Year in Review: Top 10 PA Wilds blogs of 2018

In the pre-dawn hours of Friday, September 1, 1939, Adolph Hitler’s forces invaded Poland and suddenly the ominous war rumblings from Germany became real as World War Two was underway in Europe. A half a world away, the United States had yet to engage in the battle, but major retailers gearing up for Christmas were soon to begin fighting a battle of their own.

Here begins the story of how a World War, creative engineering and fast-thinking by business leaders helped Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, become known as “The Town That Saved Christmas” and Corning Glass to become America’s leading glass Christmas ornament supplier.

Continue reading: https://pawilds.com/wellsboro-the-town-that-saved-christmas/

It had been years since I visited Kane, Pennsylvania.

I recall countless trips to the family cabin in Potter County and Kane was a routine stop for fuel and a bite to eat as we traveled through the Allegheny National Forest & Surrounds Landscape. As a lad, I was mesmerized by the wild wolves at the Lobo Wolves sanctuary along Scenic Route 6. In those days, Kane was known throughout the nation as the “Home of the Lobo wolves.”

Returning recently, I couldn’t help but notice things were different from the Kane of my last visit a decade ago, or the Kane I remembered from my youth.

Continue reading: https://pawilds.com/kane-revitalization-goes-uptown/

Nothing can test or inspire quite like brutal and beautiful (brutiful, if you will) landscapes of the Pennsylvania Wilds.

Trail runners here are grateful for the gifts that nature has provided us and use them as a playground for some of the greatest races in the state — and the country.

The sport of trail running is booming.

There are hundreds of races annually from 5ks to 100 milers, but I’ve taken some time to compile a list of some of the most rightfully notorious events in the region.

Continue reading: https://pawilds.com/10-pa-wilds-trail-races-not-missed/

North Bend, Pennsylvania, lies in the northern part of Clinton County. The oldest community in Chapman Township, it’s located along the newest section of the Elk Scenic Drive on the Bucktail Scenic Byway in the Pennsylvania Wilds. When it was founded in the 1800s, the original name was Youngwomanstown.

It’s uncertain where the name exactly came from; there are several possible stories behind it. All of them seem to involve the death of a young woman, usually Native American, in or around what is still called Young Woman’s Creek.

Continue reading: https://pawilds.com/north-bend-swamp-angel/

Few once-in-a-lifetime journeys anywhere in the United States are quite like the Elk Scenic Drive in the Pennsylvania Wilds Elk Country, home to the largest free-roaming elk herd in the northeastern United States.

With male elk (bulls) standing five to six feet high at the shoulder, carrying racks six-feet wide, weighing upwards of 1,000 pounds, they dwarf our whitetail deer.

Truth be known, we’re lucky to have them back.

Continue reading: https://pawilds.com/explore-elk-scenic-drive/

At first, you can’t believe your eyes, but as they say, seeing is believing.

Nevertheless, it is so surreal to see a bridge under water.

Situated on the far southwestern fringes of the Allegheny National Forest and Surrounds, this is something you don’t come across every day in these Pennsylvania Wilds — or anywhere else for that matter.

In all its aging glory, the Nebraska Bridge spanning Forest County’s Tionesta Creek is under water for several weeks of the year.

Continue reading: https://pawilds.com/nebraska-bridge/

In 2004, economic disaster loomed large in Coudersport. Its largest employer, Adelphia, filed bankruptcy and began moving out of town. A full-blown economic recession followed just a few years later.

With Adelphia’s collapse, nearly 2,000 Coudersport area residents lost their jobs. The lucky ones found new jobs. Others, like Coudersport native David Cole and family, were forced to find work elsewhere. They ended up in North Carolina.

Continue reading: https://pawilds.com/coudersport-carving-niche-modern-economy/

Let’s say you’re out hiking. You’re on one of the trails in Clinton County. It doesn’t matter which one; choose your favorite. But imagine you’re hiking in the woods, and you look up ahead and see a creature on the trail.

It seems to be a mishmash of several animals, with the base animal being a wolf. You raise your camera to get a photo, but it darts into the forest.

You’ve just encountered the Giwoggle, and it’s the official monster of Clinton County.

Continue reading: https://pawilds.com/giwoggle-clinton-countys-monster/

In his lifetime, Potter County farmer and landowner John Dodd had heard umpteen stories about a Native American seen carrying silver ore out of a mysterious cave on a mountainside in Sweden Valley, just east of Coudersport.

Dozens of prospectors had thoroughly searched the mountain and came away empty handed. So, in the summer of 1894, with curiosity finally getting the best of him, Dodd set out to give it a try.

He asked a farm-hand, Billy O’Neil, for help. He knew Billy was handy with a divining rod and immediately Billy went searching. The divining rod, Billy said, “told him” where to find the vein of silver ore. He began to dig.

Continue reading: https://pawilds.com/coudersport-ice-mine/

Shrouded by towering hemlocks and massive white pines in the Allegheny National Forest Tionesta Creek Valley, Pennsylvania Route 666, “triple 6,” winds its way for 34 miles through chlorophyll canyons.

Having traveled this road for many years, I can safely say “Triple 6” is as wild and secluded as a state highway can get.

It’s been called “the Devil’s Highway,” having been assigned the Route number 666 by the commonwealth in 1928 and it is one of very few highways in the nation to carry the number 666, known in the Holy Bible Book of Revelation as the “sign of the satanical beast”.

Continue reading: https://pawilds.com/pennsylvania-route-666-day-trip/