This warm, sunny morning was just right for some scouting missions in Wyoming County. Today, though, our main goal was to check out some possible woodchuck-hunting locations. We started out around 8:00am and reached the vegetable stand along Route 29 where we were to inquire about access to some farms in the area. Eventually we were directed to a house down the road; here we met a man and his wife who said we were welcome to hunt for woodchucks in their fields. Unfortunately, we saw nothing of note in these vegetable fields other than interesting irrigation equipment, massive pumpkin plants and a trail through the woods leading down to Bowman’s Creek.
We soon turned our attention to scouting out, by car, access to a Jeep trail we saw on the topo map. As the current configuration of roads and property no longer matches that on the map, we had no luck here either. But we did spend some time along the way looking for benchmarks, at which we were somewhat successful.
We had no description for this mark, but the coordinates Rich took from the map were good enough to point us directly to the right bridge, even the right wingwall. I wasn’t surprised when I saw the mark directly below the PDH keystone plaque. The disk appears to be in good shape, and like many similar disks is unstamped. Strangely, I was unable to find this bridge in PennDOT’s historic bridge database.
For 37 B, we had no description to work from, but the coordinates Rich pulled off the map were good enough to get us close. They brought us to the intersection of T337, T335 and T322, where we searched for a culvert, boulder, ledge or anywhere else we’d typically expect to find a benchmark. After only five or ten minutes, Rich found the mark on a large boulder in the woods just past the intersection, a few yards west of T322. It appears to be solid in its setting and in good condition overall.
The remainder of the morning was spent driving in the countryside, puzzling over the best way to reach J 58, and sneaking in a few blackberries from the side of the road while taking a quick look for a mark on a culvert. We stopped at Cangiano’s for a roast beef sandwich (for R.) and a “Cousin Vinnie” made with rosemary ham (for Zh). Terrific Summer day!
