Quehanna: A Foretaste of the Colors to Come

We went to the Quehanna woods on Friday for our first car-camping trip of early fall. While I initially balked at the idea, as it had been a long work week and I had been looking forward to spending some weekend time at home, once I was in the woods, I realized that we had definitely made the right choice. The Quehanna Wild Area was beautiful, the weather was spectacular, and we spent an enjoyable evening, followed by a quiet night in our tents near the car.

Car-camping is much easier than backpacking. There is less planning, and all of your stuff (including camping gear, coolers, and chairs) is conveniently stowed in the car, and does not have to be carried in on one's back. This is the easy way to do it, friends. Backpacking is for the serious adventurers; but practically anyone can car-camp. (For those who may be curious about what it's like to backpack: read about one of our spring backpacking adventures in Quehanna here and here.)

We awoke on Saturday morning to another delightful day. And there we were, already in the middle of the Quehanna wilderness. Well, as far away as you can get when camping along a deserted dirt road with a view overlooking the rolling hills and forests of the Susquehanna River Valley.

Amazingly enough, there was no dew that night. So we awoke to dry gear. No dew-sodden, dripping tents to air out and dry out. No soggy ground sheets. No chairs too damp to sit on. So my husband and I popped out of our tents like toast out of two toasters. We packed up our gear and stowed it in the car, had bananas and yogurt for breakfast, and within record time, we were on the road, ready for the day's adventures.

When you are backpacking, you know what hike you will be taking on the second day. You will be packing up your stuff and your only hike of the day will probably be the one you take back to the car, laden with gear like a pack animal. But when you're car-camping, you don't have to do all of that. And so you have the energy and the time left for other things. And so we set out on several short day-hikes.

The first was to what used to be called the shallow water impoundment, what is these days called the Beaver Run Dam Wildlife Viewing Area. We walked over to the wildlife viewing blind and looked out. The water was clear as glass, perfect for reflections. Not a ripple. And then we walked along the edge of the water, enjoying the lovely view and watching for elk (no, we did not see any; in fact, we've never seen elk in that area, though we've encountered them in a few other locations in Quehanna), and set up our chairs on the other side, where we spent a lovely few hours just enjoying the morning.

There was time for just one more hike before we had to return home. And so our second hike was back a gated, old cement road to an abandoned bunker structure that, it turns out, was used for testing jet engines in the 1950s. It was stunningly strange there, and I will have to visit it again, if only to capture some of the weird graffiti inside the bunker. It was awesome and odd and I can't wait to go back again. More adventures for another day . . . But back to the shallow water impoundment.

I took many pictures of the reflections at the shallow water impoundment on this day. Auto, monochrome, posterized, vivid. There were any number of them that I could have quite happily picked. This particular craggy tree is one of my favorites at the shallow water impoundment. It's been standing there, just like this, for at least the 25+ years that I've been visiting the wild area. And maybe it will be standing there another 25.

To get this shot, I had left the wildlife viewing blind and walked as close to the bank as I could. But I found the ground uneven, and unstable, beneath my feet. As I stepped, I heard mud squishing around my foot, and the bog beneath my boot emitted stinky smells. The rot of vegetation and who knows what all. I leaped to a spot by a tree where the ground appeared stable, and shot a few pictures, of which this was one.

I don't see any in this particular shot, but the craggy tree was at various times surrounded by little birds, flying about it, taking turns landing on its upper branches. Anywhere from a few to 15 birds were sitting on it at any one time. It might just be their party tree. And what a view they must have from up there.

You can see lots of color in the reflections of the trees that line the edge of the far shore behind the craggy dead one. It doesn't take much imagination to sense a foretaste of the colors to come. And so the song to accompany this photo is a lovely acoustic version of the wonderful Cyndi Lauper tune, True Colors.