded it up and drove down to Rocky Ridge. The ride went fine and was quite a workout. The bike is geared so low that it feels like it could climb a tree if the tires could somehow grip the bark so that was a lot of fun. I came very close to dumping the bike when I lost momentum just as I approached an off-camber series of rocks… but I somehow saved it at the last micro-second. I did learn that I needed to make some adjustments to riding position and I need to tweak the derailleur settings to shift a little more reliably. Once I got back home I adjusted the seat back and that took care of the feeling that I was about to go over the handlebars at any moment and raising the handlebars slightly seems to have taken some of the pressure off my hands, so we’ll see how it goes on the next ride. This is fun!
In the evening we watched Decalogue 7 and two episodes of ‘24’.
Wednesday, 12 April-
Today I took a 200-mile motorcycle trip to test out the seat and riding position in preparation for a longer trip. Over time the seat foam had compressed so this winter I had a local upholstery shop cut out some of the compressed foam and add a denser pad in its place. I had also noticed that I was getting some knee pain on rides of over a hundred miles or so. So today’s ride was undertaken to determine if the new pad is comfortable enough for longer rides and whether I might have to consider buying a footpeg lowering kit to change the knee angle slightly to avoid the pain. I learned that all I have to do is seat myself back an inch or so more from the tank to have a much more comfortable ride.
The ride today took me on a tour of motorcycle shops near Pottstown and Lebanon but I didn’t see anything new or interesting in the motorcycling world. I suppose that would be a tough order since I just came back from Bike Week and there was so much to see all at once.
That evening we watched Decalogue 6 plus four episodes of ‘24’, season 1.
Tuesday, 11 April-
Today was a day for chores. I washed Labashi’s car first. The kayaks were still on top of Mocha Joe from our trip so I took them down and opened them up to dry out thoroughly. We’ve had some rain so I expected there would be a little water in them (a cup or so finds its way past the hatch and cockpit covers). I cleaned out the water and wiped the interiors down with Zep Odor Control to prevent odors and aired out and then repacked all the accessory gear. I then mowed the lower portion of our lawn, admiring our bumper crop of dandelions. I also washed my motorcycling protective jacket and pants, a process which requires me to remove the armor pads and repeatedly wash the mesh ballistic material, then dry it thoroughly before re-inserting the armor pads. In the evening, we watched ‘Capote’ and an episode of ‘24’. We enjoyed Capote and were very glad to have the DVD extras showing the real Capote and providing more information about him and about the making of the movie. We have a lot of respect for Philip Seymour Hoffman after watching him in so many different roles over the years; what a talented actor.
Monday. 10 April-
Today was a beautifully sunny and airy day. I rode the Concours down to Rocky Ridge park and took a long walk. I even jogged for about a half-hour of it. I then rode over to nearby Rudy park and walk/jogged for another 20 minutes or so around the south end of the park. That pretty much did me in, particularly after the nine-mile hike yesterday.
In the evening, we watched Decalogue 5 and an episode of ‘24’, season 1.
Sunday, 9 April-
I went hiking for the day at Fowler’s Hollow State Park today. Hiking buddy ‘rar’ and I met at the Pilot truck stop in Carlisle where we dropped his car. While waiting for him I bought a 12-volt hot-water pitcher I found in the Pilot’s extensive trucker-gear section. This unit is a small (22 ounce) pitcher in a holder connected to the cigarette-lighter outlet. I’m hoping to use it to conveniently heat water for Labashi and I to do our morning wash-ups when van-camping. On colder mornings we’ve learned to drape the Cottonelle or Swash towels over the Buddy Heater and that takes a lot of the sting out of a quick wash-up on a cold morning but it would be nice to have some warm water for shaving and more extensive wash-ups.
Fowler’s Hollow is a very nice little park and is little known. It’s in a fairly remote portion of Perry County and there aren’t many signs to show the way. I found it on the map years ago while checking out the Tuscarora Trail which passes nearby and the Tuscarora State Forest. For many years the only trail shelter on the Tuscarora Trail has been in Fowler’s Hollow (shelters were recently added at Doubling Gap and Cowan’s Gap). Oddly, there have long been three shelters within easy walking distance at Fowler’s Hollow but only one is actually right on the Tuscarora Trail so the literature for the Trail does not mention the other two. And since only one of the three is actually in the State Park, that literature only mentions one. You can see all three only on the Tuscarora State Forest map but they are of course hard to find on this map of the 91,000-acre state forest.
The shelters are well-placed, particularly for snow-camping. If the snow is deep and you don’t have snowshoes, you can stay in the first one. It’s close enough to the parking lot for you to reach it even if the snow is thigh-deep. The second shelter is about a mile in and the third about three miles in so you have plenty of choices and also a built-in backup plan in the unlikely event you find someone else camping at your shelter of first choice. And the state park road and parking lot are plowed in winter to serve as a trailhead for snowmobiling.
But rar and I weren’t winter camping, we were just out for a little exercise. We hiked out the Fowler Hollow Trail to the second shelter, where we were happy to see the improvements that have been made there. Now there’s a very nice hearth over the fireplace and someone has left several old tools to make it easy to keep the campsite looking nice. We then walked on to the third shelter, where we had an apple while relaxing at the picnic table. This one is my favorite shelter. It was here that I brought my young nephew on his first backpacking trip on the weekend of March 3-4, 2001 (according to the log that’s still there). We had hiked in some six miles of rough, rocky trail from the opposite direction (we had connected to the Tuscarora Trail via a side trail) and just made it to the shelter as darkness fell. We had a nice evening in front of the big fireplace and if memory serves he was asleep by 1900 or so and I didn’t last much longer. We awoke to several inches of snow and it was coming down very steadily. It was so wonderful to be in the shelter cooking our pancake breakfast while the soft, quiet snow fell all around us—an image we’ll long remember.
But rar and I didn’t have snow today, we had a perfect spring day. We had so much blue sky that rar said we’re lucky we weren’t cloud-scientists today for we’d be completely out of luck.
We briefly took the Perry Lumber Trail from the shelter but it soon merged us back onto the Fowler Hollow trail, actually a forest road in this area. We followed it to the dead-end, a wild-turkey habitat field. We turned into the woods and now followed the pretty little stream down. We were surprised to see several large patches of very white sand, apparently left behind as the darker-but-more-easily-dissolved grains of the rocks were washed away.
We soon returned to the forest road and took it to the Alfarata Trail and then back to the van which made today’s walk about nine miles. I’ll be returning yet this spring to the park. There’s still a lot more to do there. The Hemlocks Natural Area is nearby as is the state forest’s dark-sky astronomical observation site.
At home, we watched an episode of ‘24’. That Jack Bauer sure is a busy fella.
Thursday, 13 April-
Today I pulled my old mountain bike out of the barn. The bike is a Raleigh Technium Obsession 18-speed I bought years ago when mountain biking was first starting. It was a decent bike at the time but that was in the days before front-fork suspensions (nevermind rear suspensions) had even been invented. I eventually upgraded it with a more comfortable seat, riser handlebars, and less-aggressive FatBoy tires and we took it along on several trips. I started taking it to work in the back of my work-van and would ride it at lunch occcasionally. In 2003 I got into motorcycling and put it away since I was riding the motorcycle to work daily. But after seeing all the mountain bikers at Rocky Ridge park recently, I thought I’d like to give it a try. So after giving the bike a general cleaning I dug out my old bike-repair stand and chain cleaner and gave the chain a thorough cleaning and paraffin lube and checked all the adjustments. I then loaded it up and drove down to Rocky Ridge. The ride went fine and was quite a workout. The bike is geared so low that it feels like it could climb a tree if the tires could somehow grip the bark so that was a lot of fun. I came very close to dumping the bike when I lost momentum just as I approached an off-camber series of rocks… but I somehow saved it at the last micro-second. I did learn that I needed to make some adjustments to riding position and I need to tweak the derailleur settings to shift a little more reliably. Once I got back home I adjusted the seat back and that took care of the feeling that I was about to go over the handlebars at any moment and raising the handlebars slightly seems to have taken some of the pressure off my hands, so we’ll see how it goes on the next ride. This is fun!
In the evening we watched Decalogue 7 and two episodes of ‘24’.
Wednesday, 12 April-
Today I took a 200-mile motorcycle trip to test out the seat and riding position in preparation for a longer trip. Over time the seat foam had compressed so this winter I had a local upholstery shop cut out some of the compressed foam and add a denser pad in its place. I had also noticed that I was getting some knee pain on rides of over a hundred miles or so. So today’s ride was undertaken to determine if the new pad is comfortable enough for longer rides and whether I might have to consider buying a footpeg lowering kit to change the knee angle slightly to avoid the pain. I learned that all I have to do is seat myself back an inch or so more from the tank to have a much more comfortable ride.
The ride today took me on a tour of motorcycle shops near Pottstown and Lebanon but I didn’t see anything new or interesting in the motorcycling world. I suppose that would be a tough order since I just came back from Bike Week and there was so much to see all at once.
That evening we watched Decalogue 6 plus four episodes of ‘24’, season 1.
Tuesday, 11 April-
Today was a day for chores. I washed Labashi’s car first. The kayaks were still on top of Mocha Joe from our trip so I took them down and opened them up to dry out thoroughly. We’ve had some rain so I expected there would be a little water in them (a cup or so finds its way past the hatch and cockpit covers). I cleaned out the water and wiped the interiors down with Zep Odor Control to prevent odors and aired out and then repacked all the accessory gear. I then mowed the lower portion of our lawn, admiring our bumper crop of dandelions. I also washed my motorcycling protective jacket and pants, a process which requires me to remove the armor pads and repeatedly wash the mesh ballistic material, then dry it thoroughly before re-inserting the armor pads. In the evening, we watched ‘Capote’ and an episode of ‘24’. We enjoyed Capote and were very glad to have the DVD extras showing the real Capote and providing more information about him and about the making of the movie. We have a lot of respect for Philip Seymour Hoffman after watching him in so many different roles over the years; what a talented actor.
Monday. 10 April-
Today was a beautifully sunny and airy day. I rode the Concours down to Rocky Ridge park and took a long walk. I even jogged for about a half-hour of it. I then rode over to nearby Rudy park and walk/jogged for another 20 minutes or so around the south end of the park. That pretty much did me in, particularly after the nine-mile hike yesterday.
In the evening, we watched Decalogue 5 and an episode of ‘24’, season 1.
Sunday, 9 April-
I went hiking for the day at Fowler’s Hollow State Park today. Hiking buddy ‘rar’ and I met at the Pilot truck stop in Carlisle where we dropped his car. While waiting for him I bought a 12-volt hot-water pitcher I found in the Pilot’s extensive trucker-gear section. This unit is a small (22 ounce) pitcher in a holder connected to the cigarette-lighter outlet. I’m hoping to use it to conveniently heat water for Labashi and I to do our morning wash-ups when van-camping. On colder mornings we’ve learned to drape the Cottonelle or Swash towels over the Buddy Heater and that takes a lot of the sting out of a quick wash-up on a cold morning but it would be nice to have some warm water for shaving and more extensive wash-ups.
Fowler’s Hollow is a very nice little park and is little known. It’s in a fairly remote portion of Perry County and there aren’t many signs to show the way. I found it on the map years ago while checking out the Tuscarora Trail which passes nearby and the Tuscarora State Forest. For many years the only trail shelter on the Tuscarora Trail has been in Fowler’s Hollow (shelters were recently added at Doubling Gap and Cowan’s Gap). Oddly, there have long been three shelters within easy walking distance at Fowler’s Hollow but only one is actually right on the Tuscarora Trail so the literature for the Trail does not mention the other two. And since only one of the three is actually in the State Park, that literature only mentions one. You can see all three only on the Tuscarora State Forest map but they are of course hard to find on this map of the 91,000-acre state forest.
The shelters are well-placed, particularly for snow-camping. If the snow is deep and you don’t have snowshoes, you can stay in the first one. It’s close enough to the parking lot for you to reach it even if the snow is thigh-deep. The second shelter is about a mile in and the third about three miles in so you have plenty of choices and also a built-in backup plan in the unlikely event you find someone else camping at your shelter of first choice. And the state park road and parking lot are plowed in winter to serve as a trailhead for snowmobiling.
But rar and I weren’t winter camping, we were just out for a little exercise. We hiked out the Fowler Hollow Trail to the second shelter, where we were happy to see the improvements that have been made there. Now there’s a very nice hearth over the fireplace and someone has left several old tools to make it easy to keep the campsite looking nice. We then walked on to the third shelter, where we had an apple while relaxing at the picnic table. This one is my favorite shelter. It was here that I brought my young nephew on his first backpacking trip on the weekend of March 3-4, 2001 (according to the log that’s still there). We had hiked in some six miles of rough, rocky trail from the opposite direction (we had connected to the Tuscarora Trail via a side trail) and just made it to the shelter as darkness fell. We had a nice evening in front of the big fireplace and if memory serves he was asleep by 1900 or so and I didn’t last much longer. We awoke to several inches of snow and it was coming down very steadily. It was so wonderful to be in the shelter cooking our pancake breakfast while the soft, quiet snow fell all around us—an image we’ll long remember.
But rar and I didn’t have snow today, we had a perfect spring day. We had so much blue sky that rar said we’re lucky we weren’t cloud-scientists today for we’d be completely out of luck.
We briefly took the Perry Lumber Trail from the shelter but it soon merged us back onto the Fowler Hollow trail, actually a forest road in this area. We followed it to the dead-end, a wild-turkey habitat field. We turned into the woods and now followed the pretty little stream down. We were surprised to see several large patches of very white sand, apparently left behind as the darker-but-more-easily-dissolved grains of the rocks were washed away.
We soon returned to the forest road and took it to the Alfarata Trail and then back to the van which made today’s walk about nine miles. I’ll be returning yet this spring to the park. There’s still a lot more to do there. The Hemlocks Natural Area is nearby as is the state forest’s dark-sky astronomical observation site.
At home, we watched an episode of ‘24’. That Jack Bauer sure is a busy fella.
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 15:19
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