Unfortunately, not all ghosts live just in our imaginations. And some come back to haunt us repeatedly. Discovered one of those ghosts along the Montour Trail again.

Between mile markers 29.5-29.0, about a half mile from the old Montour 4 mine portal, there’s a covered pavilion along the trail. Courtesy of an Eagle Scout project. It sits next to a ravine which climbs sharply to the back end of a housing plan. Many springs tumble down that hill, under the trail, under a dirt road and then onto Chartiers Creek. Ultimately this drains into the Ohio River. One of the springs seems to be coming out of the rock nearer to the bottom of the hill. It’s stream bed is quite orange. I associate that color with iron contaminated acidic mine drainage. It joins other springs which come from higher up the hill which ‘appear normal’ but from that point on the stream bed is orange all the way to Chartiers Creek.

I went back there last  week to take some pictures and to test the pH and conductivity of the orange effluent stream. This is a view from the trail of some of the streams on the hillside.  The flow on the right has a definite orange color.

I started the climb down but, unfortunately, the ‘easier way’ I thought I saw turned out to be a wet drainage way. Tried another route that turned out to be steeper than it looked & covered with wet leaves & moss. Got about 75% of the way down. At that point took a zoom close up of the orange stream bed where it seems to come out of the rock outcropping.

And then where it’s culvertized further down under the trail.

But below that point the slope ended in a 5-7′ vertical drop to the spring. Way too much adventure for a mid-70 something. Climbed back up without testing the effluent stream.

The above information was passed along to the Chartiers Creek Watershed Association and  subsequently to the Washington County Conservation District. They’re going to try to access the stream at the bottom of the hill where it’s culvertized under the dirt road.

Let me know if you’ve got some ‘finds’ to document or explore in your area.