Trains – Parks & Lex

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

October 6, 2017parksandlex@gmail.com

By the time I found about about this year’s solar eclipse, sometime last February-ish, the entire state of Oregon appeared to be booked already, so I looked along the path of totality for other interesting spots. I never made it out to Great Smoky Mountains NP when I lived in North Carolina, so seemed like a good time to correct that!

We spent several nights near the park, the first few in Townsend, TN. This was a great location just outside the park near Cade’s Cove, a rural valley that preserves some of the park’s settlements. There wasn’t too much in the way of concessions in Townsend, but it was definitely more my speed than Gatlinburg, a bustling tourist town sort of like a boardwalk in the mountains. We spent a morning driving the Cade’s Cove Loop, and stopping to look at the historic structures & mills, etc.

Great Smoky Mountains turned out to be an awesome park to visit with a toddler, but really would be great for anyone. On the not-so-toddler-friendly end of the spectrum, you could hike the Appalachian Trail, but for the under-two crowd, there are numerous “quiet pathways” and nature trails that are shorter in distance that still let you get out of the car and into nature. You don’t have to go far to find rivers, waterfalls, fun insects, and rocks to put down your shirt.

We had a few missed opportunities ~ here was the best sighting of a black bear we had (he’s in there, I swear!) and the view from Clingman’s Dome on the day we tried to hike that:

But the highlight of the trip was getting to see the total eclipse in Bryson City, NC. Dad had to go home early, so little guy and I stayed on our own a few nights. We had a great time riding the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad, throwing rocks in rivers, and watching the eclipse! If/when I go back to the park, I would definitely make Bryson City my base if not camping inside the park – we stayed at a little inn with great hospitality (including the other guests!), and the town has restaurants and shops to serve the park crowds without being overwhelmingly touristy like some of the towns in TN. As for the eclipse, it was totally worth traveling alone with a toddler, even with the unplanned overnight in Asheville due to aircraft maintenance ~ it was an amazing sight!

Did not get a great picture of the eclipse.

Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site

May 28, 2016January 5, 2018parksandlex@gmail.com

Well, it appears I’m not doing a very good job of keeping up with my theme this year. It’s a good thing I termed it “12 Parks/12 Months” because not only did I miss March, but I’m quite late on this post from April! In March, we had reservations at Furnace Creek in Death Valley to check out the superbloom, but battling baby’s first cold made us rethink the long drive. I did at least get a passport cancellation in March (more on that later), but we’ll have to catch up on national park visits later this year.

In April, we were back in the Johnstown area of Pennsylvania. On our last visit, we visited the Flight 93 and Johnstown Flood Memorials. This time, we hit up the one remaining NPS site in the area, the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site in Gallatzin, PA, about 25-30 min northeast of Johnstown. Much less depressing than the other sites, the Allegheny Portage Railroad NHS is fun tribute to historical infrastructure and engineering.

The “Main Line” of the Public Works system was a series of canals and rail segments that connected Pittsburgh to Philadelphia and was intended to compete with the Erie Canal. The rail sections and inclines provided means by which to cross the Allegheny Mountains. In the Visitor’s Center, they have displays showing how sectional canal boats would be loaded onto railcar platforms then towed by horses or steam engines for the overland sections. Ten inclines used cables and pulleys powered by engine rooms to pull cargo and passenger cars up and down the mountain.

The portage, opened in 1834, served both as a means to transport goods and people, although it fell out of vogue within about 20 years. From the Visitor’s Center, you can walk down a boardwalk to Engine House #6 to look at reproductions of the Engine Room and cables. The current Engine House is built slightly larger to preserve the original foundation still visible inside the building. There are models of the braking system for runaway cars as well as some interesting firsthand accounts to read.

From the Engine House, you have the option to walk down to see the Skew Arch Bridge, so named because the arch of the bridge had to be built at an angle to accommodate a non-right-angled intersection of the rail and road. In the other direction was the Cotton House, a popular tavern and residence serving passengers awaiting the continuation of their travels. From there, it’s a short walk up a service road back to the parking lot. We headed on our way after that little loop, but greatly enjoyed our stop. As a bonus, the volunteer in the Visitor’s Center gave us a bit of the local history, including who Prince Gallatizin is and where to find the summer home (now a friary) of Charles M. Schwab.

Redwood National & State Parks

August 23, 2015January 3, 2018parksandlex@gmail.com

Haven’t done much camping this year, so even though I had my doubts at sleeping in a tent at seven months pregnant, decided to go for it and take a weekend in Redwood National and State Parks. This is a string of parks in far Northern California co-managed by the NPS and CA state parks. While we spent most of our time in the state park sections, I can now say I’ve been to all but one of the full-fledged National Parks in California (Channel Islands is a little tougher to do on an extended weekend from the Bay Area with the boat ride and all, but I’ll get there eventually).

Since it’s a long drive to the almost Oregon border, we took off Thursday night and drove half-way, stopping at a motel in Willits, CA, the “Gateway to the Redwoods” on highway 101. Willits has enough motels, restaurants, and shops to make it a good stop, and the best part is that it is a depot for the “Skunk Train”, a historic railway that follows the Noyo River through redwood forests from Willits to Ft. Bragg on the coast. We took the half-day roundtrip from Willits to the midpoint, Northspur, a small picnic area where you are encouraged to buy lunch (burgers & hot dogs, but there was at least a 3-bean salad, fries, and root beer floats to hold over this vegetarian until we got back to town). While we lunched at Northspur, the train went on to drop off campers at “Camp Noyo”, a private campground only accessible by the train. A little pricey for camping, but could definitely be a fun excursion to keep in mind for future family trips… camping AND trains!

From Willits, it was another 3-4 hours to Mill Creek campground in Del Norte Redwoods SP. This was definitely one of the nicest campsites we’ve had at such a large campground (with one unfortunate exception). We were at Site #93, and like most of the sites in that loop, the campsite was beautifully nestled amongst the redwoods. Although they we were close, we couldn’t see our camp neighbors — a group of college kids on one side and a religious family from Utah on the other — redw06

but guess which ones we could hear playing drinking games and being generally loud late into the night? It’s never a good sign when you pull into camp to hear your neighbors blasting Spice Girls and attempting to play the game Catchphrase but only “succeeding” by frantically spelling out the answers (i.e. cheating)… I guess avoiding this is why I need to give backpacking another try in the future. As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one type of campout at which flipcup is appropriate, and it’s one where you leave with Duke basketball tickets in hand!

The next day, we stopped at the Visitor’s Center in Crescent City, from which it was just a mile or so to get to the beginning of one of the scenic drives, Howland Hill Road, a dirt road that winds through Jedediah Smith Redwoods SP. It’s a great drive through the tall trees, and there are some trailheads off the road to get out and do more exploring. We opted for the Boy Scout Tree Trail, since it was supposed to be relatively easy in terms of elevation

redw1 — The trees aren’t the only thing that are extra-wide around here!

(because believe me, you feel every inch of gain when you’re lugging an extra 30 lbs under your already fatigued abs!). The full trail is ~6 miles, with an optional spur to see the Boy Scout Tree, but we decided to turn around after stopping for lunch at about 2.5 miles (right about where the spur to the tree should have been, but we didn’t see it). Still, we didn’t miss out on impressive trees. The coast redwood is the tallest tree on Earth, and even though I know the giant sequoias are wider and more massive, some of these trees were pretty ginormous at ground level! While I couldn’t cover as much ground as I would have liked, I was pretty proud of myself for getting a 5-mile hike in, and fellow hikers on the trail were very encouraging!

Howland Hill Road lets you out on the other side of Jedediah Smith park, near that park’s campground, the Smith river, and the Hiouchi visitor’s center. From there, you can loop back around (on a real road this time) to Crescent City, with some other options to stop and explore if you want. On our way back to camp, we also stopped at the Crescent Beach overlook, with access to Endert’s Beach, even spotting some Roosevelt Elk!

On our way out on Sunday, we took the Newton B. Drury scenic drive to get a last taste of the redwoods, stopping for a short walk at “Big Tree Wayside” and at the Prairie Creek SP Visitor’s Center. Supposedly this is a good area to see the Roosevelt Elk, but not so much in the late morning. We also stopped at the overlook of the mouth of the Klamath river, a good spot to see migrating whales from land, but again, not the best time of year. On our way home, we stopped at the Lost Coast Brewery & Cafe in Eureka for some lunch (and beer for Jason). All in all, a good visit to some beautiful scenery.

I got three of the standard passport stamps at the visitor’s centers in Crescent City, Orick, and Hiouchi, and Prairie Creek had their own take on stamps at their visitor’s center. Supposedly there may have been some at the Jedediah Smith campground as well, but we didn’t stop there.