In The Woods - by Gerlad Rowan

Guest post by Gerald Rowan
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I grew up in the very north- eastern corner of the state.  An area of forested rolling hills and old broken-down farms. It was rural and it was isolated. What it did have was numerous lakes, streams and miles of old logging roads to walk. Within a mile radius of our farm were six beaver dams, an old mill pond and another man-made pond. Within a three-mile radius there were three natural lakes. The swamps were thickly forested with hemlock and the ridge tops with sugar maple and hickory. 

The outdoors was a year around engagement. Hiking, swimming, kayaking, canoeing, backpacking, hunting, fishing in the lakes, streams and beaver ponds, ice skating and ice fishing in the winters. Back them every boy had his own trap line.  There was also maple sugaring and mushroom picking. In season there was herbing and wild berry picking.

There were no basketball or tennis courts, but it didn’t matter. I spent much of my free time hiking, camping and fishing in the area. With a driver’s license there was the upper Delaware, Lackawaxen rivers and Dyberry Creek to explore.  Lake Wallenpaupack was only a twenty-minute drive away, the Catskills maybe thirty-five.  After high school, I worked my way through undergraduate school as a hunting and fishing guide for a private club in Pike County. In time I was their resident guide, specializing in fly fishing. I was still hiking, backpacking and fishing but now I was getting paid for it.   
In the early sixties, I bought my first VW microbus, an old Bell Telephone service truck, converting it to a camper. Now I could explore over a much wider terrain. By 1970 I landed my first college teaching job, which afforded me a schedule that made hiking, camping and fishing even more possible. Often, we combined opportunities, backpacking in to camp and fish in remote areas that were not accessible otherwise. 

As I grew older backpacking and sleeping on the ground got replaced by a series of tents, pop-up campers then travel trailers.  Now hiking/fishing/camping expeditions could be weeks long and anywhere, from Ashville to Boundary Waters to anywhere off the grid. I fell in love with the Pennsylvania state parks. They were in the right places with the right amenities. My count of state parks is fifty-eight and numerous stays at my favorites. I counted twenty-seven stays at Hickory Run.
I began doing volunteer trail work with the Allentown Hiking Club and the rebuilding of several shelters on the AT in Berks and Lehigh counties. In time I worked with a number of different crews all over the state. Working with a crew at Worlds End in 1999 after hurricane Floyd was my first-time camp cooking. After that I camp cooked for a number of years. 

In 2008 I turned sixty-five and retired. With retirement I shifted gears and began to travel. I still hiked but now it was the Twelve Bens or the Wicklow Mountain in Ireland. I live in the Lehigh Valley and the AT is just a few minutes west of me. The Pinnacle, Hawk Mountain. Bear Rocks and Bake Oven Knob are easily accessible for day hikes. On warm fall days I’ve sat at the base of Bear Rocks for hours watching wild turkey. 
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I always had an interest in protecting the environment. Back in 1955, after experiencing the double whammy of hurricanes Connie and Diane, I realized nature could be fragile and needed our support and protection to thrive.  It seems to me that people will protect the things they love. Well-developed and protected public spaces, and access to them, will allow the greatest number of people to experience and enjoy wild Pennsylvania.

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