Jackson Trail to beyond David’s Vista...and back again (Tussey Mountain)

Join us this Sunday at 1 p.m. for a relatively short (3+ mile?) and easy to moderate, but very rocky, ridgetop, out-and-back trek on the Jackson Trail atop Tussey Mountain. We will hike to David’s Vista and somewhat further, to enjoy the view into Stone Valley, as well as hardy, dense stands of eastern hemlock along this ridgeline crest trail.

There is little net elevation gain, but as noted, the trail is quite rocky in many places. Good boots and/or hiking poles are recommended.

We will gather at the parking lot ACROSS SR 26 FROM Jo Hayes Vista. Jo Hayes Vista is located adjacent to State Highway 26 as it crosses up and over the crest of Tussey Mountain, just above the village of Pine Grove Mills. Be careful crossing or turning at the highway here, as vertical line-of-sight (visibility) is limited, and too many drivers come speeding up and over the crest.

Tussey Mountain – as distinct from the ski area that bears its name – is one of the longest-running ridges in what geologists call the Ridge and Valley Physiographic Province of the Central Appalachian Mountain Mountains. During fall and spring migratory seasons, it is heavily used by soaring migratory hawks and eagles, including the iconic golden eagle, migrating south to Georgia in the fall, and back north again to the far reaches of northern Canada in the spring.

The ridge itself – an upward fold in the Earth’s crust – was one of many formed and deformed during the Appalachian Orogeny, or colossal mountain-building event, some 325 million to 260 million years ago, in the Carboniferous and Permian periods of the Paleozoic Era. This was when the North American and African tectonic plates were colliding and titanic forces fractured, folded, and faulted the brittle rocks of the "lithosphere," i.e., the Earth's crust. All before the Atlantic Ocean even came into being and before the Age of Dinosaurs (Mesozoic Era).

These unfathomably long spans of time are outmatched by the age of Tussey's erosion-resistant rocks themselves, sedimentary Bald Eagle Sandstone and metamorphic Tuscarora Quartzite. These date back even earlier to the Ordovician Period of the Paleozoic, nearly 500 million (half a billion) years ago. Suitably ancient. Yet little more than one-tenth the age of the Earth itself!

And less than 4% of the estimated 13.7-billion-year age of the Universe.