Boo!

Fortunately, there's nothing scary about autumn in Pennsylvania's state parks and state forests aside, perhaps, from the burgeoning number of festivals, hauntings and "spooktaculars" cropping up as the weather cools down and the leaves start to fall. It's been fun to watch our friends groups and other volunteers begin to realize how much fun there is to be had when the leaves are changing colors and the air snaps like a crisp winesap apple.

There is something just a little scary about the vista from the Pole Steeple Trail at Pine Grove Furnace State Park as evidenced by the masthead photo by John Paul Endicott on Flickr. Click it for the larger version!

~ Pam Metzger, Membership Coordinator
Pennsylvania Parks & Forests Foundation

Explore Pennsylvania's Parks & Forests

Pine Grove Furnace State Park

It cannot be said that there is a bad time to visit Pine Grove Furnace State Park but the weekend of October 17 and 18 might be one of the very best times to visit. That's when the Friends of Pine Grove Furnace invite you to their annual Fall Furnace Fest. 

Furnace. That word keeps cropping up. What are we burning here? In truth, it's not so much what we are burning as what we did burn. PGF is one of those state parks where history is the reason it's there but the people who first settled the area and did the burning would hardly recognize the bucolic beauty we find there now. Just check out the DCNR website and the photograph on the history page of the park's listing if you doubt the veracity of that statement! The trees were burned and iron was made; the legacy lives on in the many interpretive opportunities to be found at the park from the Ironmaster's Mansion (now serving hikers on the Appalachian Trail) to the remaining furnace stack (restored through the efforts of the Friends). 

As to the Fall Furnace Fest, it provides a grand opportunity to enjoy the park's recreational opportunities (although it is perhaps a little late in the season to contemplate a swim in lovely Laurel or Fuller lakes, a hike up the challenging Pole Steeple Trail will reward you with a glowing autumnal vista) while learning a good bit about that history first-hand. There will be demonstrations on charcoal making and blacksmithing, a chance to try your hand at candle-dipping and scarecrow-constructing, and music, food, birds of prey, pumpkin carving AND the legend of the "Hairy Hand." And, oh boy, when they light the pumpkins after dark? Magic! (Here's a "before" shot by Kevin Oliver via Flickr. You have to click the link to the original!) 

Look for one of the Friends while you're there. This dynamic group (6,000 hours donated last year) invites you to join their trail-building, playground-installing, bridge-painting, invasive-pulling fun. There's a job and a smile for all! 

Scaring Park Visitors - All for the Greater Good

Pennsylvania Parks & Forests Foundation supports the work of (soon) 40 chapters all across the Commonwealth. If you've been reading along with us for a while, you know that these friends groups are responsible for a staggering number of events, volunteer opportunities, dollars raised, and enthusiasm generated for their individual parks and forests as a whole. What you may not have realized is that we also count among our "children," a few very focused groups who do "just one thing."

Nevertheless, that "one thing" is always a huge undertaking. Case in point? The Fall Spooktackular presented at Pymatuning State Park by the "Boo Crew," a group of volunteers centered on the campground hosts at the Jamestown Campground. Currently led by host Larry Preston, the Crew just wrapped up their fifth annual event over the first two weekends in October. Park Manager Dan Bickel notes that what began as a "haunting," has now shifted to a more family-friendly festival (with a little bit of spooky thrown in) to better represent the goals of the state park. With an average number of attendees at around 5,000 (including a full campground of 3,000 campers) what was once a quiet season after the busy summer has grown into a popular (and revenue-generating) event for the park.

The Boo Crew's Spooktackular includes apple launcher contests, a pumpkin derby, a family night hike, face painting, a no-scare hayride, balloon art, a bonfire, and kids' crafts. Saturday is a particularly popular day at the Spooktackular. After a day of face painting, apple-launching and costume contests, the Boo Crew at the festival grounds and the campers at their campsites pass out spooky treats to all the kids during the Trick-Or-Treat event.

All of this spooky fun serves one goal: to raise money for new playgrounds and playground equipment at Pymatuning. When the event first started, the goal was to create a playground within the campground only but the vision has expanded to include playgrounds throughout the entire state park. So far, so good - the Boo Crew has raised $25,000 in total with $6,000 raised in 2014 alone. 

It seems the whole community is bewitched by the Boo Crew!

- Research by Danesha Butler
Intern, Pennsylvania Parks & Forests Foundation

Explore the Legacy

Pennsylvania's Paul and Pauline Bunyans

Did you know that Penn State Mont Alto has a group of college competitors called the Woodsmen Team? For the past 50 years or more (maybe some alumni out there can help us here; in what year did Mont Alto start a Woodsmen team?) men and women, from all majors, compete in ax throwing, cross-cut-sawing, chopping, pole climbing, pulp tossing, water boiling, archery, dendrology, orienteering, chain sawing, and sometimes canoeing, fly casting, or the chain throwing. The team has competed in Canada, New England, and all over the Mid-Atlantic region. 

It's been a busy fall for the Woodsmen. On September 26, they traveled to the Huntingdon Fairgrounds for a celebration of the centennial year of Pennsylvania's Forest Fire Wardens (see Explore, April 2015) sponsored by the DCNR Bureau of Forestry, Rothrock State Forest. There the team joined with their counterparts from the Penn State University Park woodsmen's team to demonstrate several different forest and lumberjack skills (including the cross-cut saw, as shown here in a photo taken from the Mid-Atlantic Regional competition held in Cumberland, MD in April where the Woodsmen took second place.) On October 17, the team heads back to forestry's roots to the first forestry school in America - the Cradle of Forestry in Brevard, NC (45 minutes from Asheville) - where they will compete in the 20th annual John G. Palmer Intercollegiate Woodsmen’s Meet. The meet, hosted by Haywood Community College in Clyde, NC, includes teams from Montgomery Community College, North Carolina State University, Warren Wilson College, and Penn College of Technology. All of the teams camp out and a dinner of stew and corn fritters is cooked over an open fire where more than 100 students are fed to fuel up for the next day’s competition. 

If you can't make it to North Carolina, look for the Mont Alto team to demonstrate their award-winning skills at the Great Outdoors Festival at Whitetail Ski Resort on Sunday, October 25. 

And if forestry history interests you, a showing of the new film First in Forestry ("Carl Schenck and the Biltmore Forest School") is tentatively scheduled to be shown at the college on November 5 at 7:00 PM. The film's director is set to appear; the screening takes place before the movie premieres on PBS in 2016! Contact me for additional information.

- Craig Houghton, Instructor
PSU Mont Alto Forest Technology

The Spider Hot Dog

It's never too late in the year for a campfire cookout. And here's the perfect addition to your October fire.

Put two fingers over the center of a hot dog and slice the dog through the center – from your fingers to the end. Then roll the hot dog 90 degrees and slice through the center again. The result will be four "legs." Repeat this for the other end of the hot dog.

Insert the roasting stick or fork through the center unsliced part of the hot dog, and roast. This might be the perfect time to go for the really black burned look!

Explore Trivia

In August the focus was on Gifford Pinchot and fire "towers," with the question concerning the "unexpected structure" in Harrisburg that served as a forest fire observatory in the 1920s. The answer? The state capitol! 

According to the Lock Haven Express on April 13, 1921: 

"The state capital dome Tuesday was made a fire observation [lookout] by the department of forestry and Thomas F. Burns was stationed there by Commissioner Pinchot to note appearance of forest fires in the mountains about Harrisburg. The dome rises more than 270 feet above the level of the Susquehanna and mountains in Dauphin, Cumberland, Perry, York and Lebanon counties can be discerned with a strong glass."

(Thanks to Friends of Pine Grove Furnace chair Andre Weltman - one of the people you will meet at Fall Furnace Fest - for this great question!)

As you'll see from the next story, Pennsylvanians do love a nice walk. A truly extraordinary walk concluded this month in 1974. What was it?

Send your answer to Pam Metzger at the Foundation. All correct answers will be entered into a drawing for a copy of the latest printing of the Pennsylvania State Parks & State Forests Passport (from which you'll find your own special walk.)

Pennsylvanians and the Outdoors

Late last year, the Department of Conservation & Natural Resources completed their work on the five-year document known as the Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan. The 2014-2019 version, Natural Connections, is (as always) an interesting look at what we as a community like to do with our spare time and where we think our state resources should be directed in getting us out there to enjoy it. Check out the results of all the research at the DCNR website.

Once again, walking is the most popular way for more of us to enjoy the outdoors. Aren't we lucky that there are so many opportunities for happiness in our close-to-home (or way-across-the-state new experience) right there in our state parks? 

Meanwhile, across the hall (at least figuratively speaking), the Bureau of Forestry is deep in its own planning process with the State Forest Resource Management Plan out in draft form and your comments being solicited now. Make your voice heard with an email, letter, survey, or attendance at a public meeting and help keep our sustainable forests green and growing!

Explore PPFF and our Programs

It's nominations time again. The annual awards banquet will be here before we know it (Wednesday, May 11, 2016) and it will not be any fun at all if we don't have people to recognize! Help keep us from spending a lonely evening at the West Shore Country Club and nominate your favorite individual or group of volunteers before December 18. The form is available now on the PPFF website.  

PPFF has been selected to participate in the Lancaster Community Foundation's "Extraordinary Give," a one-day fundraising blitz on November 20. On that day, every dollar donated to PPFF through our ExtraGive webpage will be eligible for a match from a Community Foundation pot of $300,000. For $250, you could fund a concert in the park; for $50, you can help save an historic Civilian Conservation Corps structure; your $25 gift supports our volunteers in building trails, installing playgrounds, and bringing native plant gardens to life. And we'll throw in a complimentary one-year membership. Mark your calendar and make the Extraordinary Give truly extraordinary for Pennsylvania's state parks and forests! #ExtraGive

The winners have been announced! Visit the Foundation's Facebook page for the winners in the 2015 Parks & Forests Through the Seasons photo contest, and stay tuned to our calendar and this newsletter for details of the showcase tour of winners coming in 2016 to a venue near you. (If you have a suggestion for the perfect place for a gallery showcase, please contact Amanda Trimmer at the Foundation.)

It's not too early to think of your holiday gift list. Let PPFF help you give the gift of the outdoors to "the family member who has everything already."  

Explore comes to you courtesy of the Pennsylvania Parks & Forests Foundation
1845 Market Street | Suite 202 | Camp Hill, PA 17011 | 717.236.7644