#jonathan run

[vandaliatraveler]

Spring at Ohiopyle, Part 2: Jonathan Run.

The damp floodplain and wet seeps along Jonathan Run Trail produce truly fabulous spring wildflower displays, with peak color between the last week of April and the first two weeks of May. Two of my favorite spring bloomers thrive along this trail: dwarf ginseng (Panax trifolius), which has luckily escaped the over-harvesting that has made its larger relative ever more scarce, and creeping phlox (Phlox stolonifera), a gorgeous and hardy colonizer that should be in every native wildflower garden (it's now well established in my own). And if you can take your eyes off the wildflowers long enough, you'll be enchanted by the numerous cascades created by Jonathan Run's steep descent into the Youghiogheny River Gorge.

[vandaliatraveler]

Water and rock are defining features of Ohiopyle State Park. What a wonderful ruckus they combine to create.

[vandaliatraveler]

A magnet for adventure tourists and nature lovers, Ohiopyle State Park sprawls across twenty thousand square acres of steeply-sloped wild lands on the flanks of the Youghiogheny River Gorge in Pennsylvania’s Laurel Highlands. The Great Allegheny Passage bike trail runs through the heart of the park, which also anchors a thriving whitewater rafting industry. I fortunately live within a short drive of the park, so a day hike is always in the cards. Especially on a beautiful Memorial Day holiday.

From top: black raspberry (Rubus occidentalis), an aggressive colonizer with delicious fruit coveted by humans and animals alike; longstyle sweetroot (Osmorhiza longistylis), also known as anise root, because its roots have a licorice-like flavor; Indian cucumber (Medeola virginiana), easily identified by its two tiers of whorled leaves and odd, pendulous flowers; and speckled wood lily (Clintonia umbellulata), also known as white Clintonia or black-bead lily, a close relative of yellow Clintonia (Clintonia borealis), which tends to occur at higher elevations in Central Appalachia.

[vandaliatraveler]

One of the more accessible falls along Jonathan Run in Ohiopyle State Park. The stream was running full throttle from recent spring rains.

[vandaliatraveler]

This morning, I made the short trip up US Route 40 to Ohiopyle State Park, which hugs the boulder-strewn banks of the Youghiogheny River as it winds and plunges its ways through the Laurel Highlands of Southwestern Pennsylvania. The day started out wet, misty, and gray but finished with the sun lighting up the Youghiogheny River Gorge (although rumbles of thunder reminded me that storms were never far away). Cucumber Falls is the park’s most famous cataract, but there are many lovely waterfalls to be found along the trails that descend into the gorge. Jonathan Run Falls (lower photos) is a particular favorite of mine. Despite the Yough being high and cantankerous from recent rains, whitewater rafters were out in droves (video to follow). It was bit unsettling to watch the big rafts bounce and careen over the muddy waves and then disappear into the gorge’s consuming mist.