HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER

                           

                       

DAYS ON THE ALLEGHENY

HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER

By

Joe Ewing

High HareMan of the

Big Woods Hare Hunters of the Allegheny

The big woods of the Allegheny has the feeling of an oil field first and a wilderness second.

The following story appeared in the June 2018 issue

of BETTER BEAGLING magazine,  the July issue of
THE RABBIT HUNTER magazine and July issue of AMERICAN BEAGLER magazine

and is presented here for your reading pleasure with authorization of the author.

The air on the Allegheny is cold. The thermometer on the dashboard reads, “Zero”. It’s dark. The sinking sun vanished beyond the distant horizon hours ago. There’s no light pollution here and there’s no moon or stars. It’s zero-dark-thirty. The digital clock on the dashboard reads “8:15”. A stiff north breeze is the only thing moving. I know the wind chill index is low. The truck’s gas gauge reads empty.  I’m running on fumes. I’ll be out for a hike if the motor quits. I haven’t seen another human for hours. My hunting partner deserted me. It’s bowling night and I’m chasing a beagle named Speckles.

They’ve abandoned me before. I’m talking about both of them. I’m accustomed to being forsaken. I had to take him back to town because he couldn’t bear being late for bowling. I had to call home anyway and buy batteries for the electronics. He was telling me how his son didn’t come in until after dark one evening during deer season. “I hope it wasn’t bowling night,” I muttered sarcastically out of the corner of my mouth. I’m not leaving this hound out in the cold. This lost dog thing only happens when I’m low on battery power, short on gasoline or there’s a schedule to meet.

I have a Tracker® receiver clutched in my nearly frostbitten, formerly nicotine stained, fingers and Speckles has a Wildlife Materials® collar draped around her neck. I’ve been chasing this baffling signal from hillside to mountainside since three o’clock this afternoon. I’ve been using this dog retrieval gear for a while now and there’s one thing I should’ve learned and that is not to chase beagles on foot. My dad always told me, “what you lack in your head you’ll make up for in your feet.” I believe him now.  I will not chase these beagles on foot ever again, I keep promising myself, but then I do it again.  The hounds are faster than I am and they always, without fail, beat me back to the truck. I’ve had lost beagles arrive back home before me. This is not my first rodeo.

J. Ewing Photo

Wiggles and Speckles in 2006.

There are miles of roads in the Allegheny National Forest (ANF). With the uptick of increased oil and gas developing along with the usual timbering operations there are even more roads being built. Many ANF roads are gated but some gates are left unlocked. The increase in crude oil prices has forced the oil and gas companies to keep their roads open. None-the-less, many hunters carry tire chains, tow straps and tow chains and come-alongs.

J. Ewing Photo

A come-along, come-a-longs or comealongs is a hand operated winch with a ratchet used to pull objects. Four ton come-a-longs are never enough. I’m done with come-a-longs.

I’m done with come-a-longs. They never get me unstuck. A come-along, come-a-longs or comealongs is a hand operated winch with a ratchet used to pull objects. Four ton come-a-longs are never enough.

I chased beagles this morning which was stupid. “Stupid is as stupid does,” said Forest Gump.  Down the mountain I went for a mile before reaching a forest service road where I discovered dog tracks. Up the road the dog tracks went with two sets of tracks turning back toward the pickup. Within minutes the beagles were back at the dog-truck looking for me, except for Speckles. The third set of tracks belong to her and she stayed on the road.

J. Ewing Photo

Just a few of the items I carry while hunting snowshoe hare on the Allegheny in the dead of winter. The items proceeding clockwise from the top left include; a snow shovel, flashlight, 20-foot tow chain, nylon tow strap, jumper cables, choker chains and two sets of tire chains.

Upon returning to the pickup and finding Speckles absent, I took off down the mountain for a second time. The further I went down the mountain the weaker the signal became. I retreated and the signal got stronger. The signal is stronger straight away toward the next mountain which suggests she’s on top of that mountain. I must find her before she drops off the other side. If she goes over the edge I will sure enough lose her signal.

J. Ewing Photo

Wiggles and Speckles on the hunt for hare on the Allegheny in 2009.

Locals, visitors and myself call these hills “mountains”, however, the Allegheny Plateau is a table land or high plain. During the last ice age, the glacier leveled the land. Over the last hundreds of thousands of years, give or take a few years, ancient streams and rivers cut deep valleys into the landscape.  The Allegheny Plateau extends through western and central New York, northern and western Pennsylvania, northern and western West Virginia and eastern Ohio. A large portion of the plateau is known as the “Big Level”.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Allegheny Plateau

Not long ago I chased a signal for miles before it dawned on me the signal was running on the electric line. Luckily, I was not on foot. After reconnoitering, I found old Blackie right where I left him. He was more abandoned than lost.

Blacky, hunting with the author and Master Maine Guide, Bob Howe (R)

I have a good signal now. Standing outside the truck in the cold trying to pinpoint a good signal is getting cold and old. As I idle slowly forward the signal is getting noticeably stronger. The signal is steering me into an oil company installation containing several buildings. I’ve never been here before and I probably shouldn’t be here now especially in the dark. I wonder if the place is alarmed. This oil field is owned by Minard Run Oil Company which is the world’s oldest family owned and operated independent oil producer under the continuous management of one family.

J. Ewing Photo

Wiggles 2007

There are dog tracks in the relatively fresh snow. As I study them they look way too big to belong to Speckles and there’s too many of them. They could be coyote tracks but they seem too big even for coyote. Luckily, there are no wolves on the Allegheny. I swallow hard at the thought of coyotes and wolves. A feeling of uneasiness washes over me followed by a deeper feeling of urgency. I must find Speckles soon.

An ancient wooden oil tank is an ornament in some local’s front yard. The pipe in the foreground may indicate an abandoned, orphaned or a plugged oil well.

These wooden crude tanks were used to separate the crude oil from the produced water. They operated on the simple theory that oil floats on water. The water was then allowed to flow onto the ground. This wooden tank is likely more than a century old. The tanks were often made of cypress wood or redwood. These old oil tanks were so well made that many are still in operation today and many abandoned tanks are so impregnated with crude oil they will undoubtedly last forever.

I hear a gas engine running in one building. Natural gas driven engines are used to power electric generators on these remote oil and gas leases. Many leases are miles from any commercial power line. The electricity produced by the generators power the pumping jacks, lights and other equipment. Natural gas is in endless supply and cheap. The big woods of the Allegheny has the feeling of an oil field first and a wilderness second.

The Allegheny is home to more than 12,000 active gas and oil wells. Some produce hardly a barrel of crude a week, while others produce several times that. Much of the paraffin-rich oil is trucked to the American Refining Group in Bradford, about 6 miles northeast of the ANF, where it's refined into lubricating oil.

Oil wells dotted the landscape many decades before the Allegheny National Forest was created. An additional 100,000 wells may be abandoned or “orphaned”. Orphaned wells are wells whose legal owner is unknown. Thousands of wells have been abandoned for over a century and information about them is impossible to find. Orphaned wells can cause environmental damage by leaking pollutants into the atmosphere or water supplies.

 

J. Ewing Photo

Electric powered oil pumping jack on the high plateau today.

The signal is strong no matter which way I point the receiver. The signal seems strongest toward a three-sided storage building packed full of bales of straw. If I were a beagle this is where I’d be hunkered down for the night. As I shine my quickly dimming flashlight around the area I call out her name, “Speckles?” I yell louder, “Speckles.” No response because she’s not here.

As I make my way back to my idling pick-up I see headlights approaching. Just what I need. I’m not in the mood to do a lot of explaining. As what seems like excessively bright headlights come to a stop, I guess it to be an oilfield worker checking up on his equipment. At least it’s not the game warden, forest ranger or the state police. He has a big black dog in his cab which explains a lot. “Hello,” I shout for no good reason. “I’m looking for a lost beagle,” I try to explain in a lower tone. The man doesn’t seem to care I’m in his compound. I’m relieved.

“I haven’t seen one,” he says. “Some kind of tracking device you got there?” he asks as he hears the beeping coming from the receiver.

“Yep, I’m using this radio tracker to help me locate my dog,” I respond. “The signal brought me here but I don’t think she’s here.” The conversation lasts only seconds.

“I’ll keep an eye out,” he says and with that he’s on his way only giving me an instant to blurt out, “thank you”.

Back in my pick-up, vigorously trying to get some warmth back in my tingling fingers, it occurs to me all of these buildings are made of sheet-metal. Could the signal be bouncing off all this steel, I ask myself? Speckles has to be close.

In 1859, Colonel Edwin L. Drake struck oil on Oil Creek in Venango County which is only 30 miles from where I’m sitting. Drake started the worldwide commercial oil industry. Rapid development spread across the Allegheny Plateau. Most of the land was owned by large timber companies. During this period, developers purchased oil and gas rights from private landowners and began development. Some leases date back to the 1880s. Ninety three percent of the mineral rights under the ANF are privately owned.

Drake oil will museum near Titusville, PA.
By Zamoose - Originally uploaded on en.wikipedia, 

Like I said this, is not my first rodeo. I’ve chased beagles for what seems like more times than the beagles have chased rabbits, which is not true. I’ve chased this Speckles more times than I care to count. She and her litter mate, Wiggles, were always running off when they were pups. They’d hit a forestry road, take off and go for miles. More than once I saw them race right past the dog-truck. They didn’t stop, they never looked back and they had no desire to turn around. I’d have to chase them down.

I’m slowly motoring down a road which leads me deeper into the forest. As the signal gradually grows stronger I approach another gas driven generator and more steel buildings. “This is getting ridiculous,” I say out loud. The signal is strong. I stop the truck, climb out and call, “Speckles, Speckles,” and nothing.

“Speckles, Speckles,” I yell at the top of my lungs. Suddenly she appears like a ghost materializing out of the dark shadows. Fresh mountain air fills my lungs as I take a long and serious sigh of relief. No cold night on the Allegheny for Speckles.

This saga truly took place one evening many years ago. My memory keeps it alive like it was yesterday. A great many things have changed since way back then and many have remained the same. I’m still chasing hare and beagles on the high plateau; however, today I’m the proud owner of a Garmin® Astro® 320®.  I miss that old Tracker® like I miss my last root canal.

There are many new developments on the Allegheny. Hundreds of Marcellus and Utica oil shale wells have been drilled on or near the ANF. Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” is a major controversy in Pennsylvania as it is around the world. Water and oil tanker trucks along with the ever-present log trucks compete for space on the narrow forest roads. The diminished price of oil and gas has slowed some practices. The forest service now restricts travel on many of their roads during certain times of the year.

The ANF is labeled, “the land of many uses.” Oil and gas development, timbering and hunting are only three of those many uses. Even though oil and gas development has spoiled many fine snowshoe hare hunting covers the timber industry is creating many more new ones every day. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the world.

Was that night and many other similar days and nights worth it? Being a witness to just one of our Creator’s most magnificent creations, the snowshoe hare in winter, makes it all worthwhile to me.

UPDATE:

Big Woods Hare Hound
Little Toby Creek Speckles
has moved on to that big hunting grounds.

Speckles passed away yesterday (Sept 7, 2018) at the "ripe old age" of one month short of 16 years which is a long life for a hunting hound.

Speckles enjoyed a great life chasing cottontail and hare. Along with her sister, Wiggles, she chased a moose or two in Maine along with hundreds of hare. Besides Maine and Pennsylvania Speckles chased hare on the Tug Hill Plateau and the Adirondack Mountains of New York State.

She was a fixture around Little Toby Creek Kennel for a long time and we will miss her.

Comments from friends and family;

Larenzo Ewing Great writing, really enjoyed reading it. Sorry for your loss

Brenda McMunn Hoover Andy and I send our heartfelt condolences. I remember her as a puppy and Andy has lots of memories of hunts with her. We are in Maine and don't have access to our lineage records; but, Andy was wondering if Molly was one of her pups?

James Kazmarek We are so sorry for your loss. The Cap't and Mrs., Cap't.

NiknMatt Baker So sorry to hear that.

Marty Hrin So sorry it always a bummer when you lose a good dog no mater how old they are

Will-Marylou Moreland Sorry to hear that

Wayne Wilson Each dog plays a special part in our lives

Steven Thompson I'm sorry to hear about Speckles...they don't live long enough!