The Ancient Forest

Cook Forest State Park (known to locals as "Cook's Forest") is surely the most popular woodland destination in the western part of the state. Unless there's some corner of the Poconos that attracts hordes of New Yorkers, my guess is that Cook's Forest is the most popular patch of trees in Pennsylvania. What explains this popularity?

On the one hand, much of Cook's Forest is virgin woodland. That's to say, it has never in all its history fallen under the axe or saw. That's pretty cool. In the area known as "Forest Cathedral," pictured here, many of the trees are 300 to 400 years old. It's mostly white pine, hemlock, and beech, which were once the dominant species in this region. They make for a pretty dark forest, but there's just something almost mystical about standing next to a living thing that was around in 1609 when Henry Hudson first discovered the Delaware Bay, the year that Shakespeare's sonnets were first published, the year that "Three Bilnd Mice" made its debut....

And yet, I don't think the 400-year old trees alone explain the park's popularity. I mean, there are 20 acres of virgin forest at Heart's Content, in the ANF, and the campground there is still threatened with closure for lack of use.

Cook's Forest is as commercialized as any spot of so-called "wilderness" in the Northeast. PA36 is lined with "Indian" trading posts, replete with giant statues of Yogi the Bear and oversize cigar store Indians. The stores and cabins are all done in a mock-rustic style. The private cabin rentals are a booming business because, as our hostess told us on a recent stay, "The forest sells itself." At only 8,500 acres, Cook Forest is a fraction the size of the adjoining Allegheny Nat'l Forest. And yet, because it's a state park, it's much more carefully maintained and more geared to recreation (hiking, backpacking, camping, canoeing and kayaking) and natural preservation than the Allegheny...which some call a "black cherry plantation."

Strangely, you can hike for hours in Cook's Forest without encountering another person on the trails. It's as if all the many visitors want to be *near* the Big Woods but not *in* it. The park is so small that there are few places on the trails that are out of earshot of vehicles passing on tarmac. (To me, that's the definition of solitude: an absence of noise from trucks and cars.)

Does a forest sell itself to visitors? Really? If so, then why is nearby Clear Creek State Park so little known to the outside world, despite being pristine, quiet, located on the same Clarion River, just as beautiful and far less touristy? What "sells" a forest?