A school, two churches and some outhouses! Oh My!!

It must have been early November when i got the map of Landrus from Pete (thanks!). It's an old hand drawn kind of thing with no scale, but it made a lot of sense to me.... i copied it quickly in my sketchbook and anxiously anticipated the next day when i would have the time to go to Landrus.

The landmark on the map that caught my eye was a spring - not because i knew it, because i didn't know it! I don't want to give alot of information about its location, but i see it everytime i drive by now that i know where it is. (top photo)

From the spring, the map led me to most everything on the south side of Babb Creek that i was previously unfamiliar with including the school, the Yankee Church (middle photo) and several house foundations. I also came upon another very nice spring house, some outhouse pits(bottom photo) and a foundation with "indoor plumbing".

The only major map landmark on the south side of the creek that i have not been able to locate/identify is the Swedish Lutheran Church. I need to go back and look again, but it doesn't appear to be where the map says it is located. It shows a distance of 800 feet between the school and the church. I measured from what i believe to be the school and didn't find much! It's possible that i think the wrong foundation is the school. I did come across some spots that could have been the church - the foundation just may not be as intact as the rest.

The map also answered a few of the questions we'd always had about Landrus - it identifies the concrete stand-like thing next to the road at Landrus as the Rail Road water tank tower. The large, raised plot near this that is used heavily as a camp these days is apparently where the foremans house once stood. The half foundation that sits across the road from where the stone Landrus marker is today was the company store.

There is so much more to the town, more to come on the portions of town north of Landrus rd. and Babb Creek.

For more pictures, go to: http://pictures.insanart.com/landrus

Nickel Run - it's a jungle!

The falls on Nickel Run. Great little falls (it's not that small, i'm pretty sure it's actually taller than Sand Run falls). Watch for falling rocks, a portion of the outcrop/overhang below had fallen fairly recently.



(Nickel Run is a tributary of Babb Creek, entering just downstream/west of Landrus.)

My trail had a sign! (for about a week...)

I pull in to Landrus two or three weeks ago and to my suprise I found a spanking new State Forest sign marking the head of the trail I do my sculptures on. "BEAR RUN TRAIL".

Nice.

I took a picture thinking, "this would be great for the blog."

Glad I did, 'cause a week later when i came back it was gone! The pole is still there, but the part with words is gone. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.

(actually, i've been meaning to email dcnr and see if maybe they took it down)

(UPDATE: as of 4/21 the sign has been replaced....yay again!)

warning?

hmmm....i just thought i should throw this one out here. i was at Landrus on monday (july 18) and there was a man there acting very suspiciously, following me around.

i have his description and a pretty interesting story, i'm not going to post it, but if there are any questions about it please email me. it kind of freaked me out - i don't really want to have to worry about going to one of my favorite places...

...and to anyone trying to mess around down there, i carry a machete.

the info signs at Landrus, pt. 2

This is the Landrus marker/sign that most people may be familiar with. It is located right next to the Landrus road, on the Babb Creek side. There is a bit of a crossroads here, one heading down towards the creek, and the other up towards the foundations and the small creek here that i build my sculptures on (Bear run i believe it may be called, i don't think i've ever seen a name for it on any map).

Abutments & mossy waterfalls...part 2

...these are the other two abutments i was speaking of, which are west of landrus. The westernmost one (top photo) is pretty much surrounded by the creek, though there is rock outcrop on the north edge that is almost like stairs. The water on this side is very deep where the creek has cut away all the way down to the bedrock and up against this abutment. Ben was bouldering on this, confident that if he did happen to fall, the water was deep enough that it would break his fall. The Mid State Trail will come to this abutment and follow the old rail grade that goes west from here 'til Nickle Run.

The abutment on the other side, the east side (bottom photo) is in just as good of shape. It has definitely taken some water throughout the years - behind the sagging rocks on the left side, the grade has been eaten away through floods, but, the damage is only minor, i assume, compared to the amount of water going over it, and time this has been going on. This grade looks so odd, looking at it from the abutment on the other side...there is this beautiful creek bed and then this man-made monsterous raised grade just sitting there, in the middle of nowhere. I'm glad to see that it's still there tho. Many of the old grades in the Landrus area had been removed during construction of the area's mine reclamation projects. I wonder now if there are more bridges on the main grade that i don't know about.....

Flood sculptures & doomed tadpoles

The tadpoles were in this shallow pocket on the sunbathing rock on Babb Creek at Landrus. They couldn't have been there long, cos we'd only had so much rain and the time before when i was there (2 weeks perhaps) there was no water in those pockets. So, we used an empty bottle to add some fresh water to the pockets from the creek, possibly giving those little guys a chance.

The "sculptures" were a log i found upstream from the big rock. It had a bunch of flood debris caught up in it, but there was this little pocket with the two stones that i just loved. The composition of the whole thing turned out nice. Thanks nature. To see some more photos of this go to http://pictures.insanart.com/landrus. There are a whole bunch of these types of things on the creek right around Landrus that i need to photograph.