Searchin’ for Sasquatch

The sun was trying its’ hardest to break through the clouds as Frank and I hit the road. Only two stars had been visible through the clouds as I gotten into my car, sadly the cover increased as the morning progressed. The sun made a brief appearance just after sunrise but for the rest of our trip, we only saw occasional evidence of it, a sunlit hilltop or the tips of the trees lit up. The morning was grey.

    The trip was to find some geocaches, some photos and who knows whatever else might cross our path. We were up for anything. We headed north on rt.28 and started out in the town of Slate Lick. This village got its name supposedly because deer used come to lick salt off of the rocks in the area. Founded in the late 1700’s, the first church in Armstrong County was started here.

    From there we went cross country, leaving the highway behind and using only the small two lane country roads. Occasionally these roads became gravel. We didn’t see many cars passing us.

    There were cattle in the fields and deer crossing the roads. We saw a Ringed Neck Pheasant at one of the caches! We passed more than a few abandoned houses, barns and farms during the drive.

    Just after leaving a cache situated alongside Buffalo Creek, we came across this pile of stones. I’m guessing it might have been a fireplace and chimney to an old house, but the underbrush was too thick to get close to them. There seemed to be a pile of rubble below all the jagger bushes. We didn't go in, we were content to look at them from the outside of the patch.

    We encountered more abandoned houses when we reached Yellow Dog. The Geocaching web page about the cache we were looking for, says that the village was built between the late 1910's and early 1920’s. It was built by Pittsburgh Limestone Mining Company for its workers, they could live there as long as they didn’t unionize. The last residents left in 2011, leaving it a ghost town. The town has been vandalized over the years and someone has bought it in hopes of restoring it and using it as a learning area. It has been a while since it was purchased. (2014) Now people can visit it for a fee. We snapped a few shots from the outskirts and then continued on.

    We visited the ghost town of West Winfield. All that remains are a few cement stairs that once sat alongside the road. The houses on this 1941 map are gone, all that remains is the stack of the old iron furnace.

    We walked through what used to be a rail yard to visit the remains of the furnace. It was built in 1847 and worked until 1864, a mere 17 years. It produced about 40 tons of iron a week during that period. The iron was carried by wagon to Freeport where it was put on boats for the trip to Pittsburgh.

    A town grew up around the furnace and then disappeared; a railroad was built beside it which also disappeared. All that is left in West Winfield is a cement company and this old stack of rocks. It is kind of sad!

    From there we did one more cache before heading back towards home. The sun was still trying to break through the clouds, maybe later in the day… We found all of the caches we had searched for, all eight of them. Frank found one more making his total nine. We also got some nice pictures while we were out.

    At one of the caches, we run across Sasquatch and made friends with him. (Not to be confused with a Yeti which resides in Asia) It turned out he was rather friendly, at least to us. So now we know, he does roam the hills of Pennsylvania! So beware, especially since we are only a month away from Halloween!

P.S. thanks to Frank for the shot of the furnace!