Adventure: Bogus Rocks

Anyone who has spent extensive time exploring the wilderness of Pennsylvania has come across the occasional rock outcropping that secretly dot the landscape. When you explore them enough, every grouping of these blocks of sandstone begins to seem as ordinary as the last. Yet occasionally, one of them retains some sort of old legend or story to give it a little bit of character. An outcropping near Knox in the Pa Wilds just off an abandoned railroad would be nothing truly special if it weren't for a tale of gunfighters, outlaws, and one unlucky traveling salesman. Shortly after the Civil War, Levi Epstein was bringing his wares to a strange Ohio family camped out in the crevices of the large rocks back in the forest. Levi thought i awfully suspicious to be making a delivery to such a remote location and to be paid in such a large amount of fresh cash from a family that seemed so poor they were using the natural overhangs for shelters... or were they hide-outs? Before Mr. Epstein could make his return journey, government agents surrounded the stone fortress. The haggard old woman that was in charge of the group, known to everyone as simply "Maw," ordered her boys to take up arms. The entire family bunkered down in the outcrop and a huge battle of rifles ensued until the men sent in by the Department of Revenue prevailed. As they raided the possessions of Maw's gang they began to confiscate overwhelming amounts of counterfeit money and the plates and presses they had been using to print it amongst the mossy cliffs. Levi had narrowly survived by hiding between the cracks of the boulders, returning to civilization to propagate his crazy tale. The outcrop appropriately gained the moniker "Bogus Rocks" and some still claim that some of the bogus bucks and printing plates are still there, carefully hidden by Maw.

After hearing this story, I obviously just had to check it out. But I could never pinpoint the location. Turns out, a friend from Clarion had passed right through it while interning with the Forest Service, though she was unaware of its historical significance. So we combined our knowledge and sought out Bogus Rocks, and I spent a fine afternoon with my friends Joe and Danielle hiking to the rocks that hid so many criminals.

Pictures and description of our journey is right after the jump!

The journey brought us right into the old oil country of northwestern Pennsylvania, where rusty old oil rigs are practically a natural part of the recovering landscape. We passed this one by and found bushwhacked our way to the old railroad.

We came out on top of the rocks after a short hike. It took a few minutes to wander down since I had forgone the rapelling equipment, but we did it. The rocks were fairly standard but pretty cool nonetheless. Here's a few pics.

With the rocks explored pretty thoroughly, we headed back out, detouring to see a pretty damn cool meadow before going to grab some food in Marienville. Woo.

Tally-ho!
-Crash