Life in the Shadows

There's a duality that exists for those who love the forest. On one hand, we love it so much that we want to tell its secrets to all the living world. On the other hand, it's those sylvan secrets that we treasure. We love the forest precisely because we're quiet people who would rather stare at a rock than a TV, rather listen to a chattering stream than a yammering radio.

The forest lover lives in both worlds: the world of alarm clocks and deadlines as well as the world of mushrooms and ferns. One world drains us, and the other gives us life. It's not a bad way to plod through your years, moving between desk and trail, between committee meetings and bird concerts. The price you pay is that living in two places makes you a stranger in both.

But alas, The Journal is finally starting to amass a bit of a following out there on the Net, and so I feel some pressure to tell some worthwhile secrets in the one month of publication that remains. And so, here goes:

The ANF is great and worth years of exploration. It really is. But in its southern reaches, especially, there are huge swaths of devastation that can really leave a wilderness seeker feeling frustrated and angry. Drillers and loggers have plowed so many roads through the forest that you really have to plan your excursion carefully if you want to avoid the horrors of tree carnage and large scale death. And so, if you're thinking about a trek in the ANF, that's cool. Plan carefully to avoid all the industrial incursions into the woods. But allow me to suggest an alternative: the Elk State Forest.

The Elk State Forest is vast and little-visited by anyone but hunters and fishers. Like the national forests, it's perfectly legal to set up camp wherever you like, as long as you're a good distance from the roadways. And like our national forest, there is some logging and drilling, but on a much smaller scale. You can wander for hours through the Elk and never encounter a noisy derrick, or a depressing clearcut, or a monstrous truck barreling down narrow dirt roads at dangerous break-neck speeds. And yet, because the few pleasure seekers who turn to our woods are conditioned to look to the ANF, the Elk State Forest passes its serene life in the shadows of its bigger, more industrialized neighbor.

So, get yourself a map of the Elk State Forest. They're free from the PADCNR, and you can even print one off the Internet. This is a PDF, so give it a few minutes to download, then save it to your computer in a file entitled "heaven-on-earth." On the map, you'll see that the bulk of the forest is well to the east and south of the ANF. These areas are out of my league. But look to the isolated patch of green in the northwest corner of the map, the area just around East Branch Dam. This is where you want to go.

From the village of Glen Hazel, there's a road that follows the East Branch of the Clarion River to a gate. From that point, it follows the Middle Fork deep into the heart of the beautiful State Game Lands #25. (SGL25 is perfect for a trek, and even wilder than the Elk SF, but camping is not allowed on any PA gamelands.) You'll reach a point where the road veers leftward, and a much lesser traveled track continues dead ahead. Take the leftward track toward the Elk State Forest. This is uphill all the way. You'll pass the black and yellow gate pictured in the last post, and from that point, you can camp wherever you like.

Once you start the downhill trek into Briggs Hollow, you'll be glad you brought a bike. The scenery is great, and the ride is easy, with the wind on your face. Make sure your brakes are working! Now you've got a huge swath of wildlands all to yourself. Follow Briggs Hollow Road to Naval Hollow Road. From there, make a loop up onto Straight Creek Road and back down to where the loop started. Also, you might want to trek west the whole way to the banks of East Branch Lake and pass a night close to the water. Be careful not to set up camp west of the "state park" signs, since a very narrow stretch of designated "parkland" encircles the lake, and backcountry camping is not allowed in the park.

There's a lot of life flourishing in the shadows. Elk SF is superb in its own right, but often gets overlooked...the same way Philadelphia gets overlooked by tourists who hit New York and DC. The top pic is my ancient mountain bike parked along the lonely stretches of Briggs Hollow Road at the bottom of the valley. The second photo is Briggs Hollow Run, which meanders lazily through some very wild back-country into East Branch Lake.