Stations on Nittany Mountain

The past couple of hikes I have taken on Nittany I had noticed some sprayed markings for "stations" on the mountain. They were all on trail and at trail junctures so I ruled out an orienteering course. I wrote to Mount Nittany Conservancy asking what was being developed and I received a reply from Vince Verbeke,

We are adding 11 directional signs on the Mountain on both trails. Attached are 2 images that should help. The metal posts will be enclosed in wood cladding when done as well to make them blend in more with the surroundings.

As part of this project we are also re-doing the trail map itself. We will be updating the website when we get the signs in this Fall.

Safety is a top priority for MNC. We do a lot of work to keep the trails safe. But we needed to do more, as the lost family last Fall indicated. Thus this new effort. The signs include GPS coordinates to help Emergency Personnel if needed to locate the individuals.

Hopefully these signs will "stay" on the Mountain. We've had directional signs before but they were removed by the eager youth of Happy Valley.

Have a great day. We are supposed to have wonderful fall colors this year. I can't wait to see the Mountain in all its glory this Fall.

I hope local individuals and groups that read my blog find this helpful. Please feel free to share the link to this post to spread the information.

Back to Nittany

A solo hike up Nittany this week had me reminiscing on how much things had changed since the first time I climbed the mountain. The path has changed but is still very familiar.

The climb up Nittany used to take me a lot longer. Part of it was the unknown and I think part is I know how to pace myself. I don't go busting ahead at full force and take a lot of breaks. My pace is steady and the rare times I pause are for reasons like examining a pretty leaf of watching a chipmunk. I still break into a sweat but the climb is welcome exertion.

The white blazed path that goes up the side of the mountain has really changed. It used to be a single track except for near the trail head. Most parts that lead to the first and most accessible vista are now at least wide enough for 5 people to walk abreast. It is partially erosion that has caused this but the one section of trail I remember causing a huge washout down the mountain was changed within months of my first hike. Now it's even the switch-backed trail that is getting over wide.

Some of the trees have grown quite a bit. One tree that has meant a lot to me, a live tree that has a partial stump that holds water, has grown that it's stump section is almost over grown. I need to start looking for another resource for viable stump water for pow-wowing.

I did a 1/2 mile bushwhack pretty much on the top of the mountain. There is one section that is just covered with huckleberries and tea berries and I had a fun snack as I practiced a little orienteering. Some of the berries were actually a little far gone and I realized that it was because no critters are eating them. There are other sections of woodland we have hiked that are like that. A friend of Jim's who hunts shared that is an indicator that it is not a good place to hunt. There are no animals around to eat the natural foods. I never really saw many animals on Nittany in the past. Some woodland birds, chipmunks and squirrels were all I have ever seen.

In the past few years I have started to also explore the blue blazed trails but can remember how confusing just the white loop was the first time I hiked it with my son. There are a few twists it took that felt like I was headed in the wrong direction back then. I would check my compass and shake my head that I was so directionally confused any time the day was overcast. Now I know right where I am as long as I stay to the trails.

I still like finishing off my hike at the vista that looks over town. That view has changed too. The first time I looked down onto State College and PSU campus Beaver Stadium was much smaller and there was no Jordan Center, Medlar Field nor I99. I don't have any real feelings or opinion on those changes because what I am remembering are the time spent on the mountain. I sit and remember the jelly toast breakfast with my 10 year old son as we looked over town. I think of hiking with my kitten before he became afraid of everything.

I am proud that the first (non-geocache hybrid) letterbox we planted is still doing well nearby after almost 5 years. We don't use the same carving material, don't mount our stamps on wood, use different containers and the baggy that was on the OUTSIDE of the box was removed by me years ago. It is still a nice box so I hope that no one feels like they are ever doing something wrong when they start trying out planting letterboxes. You learn what works and what doesn't.

Things change and I think I do best when I embrace the changes or at least just let them wash over me. When I know of someone who is longing for the way things were in a different time or place I try to be sympathetic. I know it's good to try to change what is wrong in the world but I wish us all peace and hope we can learn to accept the things we cannot change.

Geocaching on Nittany Mountain

It's just 1pm and I am sitting in my warm apartment blogging away but earlier this morning I was hiking on Nittany. When I woke to single digit temperatures I never thought that I would be doing something like that but some obstinate spirit possessed me.

A new geocache was approved on Nittany Mountain this morning. I compared the coordinates of where it was to where my letterboxes are. I try to mark all of my letterboxes with my gps for reasons like this. I took time and put the info on google maps and can look at where they all are at an easy glance. This allowed me to also put in where the new geocache was. It looked like it was 100 feet from my one box. That concerned me because there is a thick stand of little pines right where the cache could be and geocachers might have poor satellite reception when seeking the cache. I really didn't want them to find this box and moving it would be tricky because it's location is critical in a clue to finding a bonus box in it's series.

I looked at the clue to the new cache and looked at the thermometer. Brrrrr, no way. A letterboxing pal I was chatting with online asked what I was doing today. I told him, "Staying home and cooking vegan food." Having put it into type, that made it so. No more thinking of hiking in the cold windy weather. No more being tempted by the long abandoned call of FTF a geocache but I had to check the log just one last time to see if anyone had found it. No finders but a note from someone saying, "If it wasn't so cold, I would go and get it." AUGH! That did it! I had to go.

At 10 am, I was throwing food and stuff into my pack. RGBisMe called and I told him my plan. I grabbed my bike and started the bitter and grueling trek to the trail head. While huffing and puffing, I had plenty of time to ask myself why I was doing it. I wondered if it was just to be first and if someone else had logged in first if I would be disappointed. I was clear on that, I wouldn't be disappointed because the call of FTF was spurring me into checking on it's location. It was also throwing me into another extreme weather adventure on the mountain. I had hiked it years earlier in a hurricane. I am not sure why when the weather turns foul that I am compelled to tackle the mountain. Hiking it in good weather is really a challenge enough.

Now don't all of you letterboxing geobashers® start in on me. I know I have a problem with getting the call of the FTF out of my system. Geocaching in this area years ago started it. Our posse, Deetylong, Diggles & Liggles and others would dash to a cache to try to beat each other as first finders. Deetylong was truly king before he left the area. This abhorrent twist on the geocaching game sadly gave many newbie geocache locals the impression that was the thing to do. An older couple we knew through my work who were interested in finding out more about geocaching came to a local event, much like our Huntin' Tupperware last year. At that time they had not settled on a trail name but they soaked all of the information up, including the call of FTF. When we speak of the now geo-famous carels, we usually say that we were responsible for creating a monster.

Carels came to mind this morning as I started up Mount Nittany Road, there was a yellow Hummer like theirs parked at the bottom of the hill. If anyone else in town would be foolish enough to brave what was 11° when I left the house, it would be them. They had gone on crazy hikes to find geocaches by bushwhacking for miles, fording rushing rivers, scaling sheer volcanic rock faces. Crazy and amazing people, they are also some of the most positive and kind folks we have ever met.

I was all warmed up for my hike from biking when I reached the trail head. There it was, the yellow hummer and carels sitting inside with the heater running. I waved to them and they jumped out into the cold to greet me. I asked if they were just starting out, waiting for someone or if they had already been successful. They had just returned from being first finders. I congratulated them and told them about someone logging that it was too cold to go for the cache was what goaded me into coming out. They laughed and we swapped a few stories before I hit the trail.

I had no problem with making the hike even knowing I would not be first and the hike alone was pleasant. The snow under feet my made menacing noises as it can in super cold temperatures. I started up the north face but the cache was on the south side of the mountain. The cold weather kept most people from the trails even though there were no classes on MLK jr holiday. One lone hiker on the south face passed me going in the other direction. He sure was a hottie and added to the beautiful scenery.

As I got within a tenth of a mile of the cache, I was getting a little concerned about how close my letterbox was going to be. As I approached the blue side trail and tight group of pines I checked my gps to see how much farther it was to the cache. If people started to look behind logs and things at this point I would be in trouble. The gps said I had over 250 feet to go to the cache so I breathed a sigh of relief. It was well down the trail away from my closest letterbox.

So, mission accomplished. My toes had gotten a little cold at one point during my ascent but once I hit the level they seemed to warm up. I kept my cell phone close to a hot spot on my body in case of an emergency but it looked like I would make it home in time for lunch. Do I keep going 250 more feet to find a geocache that has already been found or head back to my bike? Lead on gps, let's see where that cache actually is.

The cache was placed in a very tasteful manner where nothing will be damaged if the seekers have common sense and good satellite reception. It was a cammo taped Lock n Lock packed with McToys and a used deck of kids cards. A geocoin that carels had left was on top but who knows when I would be able to put it into another cache. I took nothing, stamped into the log and left a coupon good for one hand carved stamp before replacing the cache.

As I returned to the trail head and my bike I mused as to why I had left the coupon. We originally started leaving them as trade items in geocaches to try to get a few cachers to try some of our letterboxes. Of the ten or so RGBisMe and I have carved for geocachers, not one has shown any interest in letterboxing. It's not that they don't know about it. It's not that the hikes are too hard for some of them like carels. They even have some brain ticklers that are required to solve some of their coordinates so it's not like all of our clues would be too difficult for them. I know Archaeobirder has also geocached so I conclude that although the hobbies are similar, there must be some elements lacking in letterboxing that do not entice local geocachers.

I think it is fine that both hobbies currently peacefully coexist and I will hope that they will continue to. I will keep my finger lightly on the pulse of the geocaching community so that I can stay aware of how my letterboxes might be effected. Today a geocache got me out on the trail. I am glad for it.

Nittany Mountain

I frequently hike Nittany Mountain and with students away on spring break, today was a perfect day to get back up there. I can tell that I have been sedentary for quite a bit, I had to stop many more times than when I am in shape.

It was worth the effort. Chipmunks are active and add to the awakening of the land. Hearing the mountainside crackle and thaw, birds of all types calling, and a gentle blush to the canopy of trees let's me know spring is not far away.