Wednesday, April 7, 2021 - Blackberry to Black Forest trail in Tiadaghton State Forest - Near Lock Haven PA - 5.4 miles - About 250 feet elevation gain

 This was the start of our much anticipated 3 night escape to Harrisburg PA.  Harrisburg hasn't been (and still isn't) a favorite place for us even just among bigger PA cities but it is near a lot of good hiking opportunities and less stressful than Philly or Pittsburgh.  So we booked at the lovely Best Western Premier Central and I queued up several possible hikes to do on the way here, once here and on the way home.  What I hadn't planned 2 months ago when I booked this trip was getting my COVID vaccine the day before the trip started.  I was able to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at Rite Aid (albeit a Rite Aid 35 miles from home) on Tuesday morning.  I booked it on Friday so that was a very short wait and the setup process and everything about getting the vaccine setup and administered was super easy at RiteAid.com.  

Side bar on my vaccine experience.  Anybody who knows me well knows that I reallllly hate shots and blood draws. I had one case of passing out during a blood draw and I always dread having anything related to shots and blood draws.  Still, I've developed a time tested method for myself which is basically that I don't look at the needle at any point and I look away from the action and blabber on about the weather or what kind of pizza I like or anything at all other than the medical activity going on.  Who knows why these things give me such trauma because the actual discomfort is very very minor.  It isn't a matter of fearing an agonizing shot, it's something else.  I got up from the shot desk, thanked the very helpful and intuitive tech who ably gave me my shot and sat down in the pharmacy waiting area for the recommended 15 minute cooling off period.  At first I pulled my phone out and began idly surfing the web but within 5 or 6 minutes I began feeling flushed and clammy then sweaty and nauseous.  I fanned myself with my COVID paperwork and put my phone away but it came in waves and at one point I was pretty sure I was going to have to tell the nervous looking older woman next to me that I was going down and to get help.  I even started hearing a dull buzzing sound which is surely one of the last steps before things go dark.  Then it gradually got better.  I was pretty spacey at the end of my 15 minutes but I didn't think I was going to pass out or barf and when I went outside I felt instantly a bit better.  The drive home is all on country roads and by the time I got home I basically felt fine, maybe a TINY bit chilled and was able to have a reasonably productive work day.

Waking up Wednesday morning I felt fine initially but as I got up and stirred around I could feel that I was groggy and heavy feeling but not awful. I drove the 3 hours to the hike and much of that was on very curvy dippy and lonely PA-44.  By the time I got to the trailhead I was pretty drowsy and not at all motivated to hike but we wanted to make sure our time off was chock full of hikes so we got out and did it anyway.

The trail started across the highway from where we parked and consisted of mostly long straight narrow embankments (maybe a very small railroad or logging path at one point) and a few sections of more organic feeling trail along the edge of a large drop-off into a valley.  Considerable portions of the field or land along the sides of the trail had a high wildlife fence along one or sometimes both sides of the trail.  Some parts were clearly good sized dirt roads at some not too distant point in the past.  None of this made much sense given the incredibly remote area we were in.  During the 10 or 15 minutes we walked parallel to PA-44 there were maybe 4 cars total in either direction on the road and we weren't near even the tiniest hamlet.  Still, it feels like this area was cultivated or heavily managed at some point.  Maybe some sort of tree farm?

The best part of the hike was the last 1/3 when we were along the edge of the valley and there was more rocky geography to look at.  It was quite stuffy and warm during the hike.  Also, there was an almost COMPLETE lack of wildlife along the entire walk.  Almost no bird chirps, no squirrels or chipmunks in site, almost no signs of animal life in any way other than insects.

Overall, this hike was fine but not very interesting and normally I'd say not very challenging but given how I felt (Brian wasn't feeling tip top either) it was all the hike we needed for our mid road trip break.