Pennsylvania Overlooks - Day 2

I started day two of my Pennsylvania Overlooks trip with breakfast at the Kennedy's. When they left for church, I headed for the Forest Cathedral in Cook Forest State Park. My route took me past Brady's Bend overlook, a large curve in the Allegheny River. Before reaching Forest Cathedral, I made one stop in Cook Forest Park, Seneca Point to climb the old fire tower and see the nearby overlook of the Clarion River.

Brady's Bend

Seneca Point - Cook Forest

Cook Forest is one of the few stands of virgin timber in the state and touted as the best example of old growth forest in the northeast. My three mile hike along the Longfellow, Rhododendron, and Ancient Forest trails took a little less than 1.5 hours. Some of the hemlocks approached 200 feet in height. Their extraordinary height was on best display as the Ancient Forest trail traced the contours in gully along the steep slope.

Forest Cathedral - Cook Forest

My book suggested my next stop, an overlook near Cook Forest called Beartown Rocks. I enjoyed the overlook, but the enormous boulders in vicinity were even more interesting. Some were the size of a small house. The overlook is on one group of such boulders. Several teams were trying to find a geocache, a hobby I've sampled but never really embraced.

Beartown Rocks

I spent most of the rest of the day in the car, but fortunately, I had ample time to avoid freeways in favor of country roads, including Elk Scenic Drive, a very rural stretch of highway in central Pennsylvania. The state's elk herd resides in the surrounding forests and few areas spaced along the road offer the chance to spot them. I stopped at a couple, but--driving mid-day in mid-summer--wasn't surprised not to find any.

I saved the best overlook for last, Hyner View State Park, near Renovo. A six mile detour off PA-120 climbs 1,300 feet above the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. The view directly west (upstream) is very spectacular. In the thick summer haze, the river flowed silver ensconced between ash-grey hills. The state highway, straight as it advanced from, incidentally, South Bend, PA, created a broad arc as it turned south before crossing the river, a nice clean counter-point to nature's asymmetry.

Hyner View

The true home stretch began after Hyner View. A short stint on I-80 was actually a welcome interlude to the twisty two-lane roads I traveled most of the day. Still, I left the interstate behind at Bloomsburg and cut south through Frackville and Reading rather than take the faster, but not that much faster, Northeast Turnpike route back to Philadelphia.