Muscovite - Animal? Vegetable? Mineral?

When I was a kid, like a lot of others, I collected rocks, mostly ones with fossils of sea shells. Half a century later I am looking at rocks again, driven by an interest in the geography and geology of the places where I hike. In an earlier post I documented my quest for garnet schist. Then in September, while hiking around the Dorsey tunnel on an eroded section of the trail, I came upon a few small rocks with a strange feature. They had what looked and felt like sheets of transparent plastic in them. I guessed they must be some kind of mica, but I had never seen anything like it before. Then last week my brother Chris, knowing of my renewed interest in rocks, handed me a small book, Rocks and Minerals, published in 1957 by Golden Press. There on page 97 was a perfectly drawn illustration almost identical to one of the rocks I had picked up. It was Muscovite, a type of mica as I had suspected. Here is a photo of my rocks, with a dime provided for scale and a knife blade to demonstrate the plastic sheet-like quality of the mineral.

The train has left the station

Woodbine to the Mt. Airy Tunnel

Today I hiked from Woodbine, actually the Morgan Road crossing on the approach to Woodbine, to the Mt. Airy tunnel, a seven mile walk. I saw two trains. At the start an eastbound train headed for Baltimore at the Woodbine tunnel. At the finish a westbound car carrier train headed into the Mt. Airy tunnel. The only living wildlife I saw were birds and the first and biggest of them was an injured turkey buzzard, which literally fell down the hillside on the approach to the Woodbine tunnel. I think we scared each other. The big bird appeared to have an injured wing, rendering it unable to fly, though it was able to walk.

The other wild animals I saw, at least a half dozen, were all road kill between the tracks, including the box turtle in my previous post today. Not a happy day for wildlife viewing. Also strange was that the Mt. Airy tunnel was the only tunnel I have encountered on the Old Main Line that does not have its name built into the masonry of the tunnel's portal. You can see more photos here.

What happens when you don't or can't walk away.....

On October 2nd I posted about a box turtle that came up against a rail, an obstacle he could not hurdle. He turned and walked away. During today's hike I encountered another box turtle, or what was left of him, between the rails. He could not have climbed a rail to get where he was. There are only four ways he could have gotten there: 1) crawled under a low spot where gravel was washed out between two ties, 2) was dropped by a small animal mamal predator, 3) was dropped by an avian predator, 4) was placed there by a cruel human, who would know he could never escape.

This shot shows the impossibility of the turtle's predicament.

Hiking in the clouds....and in the rain they carry

Today, after yesterday's ten mile warm up, I hiked fifteen miles in the rain from Frostburg to Cumberland along the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad right of way. It was wet but beautiful, and everyone on the trail except me was on a bike. The clouds came down to meet us.

And the view of the the Allegheny escarpment in the Cumberland Narrows, Maryland's Cumberland Gap, was quite impressive and made clear what early American settlers were up against in moving over the Allegheny mountains.

More photos here.

The Great Allegheny Passage

Actually the GAP is mostly above ground, but this is a shot inside the three quarters of a mile long Big Savage Tunnel through Big Savage Mountain only a short distance east of the eastern continental divide. This morning I hiked a ten mile stretch of the Passage from Deal, PA to Frostburg, MD with my brother Chris. It was the nicest hiking and biking trail I have ever walked because of vistas like this:

The trail is on an abandoned Western Maryland Railroad right of way which runs from Cumberland, MD to Pittsburgh. PA and connects with the C&O Canal tow path at Cumberland. More photos can be seen here.

Cumberland Connection

The Western Maryland Railroad station in  Cumberland, MD. This spot in The Queen City is where the C&O Canal, The B&O/CSX RR and the Great Allegheny Passage rail trail meet at the confluence of the Potomac River and Wills Creek, one of five gaps allowing passage over the Allegheny Mountain range, the other Cumberland Gap. It is also where during the French and Indian War British General Braddock, with his aide, Colonel George Washington,  marshaled his forces at Fort Cumberland before attacking the French at Fort Duqusne, now Pittsburgh. Braddock suffered fatal wounds when his force was ambushed en route to Fort Duquesne. George Washington assumed command. In 1794 President Washington again used Cumberland as a staging area before he marched into Pennsylvania as Commander in Chief of an American army to suppress The Whiskey Rebellion on the western frontier of the new nation. More photos here.

Heading West Soon

Sometimes you have to just walk away.....