Twin Lakes, Revisited (February 2012)

           My first day back in the Allegheny National Forest was spent discovering new territory.  My second (and shorter) day was spent revisiting old haunts--much beloved spots from days gone-by.  Just to reassure myself that they were still there.  Just to dance a while with ghosts.

           Twin Lakes is one of those holy places for me, and so I made my wintry pilgrimage on Sunday.  An old hike that I often did in past years was to park the car along Forest Road 138 where it intersects the Twin Lakes Trail, then follow the trail all the way east to Twin Lake for a swim.  It takes about 45 minutes or an hour going one direction on a snowy day when the ground is so slick.

          It's as ironically named as any spot in the ANF; there's a single large pond at "Twin Lakes."  Some call the pond "Twin Lake," dropping the 's'.  Here the beach can be seen across the frozen water, with its old CCC-rustic-style bathhouse and pavilion.

           Most people probably don't think there's anything all that special about the place, but this little corner of the ANF represents something immensely freeing to me.  In the early days, when the forest had just begun to work its transformative magic in my soul, Twin Lakes kept appearing through the trees.  So many of my early hikes landed me there, as if accidentally.  In many ways, it became my central hub in the forest.  We camped here, and picked apples, and berries.  I brought my kids to swim in its frigid water.

          I saw my first wild black bears here at Twin Lakes, a little too close for comfort.  I came here in all the seasons, and especially loved coming in October--when the camp hosts and all the campers were gone--to set up my laptop in the pavilion and write stuff for work.  I loved nothing more than having this place to myself.  When I left the forest to move to the suburbs (in a successful bid to placate an unhappy wife), friends gave me a local artist's depiction of the above scene.  It's hanging over the mantel in the sitting room of my house in suburban Pittsburgh: a simple pavilion in the trees, a symbol of wholeness and well-being.

          Twin Lakes was lovely and haunting in the recent solitude of wintertime, even though there were two families there playing on the ice and strolling along the frozen beach.  About five years ago, the forest began a healing process in my life, and much of the beauty and power of that period I associate with Twin Lakes.  The surrounding southeastern quarter of the ANF can be a disturbingly eerie place.  The industrial incursions are many; two separate suicides took place in the scrubby "experimental forest" very nearby; the police have been looking for a certain Johnsonburg woman's body in this part of the woods for a long time--a drug related crime.  There's a flat, brushy quality to this section of the forest that makes it seem like a great place for lurking villains.  And I'm not scared of bears, but they're abundant in this area, and plenty cocky.  Even as far back as the 1930s, photos of Twin Lakes always show the resident bears.  And yet, Twin Lakes is one of those sacred places in my life.  To most people, it's a pleasant place.  To me it's beautiful, holy.