Retracing My Ancestors' Steps: Not Doing It

A grand adventure that I would have loved to complete - and I speak of it in the conditional perfect for reasons which will become clear - is to trace the path my ancestors took to get from the cradle of our species in East Africa, to my actual home today. Importantly, I would use the means they used to travel. This half-baked idea appeared in my brain during my first visit to Arizona, during a business trip when I was able to set aside time to go running in a canyon in the Catalina Mountains to the north. I had never been in a desert before, and reasoned that I might actually have been the first of my ancestral line to be in a desert since we left Africa.

Lucky you, you're coming with me, regardless of your ancestry - you want to do your own trip, fine, but we're going on mine first. Our trip would begin at Lake Turkana in the Rift Valley in East Africa, in northern Kenya. And already the trip is difficult, because now we would have to start walking north, like our ancestors did, into Ethiopia. Not only is this a searing parched desert (although not necessarily any hotter and drier than it was when great grandma left - she was tough), the rural areas of northern Kenya and the border with Ethiopia are also not at all a safe place. People doing normal trips for normal reasons, in groups, require armed military convoys to make the journey safely. And as I write this, the whole region seems poised to become a war zone; it's even less safe today than when I first thought of this. (We're not even out of the first country and I've already provided multiple good reasons not to do it.)


Above: the sort of fellows we don't want to meet, but probably will if we're just out walking around. Below: more fellows we don't want to meet, but probably will if we go swimming.



After we walk into Ethiopia, we cross the Blue Nile on a log (and get schistosomiasis, assuming the crocs don't get you, which they almost certainly would - great grandma had a set of cajones on her) and start walking along the river's eastern bank until we get to Egypt. We've walked well over 2,000 miles through the hottest deserts on Earth at this point. We now enter Asia at the Sinai Peninsula. Congratulations, you've made it to 40,000 BC, when more humans started leaving Africa, following the example set by the ancestors of the Aboriginal Australians (who got to Australia already by at least 60,000 BC.) If my wife had also been along for the trip, at this point, we would part ways: she starts walking northwest to China across the deserts and mountains of Central Asia. It's worth noting that at that point, our great grandma (yes, for both her and me) still had dark, African-looking skin. The skin adaptation occurred amazingly late even in cloudy high latitude places - the friendly pre-Indo-European fellow you see below (Cheddar Man) was a resident of the British Isles a mere 10,000 years ago. (And if you think Britian is cloudy today, remember this was the end of the ice age.) Congratulations, it's now 20,000 BC and we're wandering through eastern Turkey, then around the eastern edge of the Black Sea, which at some point right around this point, actually became a sea.



Once we get to Ukraine we're Indo-Europeans, we can start riding horses. (You're not of Indo-European ancestry? Don't worry about that. For this blog post you are. Just promise to invite me on yours, and I'll put in a good word for you with the *pótis.) And congratulations, it's 3000 BC! Then we would ride through Russia, through Finland, to Sweden. (Back in the modern day, good luck getting the paperwork to bring an animal across national borders, even in good times; also good luck to us not getting blown up in the middle of a war.) As we ride northwest, the other Indo-Europeans point out there are glaciers that way, but now that we've further differentiated into Germanic-speakers, with characteristic stubbornness we wave them off and then find out they were right. In Sweden we can get on a simple sailboat and cross over to Denmark, and start riding south to Bavaria and Switzerland. It's now 100BC, and now we beat up some Celts, who were all up in mainland Europe until the late first millennium BC (symbolically this would take the form of looking for Irish tourists and buying them beers. You're paying.)



At some point we enter actual history when we encounter Julius Caesar's legions above the Rhine, but it's okay; we kick Varus's legion's ass in the Teutoborg Forest in AD 9 (i.e., now we find some Italian visitors and you can buy them beers too.) Maybe we get a nice AirBNB on an old farm east of Basel, where I'm now maybe a nice loyal farmer in the Roman province of Helvetia. (Note: I'm almost entirely of Swiss and German descent. Lucky for me. If you're a typical American mutt, you'd have to neglect some of your ancestors by deciding to follow just one ancestral line, or to retrace many lines for the last few centuries. From the 1500s on is a mess for most people.)


Above: buying beers for Italian tourists. I'll be honest with you, they suck at wall upkeep as well.

Well now it's the Dominate era of Rome, so we can either hang out at the farmhouse near Basel, or ride our horses back and forth around Germany, Switzerland, France, and down into northern Italy, and what do you know, no more Western Roman Empire! We're going to be hanging out for a while in Switzerland so let's get some hiking in. My ancestors would certainly think I'm a moron for wanting to exert myself walking up steep trails for no reason other than the experience of the thing; but I don't blame them because "just for the hell of it" was only invented in the fourteeth century. Maybe in a thousand years people will recreationally sit at desks or in fake meetings for reasons similarly unimaginable to us.

After a few more nights passing the medieval period, we ride to Basel (now I'm my great x~5 grandfather whose name I actually know), then take a boat from there to Rotterdam - and finally a bigger boat, to Philadelphia! We ride a horse up to old Berks County (like William Penn did along the Schuylkill River about 50-60 years before.) We hang around in Berks for close to three centuries, and finally, I'm myself! I can drive to California like I actually did at the tail end of the twentieth century. And I'm home.

After thirty years of thinking about this, I am choosing not to do it. I'd rather actively decide it won't happen, then wistfully pine for "someday". At a certain age you have to admit to yourself, a lot of somedays are turning to nevers, and I want to choose which ones. And I'm choosing this one not to do. The actual experience of this is not likely to balance out against the logistical nightmares, red tape of getting a horse across multiple national borders, the cost, as well as passing through places with severe threats to health and safety that show no sign of resolving.

Ultra-Run for Slain Officer Natalie Corona Scholarship Fund

For once, a running project that I won't be picking on - for tragic reasons. Colin Schmitt will be running 224 miles around Davis to benefit the scholar fund in honor of the late Davis PD officer, recently fallen in the line of duty. Article here; GoFundMe page is here.

Running the Schuylkill River Part II: Berks County Completed

(For the last piece of the river trail I did in southern Berks, go here. For the next piece on the way to Philadelphia, go here. I also went to the Berks County High Point and saw some other interesting stuff this time around. For other stupid running projects go here.)


The Schuylkill River Trail. For more detailed maps you can click on the individual sections at the SRT website.


I have now run along the course of the Schuylkill River through Berks County. Where the Schuylkill River Trail is complete, I ran it; where it's not, I ran on the pedestrian-safe roads nearest to the river. The division of the river into a Berks County section is not entirely arbitrary; the SRT Commission refers to Berks County and above as "the upper Schuylkill". In particular the northern point where the river enters Berks from Schuylkill County is not arbitrary, as it passes through the final gap in the Appalachians and leaves the Coal Regions.

For the full account of the southern half of the county which I did a year and a half ago, go here. Here I only provide pics and narrative for the northern half of Berks above Reading, starting in Reading and heading north to Port Clinton.

As always, running and in particular running on roads is dangerous and you run the risk of getting killed. My blog posts are not intended as a guide for running these routes and if you use them as anything but entertainment, you're doing so at your own risk.

I ran upriver from near the start of the SRT in Reading, also in turn near the Tulpehocken/Schuylkill confluence. The trail below only goes to Hamburg to the start of the John Bartram section of the SRT, because Google Maps doesn't recognize Bartram there as connecting to the adjacent road. It's an additional and very pleasant ~2.5 miles to Port Clinton from the end on this map. (Someone posted a great video of the Bartram Trail here.) Note: if you try something similar, you may wait a very, very long time for Uber or Lyft since these are not peak ride-sharing areas for the drivers.



Highlights of the run:

- I never cease to be amazed by the proximity of the Glenside housing projects, and the Berkshire Country Club. As a kid (and a pizza delivery driver) I'd always been warned against getting out of my car near Glenside, but it was very quiet, and actually pretty well-maintained.

- On the long road behind the airport, there is a lot of wildlife - cardinals, groundhogs and possum.

- Crossing under 222, turning right on Stinson then Leesport Road, and past Epler's Church. My ancestry in this specific area goes back more than 200 years. I saw a dead gopher snake (more of a gopher ribbon at that point as you can see below) and a turkey along this stretch. This part of Pennsylvania has a level of density that is unlike many other places - not really suburban, but certainly not deserted like we think of a rural area in the West. Just a lot of nice houses in a couple of acres.


- The Wall Street Bridge in Leesport is closed which means that there's a really pleasant traffic-free 2 mile stretch as I headed north out of Leesie along the west bank of the river to Dauberville. The bridge repairs are no doubt due to damage sustained by a dinghy ramming into the bridge pilings in May of 1991 (see this article, "Capsized Boat Found; Search Yields Nothing." No further comment.)

- It was at this point I began recognizing bridges and landmarks I had passed on three very ill-advised, poorly-planned and worse-executed raft trips with friends from age 16 through 21.

- Finally I made it to the modest hamlet of Mohrsville (first photo below) where I crossed the river and proceeded north to Shoemakersville.








In Shoey, I turned left at Ollie's Tavern and continued along Water Street and then Zweizig. At this point the Blue Ridge really began to rise up in front of me. In this area I saw a bald eagle and a bluebird.




Above: the Blue Ridge looms and destiny awaits! Below: now THAT is a Dutchy name for a road.












Next few: there was a very pleasant riverside park near Fisher Dam Bridge with some very nifty painted wood carvings. These really made my day actually! (Maybe just because it's a combination of outsider art and and Pacific Northwest style.) Also, if you're paying attention to the route - Google Maps will tell you that Fisher Dam Bridge is not open to vehicular traffic, but it very much is (and I reported.)




















Above: there was a lot of honeysuckle out and the trail smelled great. Below: the Blue Ridge looms still closer!




Above: I arrive at the foot of the ridge. Below: I knew these were "silt basins" but never stopped to think about what that meant. Turns out during the glory days of the PA Coal Regions, from the waste material dumped in the Schuylkill, there was so much fine-grained material that it would flow down the river to Hamburg where it would choke the river. Starting in the second half of the 20th century when the river started being cleaned up (using this de-silting basin), the removed material was actually compressed into charcoal briquets for public sale. From there it was up the John Bartram section of the SRT.








Above: classic PA mountain understory with rhododendron. Below: excellent interpretive signs along this portion of the SRT, including this one about the exposed rock layers.






Above: the junction with the Appalachian Trail, where it comes down to the Schuylkill River Gap from the west side of the Blue Ridge. Below: the rock trail down to the Reading and Northern tracks at Port Clinton.




Above: the river at Port Clinton - the border of Berks and Schuylkill County. Below: looking back at the bridge from Schuylkill County. You can see the AT blaze on the bridge. I entered Schuylkill County to the strains of Holst's Mars Movement.



There is more of the SRT already open to the public in Schuylkill County, so I will be running up to the source. Most of the SRT is open going south from Berks except for a few bits in upper Montgomery County.

As always thanks to the people and agencies that put resources online and maintain the trail, and most of all to my very patient wife who puts up with (and even supports) this nonsense.

Berks County High Point and Other Berks County Coolness

(I also finished running the length of the mighty Schuylkill River in Berks County on this visit. For other stupid running projects go here.)

Though it were thought impossible, I have conquered the highest point in Berks County Pennsylvania! A towering, unbelievable, 1,680'! I even did it without oxygen. Admittedly, this is not quite as impressive as my conquest of the Delaware high point. The Berks high point is on the Appalachian Front Range in eastern PA (the Blue Ridge) just off the A.T., near the western Berks-Schuylkill County line. There's really not much sense of elevation gain on the hike since you start at the crest where 183 climbs over the Blue Ridge and therefore where the AT crosses. Add this to my highest points in: California, Colorado, Oregon, Nevada, South Dakota, North Carolina, New York, and yes Pennsylvania and Delaware. The green tunnel of the AT is always pretty but you end up worrying about things you don't have to in California like Lyme disease and rain (and it did rain, heavily, as I was coming back out.) Also Rockylvania has its reputation, and although it supposedly gets much worse starting in Port Clinton and going north (i.e. east), it was still plenty annoying just west of 183. Back to California single-track for this guy!

(By the way, at the end of this week there was a report of a mountain lion in Cumru Township, Berks County. Looking at the pictures, probably not, but the lions will be back in PA - my prediction is by 2025 there will be two mountains lions detected in PA with supporting DNA evidence. Wagers anyone?)

Reading online, you get the strong sense that the branch trails to the high point are not super well-marked. It's actually the AT, and not the special high-point sections, that I think are poorly marked. To be useful to other people trying to get to the Berks High Point and searching online like I did, I've drawn a map (not to scale) for other folks looking for directions. Wandering Woodsman (hereafter WW) has a good video that shows turns 3 and 4 very well (which I embed here for your convenience and which I used for this hike, thanks WW!)



Turn #1. A couple hundred yards west of 183, you come to a T-junction at a wide trail. Turn RIGHT (#1 above) onto this wider trail, following the white arrow on the ground. (At that junction, to your left after maybe 10-20 yards is the stone foundation of a cabin.) Below, this is a picture of the trail you're turning onto.



Turn #2. The easiest-to-miss, in my opinion: at the stone marker describing Fort Dietrich Snyder on your left, the AT proceeds BEHIND it. (Pictured below.) It's only about a hundred yards after you got to the T-intersection in #1. So when you get to the Dietrich Snyder marker (#2), turn LEFT to go behind the marker and continue on the AT. (If you continue straight here, past the Dietrich Snyder marker, you will see blue blazes and start downhill, away from the high point.) Once you turn right to go behind the marker the trail is a more typical narrow foot trail with regular white blazes.



Turn #3: Roughly 15 minutes after you turned at the stone marker, you will get to the turn-off from the AT to go toward the high point (#3 on the map above.) No picture here; this is marked with a large white A on a tree that's hard to miss, and you can also see it clearly in WW's video at 1m28s. Turn LEFT here. This is hard to miss.

You will soon pass another sign that says Berks HP 1.6. No turns here, but you'll feel better at this second marker that you're going the right way. Along this trail (closer to turn #4) you will encounter a stand of surviving chestnuts - notice the spiky seeds on the ground, also in WW's video.

Turn #4: Finally you come to the Caleb Frantz High Point Trail, very clearly marked (#4 on the map, also pictured below) and also clear on WW's video at 4m15s. Turn LEFT here. From here you'll be at the high point in 15 minutes or less.



Below are a few other nice pictures I took on the trail, followed by WW's video. For Pennsylvanians it's been an annoyingly wet spring, but for this adopted Californian, we don't see this intensity of green really anywhere, especially not now that we're in a state of perpetual drought.









Highlights/Notes:
- I thought the history of Fort Dietrich Snyder during the French and Indian War (North American theater of the Seven Years War) was the most interesting part of the hike to be honest. In general I'm a fan of Ben Franklin but I'm a little annoyed with his playing down in his Autobiography of PA Dutch contribution to defending the frontier during the war (for instance, Conrad Weiser not even mentioned by name; and the British remarked frequently during the war how much more reliable Pennsylvania colonists were than Virginians - search here for the term General Braddock. Let's see, what was demographically different between the two? German colonists in PA of course!) The Captain Morgan named in this description of the forts was not the inspiration for liquor but rather the man Morgantown is named after and one of my ancestors served under him, after fleeing from the Northkill Amish massacre to the southern part of the county where the Crown could more effectively protect its subjects. More here and here.

- Yes, you do have to park down the hill on the Strausstown side and on the other side of 183 0.3 miles. Not that far but do be careful along and crossing the road.

- If you're headed up there from Reading, you'll go by Plum Creek Farm Market, which I'm told has excellent ice cream (closed Sundays.)


OTHER RANDOM COOL THINGS IN BERKS COUNTY

- My favorite discovery this time was Oakbrook Brewing, which has a great crowd, good stuff, very cool building (an old fire company building) and most of all, a selection of innovative and tasty beers. Here was what they had the night I was there. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!





- I went into the most prominent high rise of Reading, the Berks County Courthouse - originally for the views, but I'd forgotten (or maybe never knew) what an art deco masterpiece this building was - even the elevators. The law library on floors 10-11 is publicly accessible, ergo views. Reading doesn't have a lot of high rises so I've developed an obsession with figuring out what the few other residential-appearing high rises visible from the Courthouse are; it's odd because they're not that much smaller, but the Courthouse Building stands out so much more as you drive by the city. First image is from goreadingberks.com.





































- Santander Arena has an interesting mix of performers; i.e., which one of these is not like the others.



- There's a historical marker for a labor massacre in Reading in 1877 that I (a Berks native and history buff) had never once heard of. (Seriously, read that link if you made it all the way down here.) There's a lot of important industrial and labor and political history in PA that is overlooked (the establishment of the State Police as strike breakers in company towns in otherwise low-population counties with small sheriff's forces is another one; the Johnstown Flood and its relation to the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age, and the fact that PA's liquor tax was passed for the purpose of rebuilding Johnstown after this *1889* disaster.) (Update: they're finished rebuilding.)



- I visited the Fork in the Road in Centerport, PA, and here's my proof. I understand that Oley has a nice spatula in the road that I plan to get to next. (Little known fact, many towns have chopsticks along the road but they connect them with black wires to disguise them. You can even see one in the background here.)



- I'd had a rekindling of my romance with Berks County over the last several years but it seems to be dying down now; not sure why. The harbinger was that on this trip, I wasn't that excited to get to a Wawa, or to Victor Emmanuel's. That was a sure sign of trouble.