THE
Q
We
arrived in Clearfield Saturday night around midnight. We took it easy the next day, hoping that I
would fully recover from my cold.
Instead, it got worse. On Monday
morning we drove to the Urgent Care in DuBois.
They diagnosed a sinus infection and gave me the antibiotics that I
needed. It took awhile for them to kick
in though. I took it easy Monday and
Tuesday. It was Wednesday before I was
ready for an easy hike.
Christy
and I decided to head up to the Quehanna Plateau to check out the Fall foliage. We started out with the short hike to Three
Falls, which is sometimes called Round Island Run Falls despite not being on
Round Island Run. We managed to get
through the maze of forest roads using Google Maps. Shortly before the trailhead, we were
surprised to find a brand new trail with a sign and a
small parking area. On our previous
visit we had started our hike along the power lines. The new trail eliminates that, which is much
nicer.
The
fall color was just getting started in this corner of the plateau, but it did
add some beauty to the forest. We
enjoyed our stroll along an unnamed tributary of Round Island Run. As we neared the falls, I took a spur path
that leads to the brink. There is a
pretty, upper cascade here, and I spent a few minutes photographing it. I then followed a scramble path down
alongside the waterfall. That provides a
cool profile view of the upper drop from a small cave. Christy came down the main trail, and we met
at the base. We hung out there for a
while and took more photos before heading back.
From
there, we drove over to the Quehanna Highway.
We passed through some nice pockets of Fall color, but we didn’t
stop. For our second hike, we chose the
Old Hoover Trail, which starts at the upper end of Wykoff Run Road. Christy wanted a paper birch limb for some
interior decorating, and I remembered a lot of birch trees in that area from a
previous hike. In hindsight, we should
have stopped at the Marrion Brooks Natural Area, as
it has a high concentration of paper birch trees.
We
enjoyed an easy stroll through open woods along the Old Hoover Trail. There was some nice fall color, particularly
in the small meadows that we passed through.
Early on we encountered a group on horseback, which was a surprise. We ended up hiking the whole trail before we
finally found a couple of suitable birch branches. This path doesn’t have any appealing loop
options, so we hiked back the same way.
We
drove back to Clearfield by the scenic route through Rockton. I was hoping to find more fall color, but it
was spotty at best. The best part of the
day was that I was finally starting to feel better. I decided that a more ambitious hike was in order for Thursday.
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