Bourbon, Flies, and Lies: October 2023

I have noticed within the last 4 days the leaf color around here is at a near peak level.

The cooler nights and the shorter days I believe have triggered most of the leaves turning color. The one observation that I made was there are some lessor trees that are just now turning color.

I really wanted to go swing some flies over in New York. Then I looked at the long-term forecast.

The sustained winds were going to be 20 mph and using a fly rod would not work well. I was planning on walking the Catt but high up in the river system. I went to a local access point and saw here turning grey from a deep emerald green. She does this from high winds and rain when they come into contact with her high walls in the gorge area. This was the area I was going to see. I decided to skip it because of personal safety reasons. For example, you have to make several river crossings in the gorge. With the river coming up I did not want to get stranded or worse. The gradient of the river here is also steep and it's not a safe place to be in a high-water situation.

Cattaraugus Railroad Tressle

After figuring out what to do I decided on traveling through New York into the Alleghany National Forest through the other section in Pennsylvania.

What a real treat this was. The splendor of the leaf color was so intense it looked fake. If it had not been overcast and foggy the colors would have been as bright as the sun. After getting off of I-90 I headed southeast on route 438 and headed into Gowanda, New York. There I was already surrounded by mother nature’s splendor. I headed into town to look at Cattaraugus Creek. She was low and I was happy I did not want to fish. I headed south out of town via Broadway Road aka Township Road 4.

If you look at Google Maps and go to the road view, you will see that this route is in the middle of farm country and is very rural. Then I made may down NY-353 and this route was more of the great mother nature’s splendor. The colors again were muted by the fog and rain, but still amazingly beautiful.

I came to a nice small town called Village of Cattaraugus, New York here is a link to lean more https://www.cattaraugusny.org/history.html

There are small shops and boutiques here. They have a small diner one could have a meal at.

I drove out of town and took the Cattaraugus Little Valley Road aka NY-353. This road is not heavily traveled and being in a valley you are surrounded by some hills. The road is at an elevation of 1400 and the hills are at 2000 feet. The hillsides are blanketed with some amazing views. I was traveling through an old valley and had an amazing view on both sides of me. For being only 4 hours from home at this point it was way worth the drive. Here are some coordinate pairs to help you find a few of the points I am talking about. To use these coordinates if you copy them and paste them into Google Maps they will show you what I saw. Here are some tips to get this to work.

1. Go to Google Maps

2. Copy Coordinates

3. Paste coodinates into Google Maps search

4. Hit enter

5. Click on satellite photo

6. Zoom to the marker it put on the road and then left click on the road

7. A little dialogue box will open up on the bottom of Google

8. Left click the photo and then you will be down to the street view.

Here are the Coordinates:

N42° 15.488' W78° 49.159' Town of Little Valley Street View Link

N42° 13.600' W78° 45.740' Town of Little Valley on NY-353 Street View Link

N42° 10.861' W78° 44.854' Salamanca, New York on NY-353 Street View Link

I then pressed onto Salamanca, New York. This area would be the Allegheny State Park – Red House area. This vista is located here N42° 08.801' W78° 43.403'.

Along the route to the next place, you are paralleling the Allegheny River. She is broad and the colors along her banks are amazing. The fog was heaving over the Allegheny Reservoir and this photo shows just that. It was located here N42° 05.461' W78° 51.992' Street View Link.

My next stop was at Quaker Lake New York found. This photo was taken here N42° 03.183' W78° 52.549' Street View Link. A few years ago, I camped around Falconer, New York and I came to visit this lake. I stood next to this one person, and I saw on a stringer a rainbow trout that was over 22” long. So, I know there are some big fishies in there.

I continued to travel on PA-321 aka Sugar Run Road. These coordinates on the above-mentioned road where the views are amazing.

N41° 57.490' W78° 52.311' Street View Link This is a random location I was at.

N41° 53.406' W78° 53.179' Street View Link This is where I made my coffee and where the two following photos came from.

Lastly here is another coordinate pair that will show you just have dense the trees are and how one could really enjoy mother nature’s color fest N41° 52.574' W78° 50.544' .

I traveled onto PA-59 and the surrounding views were all just as stunning as all the others. The timber was all mature trees and full of vibrant colors.

Here is just another example of some solitude and enjoying the outdoors. N41° 51.445' W78° 51.909' Street View Link Corydon Township, PA Route PA-59. I was in route to Jakes Rocks Overlook. At this overlook I would be over looking the Allegheny Reservoir. The potential for an amazing moment is there and fortunately mother nature had other plans for me. The route to this overlook is on forest roads and use need to be ready for your phone not to work. Here is a photo of the view.

I then ran out of coffee and needed to find a coffee shop. I only brought enough coffee to make two cups and I was out. I traveled along the Allegheny River below the Kinzua Dam. The views along PA-59 are still stunning as far as colors go. Like in a all-river towns they are struggling to survive and one should remember that. These folks make it work with what they have and many of them lead simple lives and want to be just left alone.

I traveled onto PA-6 and headed to the Tidioute overlook located at N41° 40.518' W79° 23.567' Tidioute overlook Rte. 337 Rd, Tidioute, PA 16351.

While the colors where amazing I began my slow journey home. Continuing on PA-6 going through Oil City, Pennsylvania. I found a coffee shop, but it was closed “of course it was 1130 am on a Saturday”.

Then I traveled to the town of Franklin. As a side note every time I have traveled through this town it always has had a festival going on. Here is their website for events. https://franklinpa.gov/events

There motto is “Always Eventful” and I found a nice coffee shop also called the “Iron Furnace Coffee”. They do not have a website that I could find, but they have plenty of great reviews out there on the web.

I was super excited to have my coffee and turn up the music on Rick Tobey album “Chickenhead Bluesway”. I pointed the Subaru west and headed out of the woods into the world of people “ewe”.

First night under the stars

There are people who walk around the world we all live in who will never know what the great outdoors has to offer outside of Tik-Tok and YouTube. These people will just continue to do life thinking this is all life has to offer. For me it’s rare to have a moment like I had the past four days. A good friend of mine, Rob, has asked me for the last few years to go on a camping trip to the Allegheny National Forest (ANF). This year the camping trip was scheduled before I would be swinging flies on the Great Lakes tributaries.

My chateau

I packed my two waterproof bags and headed out to the ANF. The next few days weather report was started out at 80’s – 50’s in the day and tapering to the low 40’s at night. Mother nature would also have her undergarments in a wad on the daily.

This bear scat was new esitmated him/her to be 2 years old and always be bear aware!

When Rob talked about this trip, he always said he had fun, and it was a good time. Rob is an avid outdoorsman and our friendship goes back almost 30 years. The folks he went camping with were at the same level of outdoorsmanship and more.

Rob would play one of the coxswains on the trip. With the amount of gear, we brought and foodstuffs well it was a necessity to get all the forementioned gear to the camp site. The ANF has plenty of camping. Here is a link to begin your research. https://www.fs.usda.gov/allegheny and he is a link to show you the draw down of the lake for winter pool. https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/03012520/#parameterCode=62615&period=P7D&showMedian=true

I really fit right in with these fine distinguished gentlemen and even Lips (inside joke)!

When you plan a large outing, you sometimes have people who don’t work well with others and or who don’t pull their weight in camp. I was the new guy, and everyone helped, and everyone went out of their way to help each other.

I did not matter the size of the task from drying Lips’s boots, cooking, gathering wood, tending the fire, or walking up the mountain for water everyone helped every day.

Water run hike

We also ate food o my goodness did we eat lol. If you went to bed hungry it was just your fault and no one else’s.

Again folks, Thank you I had a great time.

Rob and I took a 1.7 mile hike. The elevation at Basecamp was 1348 and we had to acsend to 1589 (max elevation reached was 1616.6) with a pitch of up to 42 % slope to climb out the lake bottom.