The Thousand Steps

They say you can sometimes hear Robert Plant's voice resonating among the trees.

Those of you familiar with Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" know two things about the song:

• It is considered one of the best rock songs of all time by many fans and music critics.
• The lyrics have almost nothing to do with a stairway to heaven.

Regardless of how convoluted its lyrics are, "Stairway to Heaven" plays off the idea that there is a connection between Earth and the afterlife. If only such a path existed, right?

As it turns out, it does (to an extent), and it's in the backyard of many central Pennsylvanians.

This "stairway to heaven" is known under the not-so-majestic name as "The Thousand Steps."

Aside from sounding like a generic StairMaster machine, the Thousand Steps is a staircase that climbs the side of Jacks Mountain between the boroughs of Mt. Union and Mapleton in Huntingdon County.

The steps are giant slabs of stone. There are no handrails, ramps, escalators or elevators to escort you along the way.

So how were these stones fashioned into a staircase? Plate tectonics? Egyptians?

Courtesy: imgur.com

The answer is slightly less ridiculous than this but still quite insane.

Jacks Mountain served as a "gold" mine for ganister -- a "Tuscarora sandstone used in the production of silica bricks," according to the Bureau of Recreation and Conservation and DCNR.

Silica bricks served as good material in the construction of industrial-sized furnaces because they're heat-resistance. These bricks played a vital role in central and western Pennsylvania during the railroad, steel and limestone eras. Mt. Union became known as the "Silica Brick Capital of the World" because of its abundance of Tuscarora sandstone, according to DCNR.

On the plus size, the workers probably had god-like legs.

Unfortunately, for the poor saps who mined it, their commute consisted of scaling the side of a mountain every day. The workers for Harbison-Walker Refractories Co. -- the company that owned the quarries on both sides of the valley known as Jacks Narrows -- decided something needed to be done.

In 1936, the workers fashioned stone slabs from the quarry into the staircase that exists today.

Returning to the present, the Thousand Steps have become a tourist attraction for those who feel like re-enacting the commute of the workers, or they're just bored with their StairMaster.

One of the views from The Thousand
Steps.

The trail on the way up offers splendid views of the valley below and the mountain on the other side.

There's also a sense of community on the Thousand Steps. Cassidy and I ran into several people going up and down the mountain when we hiked it one October. Despite dealing with the strain of the climb and descent, the people on the trail smiled and greeted one another, not seeming to mind that their leg muscles were screaming in agony.

Her excitement is masked by crippling fatigue.

Not everyone possesses the strength and mentality to make it to the top of the Thousand Steps, and there's nothing worse than having a false sense of assurance that you're "almost there." Therefore, someone got smart and marked each hundredth step with paint to show climbers where they're at.

A thousand steps might not seem like a huge climb for some people, but when you've been climbing for 15 minutes and are only at the "200" mark, your confidence tends to say "screw it" and turns around without you.

Despite the challenge, people of different ages are drawn to the hike. Cassidy and I saw kids as young as 6 years old and seniors in their 60s climbing the steps on the same day. Some of the children seemed to have a harder time than the adults. That's what happens when the new generation does nothing but tweets and twerks, I suppose.

There's the excitement!

As an avid hiker and cyclist, I had little problem making the climb, but Cassidy had some trouble. I had to really push her motivation to get her up that mountain, but we did it. There was a lesson about love mixed in with it since we did the hike on our one-year anniversary as a couple. We found that supporting each other got us to the summit -- but excellent calf muscles help, as well.

Oh! I forgot to mention the irony: There are more than a thousand steps at the Thousand Steps; however, you do not need to climb every step to make it to the "thousand" mark.

There's a mailbox at the thousandth step that contains a notebook where people who make it can sign their names, the date they climbed and leave notes about their journey. The "extra" steps take you to what looks like an old storage building and eventually to an overlook that trumps everything else you see on the climb.

The borough of Mapleton and the Juniata River as
seen from the top.

The overlook gives you a glimpse of Mapleton, the Juniata River, the valley below and the mountains beyond. If you had superhuman eyesight, you could see Raystown Lake just over the horizon.

When we made it to the top, the sun broke through the clouds and cast rays of light on the vast area of land before us as if we finished some divine challenge.

Because it was our anniversary, the climb for Cassidy and I was truly romantic. It will be a story we'll pass on to our kids as they pay us no mind and sit on their phones reading about how big Kim Kardashian's ass was or how the color of a dress nearly triggered World War III.

If you're in central Pennsylvania and get bored with videos of llamas being chased by police officers, you should make the effort to climb the Thousand Steps on a nice day. Even if you fail to finish the entire hike, you will still be taken aback by the beauty of the area and the experience of making a hike that long-ago residents made as a way to get to work and back each day.

Directions: From Altoona, Hollidaysburg or Duncansville, take Rt. 22 east past Huntingdon, Mill Creek and Mapleton. The trailhead to the Thousand Steps will be less than a mile outside Mapleton on the left side of the road. Look for parked cars; They're usually a good indicator.

From Tyrone and north of Tyrone: Get on PA-453 South off Interstate 99, turn onto Rt. 22 east and follow the same directions as above.

Pennsylvania's season: Fall (with photo gallery)

Fall is truly Pennsylvania's season. 

Pictured: The look of no fun.

Winter's brutal cold makes it difficult to partake in anything fun outside. Even the winter sports such as skiing, snowboarding and tubing are fun until the snow starts to melt inside your clothes, and you are left feeling like a sad sponge. Heating bills in the triple digits also dampen even the strongest holiday spirit.

Pictured: Boredom times four. The season?
Spring.

Spring is a nice exit from winter, but the transition often brings times of random hot and cold. Pennsylvanians know this best when the temperature one day is 65 degrees, and the next day there's snow on the ground.

This sporadic change in temperature always makes scheduling parties and cookouts outside on holidays like Easter and Memorial Day a gamble.

In some cases, the weather is so crappy that we never experience a spring i.e. last year's "polar vortex" and the change to 90 degrees almost a week later.

The best thing about spring is witnessing the trees and plants budding and blooming, but sometimes that is prolonged by an eternal winter. Many of the trees were still bald by June this year, leaving many to wonder if the leaves would start changing color after Christmas.

Don't be fooled; we're actually having a boring time
here. Who likes the beach after all?

Summer is usually one of my favorite seasons but only because I can travel to places where there are fun outdoor activities.

Pennsylvania lacks a beach (other than lake beaches, but anyone will tell you a lake "beach" and an ocean beach are incomparable).

Summertime is all about visiting the shore. My family has based whole summers around going to the beach.

But the weather in summer can be brutal, as well. Ninety degrees and humid sucks no matter where you're at. There are plenty of summer activities in Pennsylvania, but summer has always been a season of escaping the norm by going elsewhere.

Trees changing color last year in
Chimney Rocks Park near Hollidaysburg.

Now we're back at fall. 

The weather in fall, like spring, varies. The difference is we're transitioning from hot to cold instead of the other way around. This means there are less days when all you want to do is barricade yourself inside your home with a shield of blankets and a space heater sucking up more electricity than New York City.

The cooler days are inviting after a long, brutally hot summer. We can start to dress in warmer, more stylish clothing other than just tank tops and shorts, jorts or whatever fashion crime-against-humanity is in style that year.

My friend, Alan, wades through a sea
of orange leaves in the woods near the
Big Wapwallopen Creek in Mountain Top.

Fall also welcomes a change in great food. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin beer, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin rolls, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pumpkins, pumpkin pumpkins-infused with pumpkin are just a few examples (did I forget about pumpkin?). Apple cider, apple pie and caramel- or candy-coated apples also sweeten up the autumn months.

Let's not forget that the best holiday of the year takes place in fall -- Thanksgiving. I'd say it's Christmas, but America prides itself on gluttony more than any other nation in the world. Thanksgiving commemorates the tradition of gorging on 95 percent of the food chain within a few hours. The day is followed by Black Friday, which signifies the beginning of the holiday season, sales, extended shopping hours and numerous, cheesy Christmas ads. Who can't get excited about that?

Two trees standing out from the rest
in a parking lot at Prince Gallitzin
State Park.

The greatest feature of fall, and the reason it's so widely recognized in Pennsylvania, is the foliage. It's astonishing to think how many tourists come and spend money in Pennsylvania just to see a change that happens every year in the comfort of our own backyards. Yet people book hotels, drive hundreds of miles and base their work and school schedules around seeing trees that we otherwise have no qualms about chopping down for the sake of wood products and, in my mom's case, to avoid raking leaves.

But fall foliage does have a special place in many people's hearts, even for those who have lived in Pennsylvania all their lives.

It's symbolic of the change from summer to fall. It tells us that there is no more beach time. If it's still "five o'clock somewhere"  for you at this point, then that probably means you should schedule an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting around six o'clock.

Foliage is a sign that it's time to take things down a notch and to appreciate life at a much slower, relaxed pace.

The leaves were just beginning to fall
on this trail at the Allegheny Portage
Railroad National Historic Site
in early September.

It makes us reflect on not just how nature changes, but how we as individuals change. In nature, this change happens in small increments over an extended period of time -- from one red leaf to a sea of crimson, orange and gold.

Life operates in a similar fashion. We often fail to recognize how we change as human beings until these alterations make themselves more vibrant. It can be as small as a new haircut to becoming a more generous, caring individual.

Perhaps not everyone shares in the same feelings about fall. For some, it means only back pain from persistent leaf-raking and trying to get the smell of moth balls out of their fleece jackets and winter coats. To me, I find myself enjoying every day it's autumn until the last leaf falls to the ground.

And when that happens, I always find myself releasing a sigh, wishing that last leaf could have held on just a bit longer.

A view from shore-to-shore at Glendale Lake in Prince Gallitzin State Park.

A man boats on Glendale Lake at Prince Gallitzin State Park.

One of the chimney rocks in Chimney Rocks Park last fall.

Leaves flow down the Big Wapwallopen Creek in Mountain Top.

Chimney Rocks as seen from Route 36 in Hollidaysburg last fall.

The Blair County Courthouse as seen from the top of Chimney Rocks Park last fall.

Leaves rustling in the wind on top of Chimney Rocks Park.

National Aviary in Pittsburgh (with photo gallery)

Cassidy and I made a return trip to Pittsburgh about two weeks ago as part of a mini-summer getaway. The city is so big that we had to make a list beforehand of places we wanted to visit.

We originally had the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium in mind as one option, even though we've visited it before. Both of us enjoy animals, and the Pittsburgh Zoo has a great selection -- in addition to it being one of the few zoos to have its own aquarium. However, we wanted to try something new this time around.

That's when we remembered Pittsburgh has the National Aviary -- a "zoo" dedicated solely to birds. I have always been fascinated with birds, especially since my family has owned a cockatiel for the past few years.

He's a pet cockatiel with the heart of a soaring eagle.

We decided to make the aviary the first destination on our trip. After visiting it, I can say it was the best way to start our mini-vacation.

The aviary has an impressive assortment of birds -- about 500 birds spanning 150 species, according to its website. The birds are divided into regions, including grasslands, tropical rainforests, wetlands and more. These rooms are climate-controlled to imitate the habitats the birds came from. For example, the grasslands room was hot and dry, while the tropical rainforest exhibit was boggy and warm.

In almost all of the exhibits, the birds were free-roaming. Several of them darted past us, just inches from our heads as we walked around. Others sat on top of branches or speaker posts watching with curiosity. In most cases, the birds went about their business without interruption, as if the groups of people nearby were nonexistent.

I could ramble on about all the types of birds and the exhibits, but I took so many photos for this post that I'm going to switch my focus from text to art.

These are just a few of the birds out of the several Cassidy and I saw on our trip. I recommend anyone visiting Pittsburgh who likes birds to take some time to stop at the National Aviary. We got through the entire aviary in less than two hours, and the prices for parking, admission and food were reasonable.

For additional information, you can visit the aviary's website here for rates, events and more. Enjoy the photography.

Keel-billed toucans

American flamingo

American golden-plover

Bald eagle

Gouldian finch

Green-winged macaw

Hyacinth macaw

Inca tern

Roseate spoonbill

Wattled curassow

Victoria crowned pigeon

Steller's sea eagle

Burrowing owls

Brown pelicans

And last but not least: African penguins