Bougiegrnk's Travels: Getting through Pennsylvania

The first step on our way back was to get out of New York and make our way through the state of Pennsylvania. Stops along the way in the small town of Wellsboro and the tiny town of LA Porte allowed us to take in a couple of things that we didn't really know about until we got here.

Ricketts Glen State Park near La Porte is an absolute gem of a park. While we really didn't have the time to take it all it, we were able to get the best part. Colonel R. Bruce Ricketts purchased this land in 1868 for the purpose of timber. Upon exploring his land, he discovered that two different branches of Kitchen Creek had carved deep gorges through his land over the centuries. The two branches of Kitchen Creek met in the center of his land forming a huge “Y”. Being a member of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, he recognized the importance of his discovery and was careful to preserve it.

The Park contains the most dramatic of Ricketts’ discovery. A 3 plus mile loop trail takes you down one branch of Kitchen Creek to where the two branches merge, and then back up the other branch. The centuries of carving have created dramatic waterfalls along both branches prior to where they merge, and the loop trail takes you past all of them.

According to park literature, there are 22 waterfalls within this area. But the Woman and I think that is very misleading. There may be only 22 immense falls that Ricketts had personally named (all with native American themed names), there are easily 80-100 some odd waterfalls, with many of the unnamed falls being as beautiful as some of the named ones. This one is now named Robin Falls, although we weren’t able to put a name plaque on it for lack of tools and materials.

The rain we had been getting improved our viewing considerably. And we got really lucky when we went – we assumed since it was a dreary day during the middle of the week that we would have no problem getting in. Well, even though we got pretty wet during the one heavy rainfall period in our hike, when we arrived at the trail-head, the ample parking lot nearly full already. By the time we left, the lot was full, closed by Park Rangers, and people coming at that time had to park another mile away!

Near Wellsboro are Leonard Harrison and Colton Point State Parks. Named for local civic leaders who were in part responsible for preserving this area for public use, the parks are on the bluffs on either side of the Pine Creek Gorge. The gorge formed by Pine Creek has earned the name Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania. We visited Harrison State Park in the afternoon and strolled the short paths along the bluffs overlooking the Canyon. The views were spectacular – not the rocky jagged look of the Arizona version. But while these fuzzy densely forested hillsides looked different than their namesake, the Canyon is over 800 feet deep and only a bit over a quarter mile across, so the nickname does seem to fit.

Near the edge of the Park is a ranger tower that dates back to the times of George Washington Sears. Sears was an early conservationist in the late 1800’s, and a writer for Field and Stream Magazine. The Tower, as it is known locally, allows elevated views of the Canyon, as well as views for hundreds of miles in all direction. Under private ownership now, we found the owner’s technology to be very interesting – they actually had a live credit card scanner linked both to a satellite dish and to a full body turnstile. You swipe your card, the satellite obtains instant approval of the charge, and the turnstile clicks – only one person can squeeze through at a time!

In the morning, even though it was raining and only 37 degrees, before we hit the road again we biked 6 miles into the Grand Canyon. An early logging railroad had been built in the base of Pine Valley Gorge. That rail spur has been converted to a multipurpose path. Hikers, bikers and horses are all allowed to use some portion of the path – its maybe over 20 feet wide. Local tour companies run huge horse drawn wagons up and down the path for the enjoyment of visitors to the area.

We biked donning our heavy gloves and coats, we biked until we were well past the overlooks we had been at the night before. And not only did we get an up close and friendly look at the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania, but we ended up with it being a wildlife excursion. Since it was spitting a bit and 37 degrees, nobody was out and about. So we spotted 3 deer down by the creek getting a morning drink – they quickly scattered when they heard the crunching of our bike tires on the gravel. We also spotted at least 3 Bald Eagles – since they were flying down the gorge as we biked, we don’t know for sure if we saw just 3, or if maybe some that we thought were the same were actually different birds – maybe we saw as many as 6.