Lake Grubb
Every so often, there are unnatural places that turn into really nice things. Nature reclaims them, and they become wonderful places to visit. Lake Grubb in Hempfield township is a great example of one of these types of places.
The lake was an old iron ore mine from the 1800s. The pit has filled with water now, creating a lake that, from what I have read, is up to 180 feet deep. Stupid things such as this interest me. I’ve always wondered how deep Lake Grubb is, or any other lake for that matter. Like the lakes in the strip mines up the mountains when I was a kid, the water is a blueish green. I’m assuming it has to do with the metals in the very deep water.
I think it was 2003 or so when we started geocaching that they turned the area into a nature park. We’ve been there a bunch of times over the years for caches and several other times to just enjoy the nice but short hike around the lake. The trail has some nice hilly sections, but it’s only a little over a mile long, so it doesn’t take too long to do the loop. It’s great when we wanted to get a fix of fresh outdoors air but didn’t have a lot of time to do it.
Today we went for a couple of new to us caches and once again had a pleasant, enjoyable hike around the trail. It’s seasonably warm today but not humid yet, with a nice breeze, so it was a great day to enjoy some of that fresh air. We passed only one other person walking and a couple of guys fishing.
I didn’t really hear any birds today besides the two geese and on robin. Normally, we hear more, but they’ve been pretty quiet in general around here during the day. We did see countless dragon flies flying around, especially along the water.
Sadly, though we came across where the person was fishing, there was a goose that seemed to be caught up in old fishing line. There was lots of fishing line and floats in that area and in other areas along the banks where trees had fallen. One of the bad side effects of fishing is that fishing line seems to last forever.
The trail used to be dirt/mud, but today I noticed that they’ve put gravel down. That made the trail quite a bit smoother with less erosion in it and the muddy parts in the past tended to be slippery, so that was improved now.
There are several areas with benches around overlooking the lake, and we took advantage of one of them today to take it all in for a few minutes. It was pretty quiet out there today. The only thing we really heard or the louder vehicles out on the road and the wind, and occasionally the father/son that were fishing near where the goose entangled in old fishing lines I guess.
Lake Grubb is one of the types of places that I am genuinely thankful to have access to for days like today.