Fall foliage fever (Oct. 14 / Ricketts Glen State Park)

A couple enjoys sitting in front of Ganoga Falls in Ricketts Glen State Park.

As I climbed up a muddy ridge toward the top of Ricketts Glen State Park, I looked over at one of the 22 named waterfalls and thought: "Why are people so fascinated by running water?"

I know there's a difference between water dropping over a 94-foot ridge and it dripping from a kitchen faucet, but at the end of the day, that's all it is -- moving water.

Nevertheless, I visited Ricketts Glen for the sake of taking pictures because I also love waterfalls.

I wasn't alone: Nearly two dozen other people came to the park with cameras and tripods to photograph both the falls and the changing leaves that day. Certain spots looked like a press conference. One hiker who wasn't taking photos saw my camera and asked me if there was a special filming event going on at the park.

A group of photographers takes pictures of a nearby waterfall in Ricketts Glen State Park.

All of the photographers were likely there for the same reason as I was: fall foliage. During the past week, I've been traveling to different areas looking for the best color as the leaves start to change over. I visited Nescopeck State Park, in addition to the Delaware Water Gap, but had little luck.

I've visited Ricketts Glen several times before, and each time is more beautiful than the last. I figured it would be the place where I'd get my break.

As I had expected, Ricketts Glen delivered. I went to the park with an empty camera card and left with almost 350 pictures, which took two days to narrow down and tone. Below are some of the better ones I took.

Creeks

Waterfalls

Adams Falls (30 feet)

Cayuga Falls (11 feet)

Erie Falls (47 feet)

Ganoga Falls (94 feet)

Ganoga Falls (overhead)

Harrison Wright Falls (27 feet)

Mohican Falls (39 feet)

Oneida Falls (13 feet)

Sheldon Reynolds Falls (36 feet)

Tuscarora Falls (47 feet)

Fall foliage fever (Oct. 12: Appalachian Trail / Delaware Water Gap)

A sign points the way on the Appalachian Trail in the Delaware Water Gap.

On Monday (Oct. 12), my dad took off work so he and I could spend the day together in the outdoors. As I stated in my last blog post, I'm at my parents' home in Mountain Top this week while on vacation. I decided to use some of it to look for fall foliage in different areas of northeast Pa.

However, when dad and I were trying to figure out where to visit, we were making as much progress as the Legislature on the state budget (too soon? If the budget stalemate weren't already more than 100 days old, then maybe). Finally, he suggested a location I didn't consider: the Delaware Water Gap.

Known formally as the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, the Gap in eastern Pennsylvania consists of 70,000 acres of woods, streams and lakes and includes 37 miles of the Delaware River bordering both Pa. and New Jersey, according to the National Park Service. Originally, I planned on sticking to locations in northeast Pa., but I've never been to the Delaware Water Gap. In addition, a portion of the Appalachian Trail -- the nearly 2,200-mile behemoth stretching from Georgia to Maine -- runs through the Gap. The A.T. has been on my bucket list for a while, and my dad also seemed enthusiastic about attempting a portion of it. I figured the Gap and the A.T. had some great vantage points to view possible fall foliage, as well, so we settled on a trip to the Gap.

The drive there, about one hour from Mountain Top to the Borough of Delaware Water Gap, offered some gorgeous red and yellow trees along Interstate 80. Unfortunately, I didn't feel like pulling over on a busy highway to take photos, so you'll have to use your imagination as to what the scene looked like. I promise I have pictures later on.

Though I can't promise they'll be as entertaining as this one.

Before we got started, we stopped at a small mom-and-pop store for lunch. Simply called "Apple Pie Bakery," the store offered dessert pies, pot pies, doughnuts and sandwiches. Outside the store that day was a barbecue complete with smoked pulled pork sandwiches and half-chickens with sides like coleslaw, potato salad, macaroni salad and beans. Dad and I munched down on some barbecue to "build strength" (we just wanted to eat homemade barbecue, really) and left. Before getting in the car, I noticed three vibrantly colored trees surrounding the cookout area: one red and two others with a mix of yellow and orange.

The Apple Pie Bakery in Delaware Water Gap Borough

The trees at the store and along Interstate 80 gave me some hope that Dad and I would be in for a color show during our hike.

After leaving the store, we found what we thought was a trailhead for the Appalachian Trail, got out of the car and started our journey. The trail started out flat and stable, but we came across an area with a small pond where the land and water had virtually no border between them. Worse yet, the trail wrapped around the pond right at the water's edge.

Not wanting to puss out just five minutes into the hike, we tenderly walked through mud while trying not to go for a swim in the process. At the same time, we had to make our way around brush and low-lying branches.

After a few minutes of meandering, we finally reached another dry, flat portion of the trail. It was shortly after that we both felt dumb. It turns out the trail we were on wasn't the Appalachian Trail, and additionally, there was a flat, stone road not far from our car that led right to the true trailhead. We pretended that the past five minutes never happened and started our journey anew.

The Appalachian Trail started as a flat dirt trail that eventually became rock-filled and hilly. We progressed along the hillside of Mount Minsi, which borders the Delaware River on the Pennsylvania side. After about an hour of hiking, Dad and I reached an overlook that provided a view of the river, Mount Minsi to the right and Mount Tammany to the left. The view was remarkable, and it made the hourlong hike, sweating and heavy breathing worth it.

The Delaware Water Gap, with Mount Minsi in Pennsylvania to the right and Mount Tammany in New Jersey to the left.

Dad posing in front of Mounts Minsi and Tammany.

Me just wanting to show off my newly grown beard.

As great as the view was, it disappointed me in the respect that it lacked fall foliage. I saw more red and yellow along the interstate than I did on two large mountains

We decided to move on for about another half hour past the overlook. Other hikers told us there was a second overlook further up the Appalachian Trail, but Dad and I started to get tired, and we still had to make the return trip. While going back to the start location, we came across one or two places with some fall foliage, but overall the trees around the Appalachian Trail are still holding on to their green.

A small red tree stands out among several green ones.

The trip was a bust as far as fall foliage was concerned, but the Delaware Water Gap and the Appalachian Trail both contained some of the nicest views in Pennsylvania. I'm sure in the next few weeks, the mountains surrounding the Gap will be glowing with fall colors. In the meantime, I'm looking into my next trip for this week. I hope to have better luck at my next location.

Fall foliage fever (Oct. 10: Nescopeck State Park)

Lake Frances at Nescopeck State Park.

I'm back at my parents' house in Mountain Top for vacation this week. It's mostly going to be a staycation, so I figured I would take advantage of it by looking around for the fall foliage that Pennsylvania has to offer.

From what I've seen in the Altoona area and now Mountain Top, the leaves are just beginning to change color. There are some parts that are still seas of green, and there are others where they are vibrant with orange, red and yellow.

On Saturday (Oct. 10), I decided to visit Nescopeck State Park since it's close by. I started out my vacation battling a cold, so I didn't want to strain myself.

The park's leaves are just starting to transition from green to fall colors. As seen in the picture above, the trees along the shore of Lake Frances are vibrant with red and orange in some spots, but green still dominates the scene. Below is another picture that shows a better perspective of the foliage surrounding the lake.

The shoreline of Lake Frances

I was actually more impressed by the deep blue hue of the water. Lake Frances is quite shallow, so it usually gives off more of a blackish or brownish color. But on Saturday, the sun made it look more like an ocean than a lake.

In the middle of Lake Frances is its little island. It has fewer than a dozen trees and saplings, but at least three or four of them shined with an orange glow on Saturday.

It doesn't have a name, so I just call it "Nescopeck Island."

After going around the Lake Trail, I decided to go further into the woods to see if there might be more color. I took the Nescopeck Trail from Lake Frances down to Nescopeck Creek and then walked along it via the Creekside Trail. I saw some orange and red trees along the way, though they were on the opposite bank of the creek. Most of these trees were set far back into the forest behind rows of other trees, so I didn't have many great photo opportunities.

There was one spot where there wasn't really any foliage, but the leaves on the ground and the sunlight above gave the area a golden hue. In this grove was a creek so small that the water in it was barely moving. It was more of a trickle of water than a creek. Based off the banks surrounding it, the creek looks as though it could be much larger at times.

A small creek runs through the forest near the Nescopeck Creek.

After awhile, I turned around and hiked in the opposite direction on the Creekside Trail to see if there was any better foliage elsewhere. For the most part, the trees along the trail were slightly yellow, but didn't deviate much from that. I eventually reached an unnamed pond in the park not far from Lake Frances. Just like the latter, this pond had some red and orange around it, but green still remains the main color.

An unnamed pond in Nescopeck State Park.

Overall, there was some color that made the park beautiful, but it's going to take a few more weeks before the woods are ablaze with red, orange and yellow. The weather was gorgeous, however, and it beat being stuck in my house with a cold and doing nothing all day. It was worth the trip and the one and a half hour hike.

My hunt for fall foliage will continue through most of the week while I'm home on vacation. In the plans are possible trips to Ricketts Glen State Park, Big Pocono State Park and Lehigh Gorge State Park. Since this will be my last time in northeast Pa. until November or December, I want to enjoy the outdoors and foliage as much as possible. I encourage you try to, as well. Before you know it, the leaves will be gone, the cold will drift in, and we'll be complaining about how the snow never seems to go away.

Nescopeck State Park (and its Indian curse)

Lake Frances in Nescopeck State Park

Located between Mountain Top and White Haven is Nescopeck State Park, a 3,550-acre complex situated in a valley between Mount Yeager to the south and Nescopeck Mountain to the north. The park took its name from a nearby Delaware Native American village known as "Nescopeckan," according to the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

Nescopeck State Park, as it stands today, contains the 9-acre Lake Frances (which many people fish at), about 19 miles of hiking trails and Nescopeck Creek, which tends to be a popular location for trout fishing. Other than that, Nescopeck's layout is quite basic in design and features compared to its sister parks, Hickory Run with its lake, beach and Boulder Field, and Lehigh Gorge with its nationally renowned rail-trail.

The D&L rail-trail crossing the Lehigh River in Lehigh Gorge State Park near
Jim Thorpe

However, Nescopeck State Park is lucky it even exists. The planning phase alone took decades, and the work itself encountered hiccups along the way. Many of the park's proposed features exist only as blue prints. Even the man who was vital for acquiring the funding for Nescopeck met an unfortunate end. These different details lead me to believe that Nescopeck State Park is bound to a Native American curse.

The reason for the curse would be the obvious fact that the Delaware Indians, like other tribes, were forced from their homes for the sake of colonization.

The curse likely started around the time that the state considered constructing a park on the land by Nescopeckan village. The idea originated sometime in the 1960s, according to a May 1994 article in the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader newspaper. The article states that plans for the park had been on state and local drawing boards for nearly three decades.

It wasn't until 1990 that the state designated nearly $5.4 million in its capital budget for the development of the park, according to the article. Why it took so long just to approve the money for the park is uncertain.

Even though the state OK'd the money in 1990, former Gov. Robert Casey chose not to include the funding in his general budget until 1994, adding four years to an already 30-year delay, the article stated. State Sen. Raphael Musto, D-Pittston, played a large role in securing the funding, the article said. To this day, the visitor and education center in the park is named after him. His success in bringing Nescopeck State Park to life would become overshadowed later on in his career, but we'll come back to that later.

The Raphael J. Musto Visitors & Environmental Education Center in Nescopeck State Park in 2013

After decades of indecision and delays, Nescopeck State Park underwent construction in the mid-90s. The curse seemed to be over, but instead it continued to reappear in various ways.

In the original plans for the park was the development of nearly 100 overnight campsites with electricity and showers, in addition to seven year-round cabins, according to the Times-Leader article. As of today, no such campsites or cabins exist in Nescopeck State Park. During a recent trip to the park, my dad showed me the areas where forest and brush were cleared out for the proposed campsites. While the clearings stand out, you can tell that the forest began to reclaim these areas long ago with high grass, small bushes and saplings growing in those areas.

At the time of construction, the park also planned to create a swimming area on Lake Frances, much like the ones visitors use at nearby Hickory Run State Park. That idea also never came to fruition. Today, people can boat and fish on the lake, but no one swims in it.

The reason these projects fell through is likely because of a lack of funding.

The Nescopeck curse also comes around in forms of small renovation issues. The prime example is when the main bridge that allowed visitors to park near Lake Frances became unstable, forcing the park to close it temporarily. The bridge remained closed for years -- likely because of a lack of funding to fix it -- forcing people to park near the front entrance and then walk all the way to the lake. It's not a far walk, but for those with disabilities who wanted to visit the lake, they were out of luck.

Finally, we return to the park's biggest contributor: Sen. Musto. I hate to include him as part of a "curse" because he's deceased, and I don't wish to tarnish a dead man's reputation. The end of his life and career, however, were very unfortunate.

Musto retired from the state Senate in 2010, but authorities indicted him on charges that he accepted "$35,000 in cash, free construction services and gifts in return for using his influence to secure state funding for development projects," according to his obituary in the Wilkes-Barre Citizens' Voice. He also battled liver disease, which worsened to the point where a judge found him not competent to stand trial in January 2014, according to the obituary. He died in April the same year.

Musto never got convicted on the charges, which is part of the reason why I wouldn't want to tie him in with a "curse" that I made up, but he played a significant role in acquiring the funding for Nescopeck State Park, to the point where his name remains on the park's visitor and education center. His misfortunes and the park's are just coincidence.

Whether or not the park is "cursed" is up to my readers. I don't want people to think that, if they visit Nescopeck State Park, their house will be haunted by a poltergeist soon after. The park, despite its shortcomings, provides a tranquil place for people to forget about life for a few hours. It used to be a place where I would do homework at a picnic table while overlooking the lake during college. I've fished the lake a few times (never had too much luck there, though). A trail around the lake provides a gorgeous setting for walkers and joggers to do laps around it. Other trails also take visitors along Nescopeck Creek, which also serves as a popular spot for trout fishing.

Nescopeck Creek in Nescopeck State Park

The education center offers several programs for kids and families, including park cleanups and animal viewings. Recently, the park included a geocache that also teaches people about bird watching.

In the past few years, it seems as though the curse may have subsided -- but if you happen to find an Indian arrowhead while hiking, you might want to leave it be.

If you're lucky, you might catch a glimpse of some of the beautiful animals, birds and insects at the park.

The Thousand Steps

They say you can sometimes hear Robert Plant's voice resonating among the trees.

Those of you familiar with Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" know two things about the song:

• It is considered one of the best rock songs of all time by many fans and music critics.
• The lyrics have almost nothing to do with a stairway to heaven.

Regardless of how convoluted its lyrics are, "Stairway to Heaven" plays off the idea that there is a connection between Earth and the afterlife. If only such a path existed, right?

As it turns out, it does (to an extent), and it's in the backyard of many central Pennsylvanians.

This "stairway to heaven" is known under the not-so-majestic name as "The Thousand Steps."

Aside from sounding like a generic StairMaster machine, the Thousand Steps is a staircase that climbs the side of Jacks Mountain between the boroughs of Mt. Union and Mapleton in Huntingdon County.

The steps are giant slabs of stone. There are no handrails, ramps, escalators or elevators to escort you along the way.

So how were these stones fashioned into a staircase? Plate tectonics? Egyptians?

Courtesy: imgur.com

The answer is slightly less ridiculous than this but still quite insane.

Jacks Mountain served as a "gold" mine for ganister -- a "Tuscarora sandstone used in the production of silica bricks," according to the Bureau of Recreation and Conservation and DCNR.

Silica bricks served as good material in the construction of industrial-sized furnaces because they're heat-resistance. These bricks played a vital role in central and western Pennsylvania during the railroad, steel and limestone eras. Mt. Union became known as the "Silica Brick Capital of the World" because of its abundance of Tuscarora sandstone, according to DCNR.

On the plus size, the workers probably had god-like legs.

Unfortunately, for the poor saps who mined it, their commute consisted of scaling the side of a mountain every day. The workers for Harbison-Walker Refractories Co. -- the company that owned the quarries on both sides of the valley known as Jacks Narrows -- decided something needed to be done.

In 1936, the workers fashioned stone slabs from the quarry into the staircase that exists today.

Returning to the present, the Thousand Steps have become a tourist attraction for those who feel like re-enacting the commute of the workers, or they're just bored with their StairMaster.

One of the views from The Thousand
Steps.

The trail on the way up offers splendid views of the valley below and the mountain on the other side.

There's also a sense of community on the Thousand Steps. Cassidy and I ran into several people going up and down the mountain when we hiked it one October. Despite dealing with the strain of the climb and descent, the people on the trail smiled and greeted one another, not seeming to mind that their leg muscles were screaming in agony.

Her excitement is masked by crippling fatigue.

Not everyone possesses the strength and mentality to make it to the top of the Thousand Steps, and there's nothing worse than having a false sense of assurance that you're "almost there." Therefore, someone got smart and marked each hundredth step with paint to show climbers where they're at.

A thousand steps might not seem like a huge climb for some people, but when you've been climbing for 15 minutes and are only at the "200" mark, your confidence tends to say "screw it" and turns around without you.

Despite the challenge, people of different ages are drawn to the hike. Cassidy and I saw kids as young as 6 years old and seniors in their 60s climbing the steps on the same day. Some of the children seemed to have a harder time than the adults. That's what happens when the new generation does nothing but tweets and twerks, I suppose.

There's the excitement!

As an avid hiker and cyclist, I had little problem making the climb, but Cassidy had some trouble. I had to really push her motivation to get her up that mountain, but we did it. There was a lesson about love mixed in with it since we did the hike on our one-year anniversary as a couple. We found that supporting each other got us to the summit -- but excellent calf muscles help, as well.

Oh! I forgot to mention the irony: There are more than a thousand steps at the Thousand Steps; however, you do not need to climb every step to make it to the "thousand" mark.

There's a mailbox at the thousandth step that contains a notebook where people who make it can sign their names, the date they climbed and leave notes about their journey. The "extra" steps take you to what looks like an old storage building and eventually to an overlook that trumps everything else you see on the climb.

The borough of Mapleton and the Juniata River as
seen from the top.

The overlook gives you a glimpse of Mapleton, the Juniata River, the valley below and the mountains beyond. If you had superhuman eyesight, you could see Raystown Lake just over the horizon.

When we made it to the top, the sun broke through the clouds and cast rays of light on the vast area of land before us as if we finished some divine challenge.

Because it was our anniversary, the climb for Cassidy and I was truly romantic. It will be a story we'll pass on to our kids as they pay us no mind and sit on their phones reading about how big Kim Kardashian's ass was or how the color of a dress nearly triggered World War III.

If you're in central Pennsylvania and get bored with videos of llamas being chased by police officers, you should make the effort to climb the Thousand Steps on a nice day. Even if you fail to finish the entire hike, you will still be taken aback by the beauty of the area and the experience of making a hike that long-ago residents made as a way to get to work and back each day.

Directions: From Altoona, Hollidaysburg or Duncansville, take Rt. 22 east past Huntingdon, Mill Creek and Mapleton. The trailhead to the Thousand Steps will be less than a mile outside Mapleton on the left side of the road. Look for parked cars; They're usually a good indicator.

From Tyrone and north of Tyrone: Get on PA-453 South off Interstate 99, turn onto Rt. 22 east and follow the same directions as above.

Pennsylvania's season: Fall (with photo gallery)

Fall is truly Pennsylvania's season. 

Pictured: The look of no fun.

Winter's brutal cold makes it difficult to partake in anything fun outside. Even the winter sports such as skiing, snowboarding and tubing are fun until the snow starts to melt inside your clothes, and you are left feeling like a sad sponge. Heating bills in the triple digits also dampen even the strongest holiday spirit.

Pictured: Boredom times four. The season?
Spring.

Spring is a nice exit from winter, but the transition often brings times of random hot and cold. Pennsylvanians know this best when the temperature one day is 65 degrees, and the next day there's snow on the ground.

This sporadic change in temperature always makes scheduling parties and cookouts outside on holidays like Easter and Memorial Day a gamble.

In some cases, the weather is so crappy that we never experience a spring i.e. last year's "polar vortex" and the change to 90 degrees almost a week later.

The best thing about spring is witnessing the trees and plants budding and blooming, but sometimes that is prolonged by an eternal winter. Many of the trees were still bald by June this year, leaving many to wonder if the leaves would start changing color after Christmas.

Don't be fooled; we're actually having a boring time
here. Who likes the beach after all?

Summer is usually one of my favorite seasons but only because I can travel to places where there are fun outdoor activities.

Pennsylvania lacks a beach (other than lake beaches, but anyone will tell you a lake "beach" and an ocean beach are incomparable).

Summertime is all about visiting the shore. My family has based whole summers around going to the beach.

But the weather in summer can be brutal, as well. Ninety degrees and humid sucks no matter where you're at. There are plenty of summer activities in Pennsylvania, but summer has always been a season of escaping the norm by going elsewhere.

Trees changing color last year in
Chimney Rocks Park near Hollidaysburg.

Now we're back at fall. 

The weather in fall, like spring, varies. The difference is we're transitioning from hot to cold instead of the other way around. This means there are less days when all you want to do is barricade yourself inside your home with a shield of blankets and a space heater sucking up more electricity than New York City.

The cooler days are inviting after a long, brutally hot summer. We can start to dress in warmer, more stylish clothing other than just tank tops and shorts, jorts or whatever fashion crime-against-humanity is in style that year.

My friend, Alan, wades through a sea
of orange leaves in the woods near the
Big Wapwallopen Creek in Mountain Top.

Fall also welcomes a change in great food. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin beer, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin rolls, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pumpkins, pumpkin pumpkins-infused with pumpkin are just a few examples (did I forget about pumpkin?). Apple cider, apple pie and caramel- or candy-coated apples also sweeten up the autumn months.

Let's not forget that the best holiday of the year takes place in fall -- Thanksgiving. I'd say it's Christmas, but America prides itself on gluttony more than any other nation in the world. Thanksgiving commemorates the tradition of gorging on 95 percent of the food chain within a few hours. The day is followed by Black Friday, which signifies the beginning of the holiday season, sales, extended shopping hours and numerous, cheesy Christmas ads. Who can't get excited about that?

Two trees standing out from the rest
in a parking lot at Prince Gallitzin
State Park.

The greatest feature of fall, and the reason it's so widely recognized in Pennsylvania, is the foliage. It's astonishing to think how many tourists come and spend money in Pennsylvania just to see a change that happens every year in the comfort of our own backyards. Yet people book hotels, drive hundreds of miles and base their work and school schedules around seeing trees that we otherwise have no qualms about chopping down for the sake of wood products and, in my mom's case, to avoid raking leaves.

But fall foliage does have a special place in many people's hearts, even for those who have lived in Pennsylvania all their lives.

It's symbolic of the change from summer to fall. It tells us that there is no more beach time. If it's still "five o'clock somewhere"  for you at this point, then that probably means you should schedule an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting around six o'clock.

Foliage is a sign that it's time to take things down a notch and to appreciate life at a much slower, relaxed pace.

The leaves were just beginning to fall
on this trail at the Allegheny Portage
Railroad National Historic Site
in early September.

It makes us reflect on not just how nature changes, but how we as individuals change. In nature, this change happens in small increments over an extended period of time -- from one red leaf to a sea of crimson, orange and gold.

Life operates in a similar fashion. We often fail to recognize how we change as human beings until these alterations make themselves more vibrant. It can be as small as a new haircut to becoming a more generous, caring individual.

Perhaps not everyone shares in the same feelings about fall. For some, it means only back pain from persistent leaf-raking and trying to get the smell of moth balls out of their fleece jackets and winter coats. To me, I find myself enjoying every day it's autumn until the last leaf falls to the ground.

And when that happens, I always find myself releasing a sigh, wishing that last leaf could have held on just a bit longer.

A view from shore-to-shore at Glendale Lake in Prince Gallitzin State Park.

A man boats on Glendale Lake at Prince Gallitzin State Park.

One of the chimney rocks in Chimney Rocks Park last fall.

Leaves flow down the Big Wapwallopen Creek in Mountain Top.

Chimney Rocks as seen from Route 36 in Hollidaysburg last fall.

The Blair County Courthouse as seen from the top of Chimney Rocks Park last fall.

Leaves rustling in the wind on top of Chimney Rocks Park.