Today we hiked in the Pinchot State Forest which is named for Gifford Pinchot who played a founding role in America’s conservation movement. The Pinchot State forest is approximately 50,000 acres and encompasses five different counties. There are many hiking trails within this forest, and today we barely scratched the surface with a short hike in the Thornhurst Track on the Pine Hill Trail. The Pine Hill Trail led us to a vista point where there’s a wooden observation tower. You can climb the stairs to the top and overlook some of the surrounding area which in the summer (as with most of Pennsylvania’s ‘views’) is mostly looking at the tops as trees. It was a very nice hike and I hope to explore more of this forest in the future, as there are many trails with a lot of miles to cover including the 26 mile Pinchot Trail loop which is a popular backpacking excursion.
Today we revisited both the Nothstein Preserve and the Van Buskirk Preserve, both of which we had hiked in March before the deciduous trees had gotten their leaves and the earth awakened from its winter slumber. We started the day at the Nothstein Preserve. As we began the hike on the now grassy path, it seemed like a completely different world. The brown tones were replaced with hues of green, and the trail once covered in snow was lined with fern and wildflowers. As I was walking and keeping my eye out for wildflowers, I came upon a Red Eft which is the juvenile stage of the Eastern Newt. We saw many of these along the trail today, as they are not hard to find due to their bright orange color. The Red Eft is poisonous to anything that eats it; therefore I assume this is the reason for it not having to camouflage itself. We followed the trail upward to the red rock quarry we had seen last time. Now the oaks and birch trees were filled with bright green leaves. The beautiful pitch pines stood tall showing off their prickly cones, but the views of the ridge beyond were now masked by the leaf covered trees. After exploring the quarry we made our way through a grove of pine where I spotted a Lady’s Slipper Orchid. The genus name of this orchid is “Cypripedium.” It comes from the Greek word Cypris which in Greek mythology is a reference to the Goddess Aphrodite. Pedilon means sandal, and the orchid’s labellum resembles a slipper; hence, the name “Lady’s Slipper”. It was a unique find and a very curious looking flower. Next, the trail took us over a bridge and over Cranberry Creek. I remembered this section from winter because everything here was covered in snow at that time. We followed the trail along the creek. It looked so beautiful with its many cascades flowing over the moss covered rocks, and its False Hellebore strewn banks. When we arrived back at the trailhead, it was still pretty early in the day. We decided to stop by the Van Buskirk Preserve which is just a few miles away. Here again, everything looked completely different covered in lush, green foliage. I remembered back in March, we had passed by a vernal pool full of singing wood frogs. This time, the pool was filled with tadpoles. I guess those frogs we heard in early spring were busy! As we hiked past the ruins of the old Van Buskirk Farm, I could smell the sweet fragrance of flowers from the Black Locust trees. By now the day was warming up and the sun was shining high in the sky. I made a plan to revisit some of the other preserves we had seen over the winter to experience them in a new season.
We were back at it again today exploring another nature preserve. This time we drove back to the Pocono Mountains. There are so many great places to see in this area that aren’t too far off the 115. The Thomas Darling Preserve is another preserve that’s part of the Wildlands Conservancy Land Trust. It was named after conservationist Thomas Darling Jr. This area has one of Pennsylvania’s largest spruce forests, and boy was I excited about that! I love me some conifers! The preserve is made up of 2,500 acres with glacial wetlands, meadows, bogs, and forest. Two Mile Run traverses the preserve before spilling into Tobyhanna Creek. The hike around the preserve is a short 2.5 mile loop, but it really packs in the scenery! After leaving the trailhead just off Burger Road/T551, the trail takes you along a boardwalk and through the wetlands. You are then transported into a beautiful evergreen forest. It was about 30 degrees in the morning today and being we were walking through wetlands, the trail was icy under the light dusting of snow that was covering the ground. I couldn’t get over how pretty it was walking through the snow covered conifers. At about .7 miles we reached Two Mile Run. We took a moment here to enjoy the beauty of the cascading pools. Next we headed on a long section of boardwalk that traversed an expansive wet meadow. There were more evergreens and also birch trees with their white bark. I’m not sure which part of the trail was my favorite, this section or the spruce forest. The boardwalk going through the meadow made us feel like we were transported into some other land… and really, if you think about it, we were. After this section of trail we headed into a hardwood forest and it began to flurry with some light snow. It was such a beautiful scene. As we arrived back at the trailhead, the snow flurries picked up and we were soon on our way headed out for a hot cup of coffee after a really wonderful day.
