WOLF CREEK WILDFLOWERS
I wanted to write about the Wolf Creek Narrows Natural Area, so I went up to northwestern Butler County to visit it. But after I went, I wasn’t sure I wanted to write about it.
The last thing this literally gorgeous patch of wild needs is tons of people tramping through it.
As the senior director of conservation science for the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy that owns and runs it, Charles Bier knows this special place and knows that feeling of “a push and a pull. We want these places to be used, but we want them to remain pristine.”
A lot of that is in the hands -— and the feet — of visitors who should take nothing but photos and leave nothing but footprints on the 1.5mile loop trail.
Wolf Creek Narrows is a relatively unknown property that the Conservancy started piecing together and restoring in 1979, just west of Slippery Rock, where housing developments give way to feral farm fields that run into woods along the creek.
The natural area now covers 243 acres, much of which you can tour on trail. It makes for a moderately difficult, roughly one-hour walk that must be maximally beautiful in any season. But it’s extra special in the spring, when the rich and undisturbed soil is a hotbed of spring wildflowers, including expanses of pinkish spring beauties, purple violets, white mayapples and trilliums, bluebells and yellow trout lilies, as well as the more rare white ones.
My family parked in the muddy parking area just over the one-lane, open-grate bridge over Wolf Creek last Saturday morning and walked back to the trailhead. We were a little early in that there still was a glaze of ice on the woods’ vernal pools and still patches of snow frosting the brown leaf litter where the trail climbs high above the creek.
But the sunshine warmed up everything, as we warmed to Wolf Creek. The trail starts along the grassy bank of the rushing stream, which made me long for my license and fishing gear (the preserve is open to not just fishing but also hunting).
Along the other side of the trail, vernal pools -— puddles and ponds of temporary standing water filled by snowmelt and rain — were dotted with skunk cabbage and algae and other intriguing plants. We paused and looked hard for the eggs of frogs and salamanders who live and breed here, but we didn’t see any.
We were a bit early, too, it seemed, to see many flowers. But looking closely along the edges of the nicely blazed trail, we spied pink-laced spring beauties and the bigger, just-about-to-bloom Virginia bluebells.
Looking across the rapids of the waters, we started to see limestone cliffs where the creek narrows and makes the name of the place. As Mr. Bier told me, the “narrows” are believed to have been formed when the limestone roof of the cave through which the water once flowed collapsed as the result of runoff from a glacier that covered and created these rolling hills.
We had no trouble climbing the trail, but we admired the thick slab bench the Conservancy placed at a spot where hikers can sit and rest and look down into the steep valley.
We continued to look for elusive wildflowers as the trail curved around these upper hardwoods. All three of us jumped — while I was photographing what turns out to be a cutleaf toothwort — when, from behind a downed tree behind us, a big wild turkey flushed and flew away.
It was invigorating to watch my son, after a winter with too much screen time, remember how interesting tree trunks and lichen and moss can be and how challenging it can be to cross a rudimentary boardwalk over a stream. Especially if you WANT to get muddy. Beaming, he pronounced, “I think this is one of the best hikes we’ve ever been on.”
We were happy to be able to extend it on another similar-length loop that heads south on the creek’s opposite bank. This trail runs through what’s called Miller Woods, a 42-acre nature tract owned by Slippery Rock University. This tract isn’t as pristine as the Narrows — there’s more evidence of man’s hand, feet and tire tracks here (although, ironically, the trail isn’t marked with blazes) — but the place has a fascinating history, sketched out at the trail head, as the site of a Native American settlement and a longtime maple-sugaring camp.
As we poked around this more flat floodplain, we found more early blooms, and in vernal pools here, we spotted masses of floating eggs of some kind of amphibians, one cloud of which my son noticed contained what looked to be tiny tadpoles.
If you go this weekend and later this spring, these woods should be literally hopping and loud with the songs of wood frogs and spring peepers.
Except for maybe that specific time of spring, I can agree with Mr. Bier’s appreciative assessment: Wolf Creek is a great place for those of us who enjoy a nice, quiet walk.
Wolf Creek Narrows Natural Area and Miller Woods are on opposite sides of Miller Road, just west of Slippery Rock, which is about an hour’s drive north of Pittsburgh on Interstate 79 and east on state Route 108. You can get to the trails by starting on North Main Street and following West Water Street, which turns into Miller Road. There are no restrooms or other facilities at the natural area — it’s not a park — and there’s not even a trash can, so pack out anything you pack in.
There are several fun places to provision in town, including North Country Brewing Co. on South Main (northcountrybrewing.com) and, just east of town on Route 8, the very welcoming Wieners Gone Wild (wienersgonewild.biz), which serves breakfast all day on top of its wide array of hot dogs and “twisted” tater tots. Plus, kids meals come with cotton candy.
Read more about Wolf Creek Narrows in a brochure and maps that you can download at http://waterlandlife.org/291.