Abutments & mossy waterfalls...part 1

I came across these the day i sort of stumbled upon the proposed Mid State Trail for the first time.

Not too far east of Landrus is this great old pair of railroad bridge abutments on either side of Babb creek (the one on the northern side is shown in the bottom picture, above).

I had been following these mysterious flags (which i now know are *MST) on an old grade following the
north side of Babb Creek to the west. It was starting to get hard to follow the flags so i took a grade that cut off at a diagonal down closer to the creek.

The grade stopped, very cleanly, at the edge of the creek. There was a clearly manmade edge here and i could see where the grade continued on the other side, though at the time, the abutment there was obscured from my view.

I bushwacked my way west of the bridge a bit to find a way down to the creek, as the bridge is quite high. I carefully made my way thru the mossy bog above the *milky white waterfall (above, top) which is just a few feet west of the bridge.

The waterfall is kind of hard to see, especially this time of year, because it is situated in between the current north bank of Babb Creek and a long island, which is jungle-like, to put it nicely.

The abutments here are 2 of 4 that i have currently seen on Babb Creek. This one is not connected directly to the MST (very close though). The other 2 abutments are right on the trail, between Landrus and the outlet of Nickel Run into Babb Creek.

(*notes on the side: MST = Mid State Trail...also...What's up with that milky waterfall? I don't know...mine waste related i presume. The little creekbed above the falls is stained like that as well and the pool at the bottom of the falls has a white powder-like coating - many of the drainages on this hillside look like this...and there are MANY drainages!)

(UPDATE 10/4/05 - We explored the ridge directly above/north of the milky waterfall...two main drainages and countless springs are up there......the two main drainages come right out of the Bear Run Mine treatment ponds - the exhaust pipe at the head of the drains REAKED of sulphur....)