Another successful and satisfying time spent in Middletown/Ashville this past Saturday. Now I wish I would have gone one more day during this long holiday weekend. The primary objective was a place I’ve renamed (“mystified as”) Goth Hill, formerly Richmond Hill. I’ll let fans of the IT Crowd figure that one out. Hint: You can most easily reach the park by following Red Door Road. It’s fairly hard to find — you have to know exactly where to look. I missed the mark not once not twice but 3 times. The park is close to downtown, but seems quite isolated still.*
Speaking of which, here’s an isolated lemon yellow colored rock discovered along the railroad forming the northern border of the park. Could it be related to the yellow skull found on Google Earth at Alexfin just the day before? Close to 1/2 of the park is now in private hands, perhaps soon to become a housing development. The yellow rock belongs to that side of the park. Is it a resonant “death skull”, then?
Red berried vine found nearby.
Isolated river rock; photo taken once more from the railroad bed.
Yet another picture of rocks along the rr, this one including an old hornet’s nest.
Yet another. I like the isolated “Y” remaining from the mostly erased graffiti.
Prison spied from across the river. This is not the Alexfin prison mentioned before containing the northern point of the Middletown Pyramid (Alexfin-Future Home-Bentmore), but the older one further south which it replaced starting in 1989. It now serves as a prison laundry.
But the most interesting spot along the railroad was probably this double underpass allowing Rich Smith Creek to reach the Middle River from the south. This stream is also the largest in the park by far, and just the small part I explored at the mouth contains a number of interesting features.
More Rich Smith underpass graffiti. Notice the “Cold Feet..” on the angled part.
Cap that has merged with brown muck at bottom of Rich Creek next to the underpass. Pretty cool shot, actually.
Tire found in Rich Smith as it approaches underpass.
Another tire in seeming better shape lies nearby.
A bit furhter upstream I found this unusual rock, appearing almost like a broken off top of a table. I’ll be examining this again sometime soon.
examination table
Still on the Middle River, the final photograph of this post is from a small riverside park called Walnut Island just below the northern border of Center County.
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* About the only other “Goth Hill” I could find is a former location for the Algonquin Radio Observatory.
Sunklands 