Today’s adventure makes two visits in one week to Gouldsboro State Park! I wasn’t aware of it last week when we came to Gouldsboro in search of WANNA, but there is a bench mark atop Prospect Rock in the park. It’s not shown on any recent topo maps; in fact, the only map I could find that shows the mark is the 1921 Tobyhanna quad from the Maptech/MyTopo historical topographic maps collection. This is the reason we were initially unaware of the mark.
I was intrigued by the “prospect” of hiking the Prospect Rock Trail and searching for this mark, so we decided to return. My father was interested too; Rich and I had even been talking on Monday about how much my father would have liked this area and the old Highway 611 trail, so the plan for the day just came together nicely.
Our original plan was to hike either the entire loop (Prospect Rock → Old Highway 611 [western half] → old entrance road) or to make a slightly shorter balloon hike (Prospect Rock → Old Highway 611 [most of the western half] → track road → repeat Prospect Rock trail). Once we began hiking, though, we all began to think that it might be wise to alter our plan a bit. The Prospect Rock trail is gorgeous, lined with ferns and boulders and evergreens, but the treadway is all rock, loose and rugged, and overgrowth droops heavily over most of the trail, so we were stooping as we worked our way through it, wondering how many ticks we were brushing up against. This trail would be much more pleasant in the winter. But for today, we thought that it might be a better use our time to go just as far as the bench mark (or the Prospect Rock summit, if the bench mark couldn’t be found) and then retrace our steps, then drive down to the southernmost parking area and hike the old entrance road down to Old Highway 611 trail and hike the eastern section this time.
I had estimated coordinates from one of the maps (actually not the topo map that showed the bench mark) so we hiked toward them, but I had plenty of doubts about how close they would be and if we even stood a chance of finding the mark in this jungle. At about 75 feet from our estimated coordinates we came upon a vertical rock ledge and above it a “summit” that, while far from being bare, was easily recognizable as having been a bare rock summit at some point.
The three of us split up to search and within 30 seconds, Rich exclaimed “Here it is!” He had found the bench mark on a large boulder just about ten feet southwest of the current route of the trail. Mostly by coincidence and luck, I’m sure, the mark was within 35 feet of the very approximate coordinates I had determined beforehand.
The disk is an old style, thick (“cookie-like”) USGS Bench Mark Disk. It is in fair condition, with many scratches on the surface and a few “bites” out of one side. I was easily able to read the elevation (2062) but could not see the “TBY” anywhere on the marred surface of the disk. Despite the cosmetic damage, the disk is very solid in its setting and the rock seems stable as well.
We did indeed decide to descend Prospect Rock and head directly back to the car after finding the bench mark. We then hiked an out-and-back route along the old entrance road and the eastern half of the Old 611 trail, vigilantly steering Dad away from the poison ivy that lines much of the eastern half of Old 611.