My Mom’s Mountain

Between birth and the age of eleven, I lived in Berks County. Our family used to make the 3 hour drive during the summers to my grandmother’s house in Defiance, PA. Coincidentally, this is the house that I lived in from eleven to the time I left for college. But that’s not what this story is about.

On our trips to Grandma’s house we would take the PA turnpike from exit 20 in Ephrata to exit 13 in Fort Littleton. Being hyperactive and confined to a car I had to find ways to amuse myself. Every time I drive on the turnpike now I think of the little things that I noticed or experienced when I was young and trapped in the back seat of the car.

I remember seeing a small family graveyard in a cornfield to the North of the turnpike. I had this pointed out to me when I was very young and I looked for it on every subsequent trip. However, I never saw it again until I spotted it quite unexpectedly about a year ago.

I remember a spot where my dad threw an apple out of the window into the woods. It was just past an overpass and after I scolded him for littering he remarked that it would be good food for the animals. Everytime we passed an overpass on our return trips, I always looked into the woods in the hopes of seeing wildlife happily snacking on the core of a discarded apple.

There was the sign, just off the turnpike outside of Fort Littleton, that dad inadvertantly (and gently) backed in to while stopped for one reason or another. Every trip after that I insisted that he apologize to the sign. I don’t think he ever did and now the intersection has been leveled and improved by PennDot.

But the thing that reminds me most of our trips to Defiance, and my brother can verify this, is My Mom’s Mountain. Just outside the Tuscarora Tunnel from the westbound lane, you can look to the southwest and see the end of a ridgeline that is very pointy. From the vantage point of the turnpike it almost appears to be a perfect pyramid. We would come through the tunnel and Dad would proclaim, “There’s your mother’s mountain!.” Dan and I (at that time in our lives, ignorant of the obvious innuendo) would delight in seeing this mountain because it meant we weren’t very far from our destination. That may not have been true, but we liked to believe that it was our own landmark that only we shared.

As Bridget and I drove back from Philadelphia today, we emerged from the Tuscarora Tunnel and there stood My Mom’s Mountain. I scrambled to find my GPS so that I could get coordinates and find it quickly on a map. I would love to take time to explore this mountain at some point. Possibly climb to the top and look out over the countryside. The hard part of things like this is figuring out who controls the land and access to it. I believe Buchanan State Forest is down there, but I’m not sure if it encompasses the mountain. I’ll send an email to the park manager and see what I can find out.

Upon returning home I looked up the site on my mapping software. The mountain is actually called “Sidney’s Knob” and is located in Fulton County near the town of Burnt cabins, ZIP code 17215. It rises to an elevation of 620 meters and has a trail that runs along its base called The Cove Trail. This sounds like a hiking trip just waiting to happen. The memories of passing by this mountain so many times as a child and the stories that grew from those trips are powerful. It’s amazing how much an inanimate object can cause a flood of memories. When I think of the trips to visit my grandmother when I was young, I think of two things, and this is one of them. It makes me smile every time I pass it.

My Mom's Mountain (3D from Tuscarora Tunnel)

My Mom's Mountain (topo)
Click the images to enlarge.

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4 Responses to My Mom’s Mountain

  1. DoubleDecker says:

    Do you remember the guy Veryl (the whistler) at the gas station near Richards?

  2. AxsDeny says:

    Indeed I do. We went to Fort Littleton by way of Waterfall to get on the Turnpike and I saw the old service station as we passed. I said, “There’s Verl’s!” but I don’t think Bridget heard me or she would’ve asked what I meant. Of course with me saying random stuff all the time she may have learned how to ignore those moments. 😉

  3. bridgey says:

    I didn’t hear you! I would have definitely asked…

  4. cindy says:

    Did someone say, “hiking trip?” …

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