Two Frigid Nights, Oil Creek State Park

I never knew what a cool place Oil Creek State Park was.  I mean, yes, it was literally cool and even downright frigid last night and the night before when a friend and I did our annual winter backpacking trip there.  It got as low as 13 degrees Fahrenheit overnight with a windchill of negative 5. 

But we had most of the park to ourselves in the winter doldrums of mid-February.  We usually do our annual winter camping trip on the Laurel Highlands Trail or at Quebec Run.  I’m glad we went north this time.  Whereas a ghostly sort of ersatz November lingered in Pittsburgh, it was full on winter in the North Country.

This is Oil Creek, a tributary of the Allegheny River.  The park encompasses much of the valley of Oil Creek, which famously caught fire during the oil boom of the 1860s.  

It’s interesting how the detritus of the old oil industry adds to the mystery and historicity of this beautiful place.  You might be hiking along, and you’ll see an old wooden shed with a tin roof, half fallen over, or old rusted out machinery sitting idle beside a lovely stream under hemlocks in the snow.

This’ll be a good place to bring the kayaks in the spring.

So this Adirondack shelter was our home for two nights.  A lot of backpacking shelters don’t have a fireplace facing the deck, and they’re completely open to the elements on one side.  In Pennsylvania state parks, most Adirondack shelters are designed like this one; there’s a fireplace with a gap on either side.  They’re great for winter camping if you bring small tarps to close the two gaps and then stoke the fire into a small conflagration.  You get a very…accomplished feeling when you spend a truly frigid night outdoors and manage to stay cozy and warm.

That’s the beauty of winter camping—staying comfortable outdoors in the snow.  Plus the silence…not a bug, not a bird.  And the solitude, you’ll probably have the forest mostly to yourself.  And the plain beauty of the snow falling outside with a warm fire glowing and crackling inside.  

Not that you stay inside!  We spent very little time at the shelter except in the mornings and evenings…and of course overnight.  During the day, we hiked the steep, slippery Gerard Trail, which makes a 36-mile loop around the entire park.  Here’s a view from the top of one very icy climb.  It’s Oil Creek with an old bridge at Miller Farm Road.  The Miller Family cemetery is in the woods just beyond the bridge on the right side of this photo.  I did not get to go to the cemetery, but there’s much I’ll need to explore next time I’m here.

It’s funny how it can be a bone-chilling 21 degrees, but when you get out in it and stay active—even just walking the trails—you don’t feel cold at all.

Kudos to the employees of this park who keep the camping areas so well stocked with firewood.  The lady at the park office told me this big park has only 2 full-time employees.

Our second night, just at dusk, we heard people calling out, “Shelly!  Shelly!”  Then when my friend was hanging his raincoat in the open triangular space above the blue tarp, we saw a headlamp headed our direction.  The beams shone through the tarp.  A young woman said, “Shelly?  Are you in there?”  I was worried about Shelly and was about to shout an answer to the woman: There’s no Shelly here. Did someone get lost? We’ll help you look for her!  But my friend spoke faster.  In a gruff tone, he barked, “No!”  The woman said, “Oh, sorry,” then left.  Later that night we heard a helicopter buzzing around above the trees.  Did Shelly get lost, and did they call out the copters to search for her?  I hope she’s okay. It was dangerously cold outside that night.

There were owls both nights, and a distant barking dog.  But other than that, silence reigned supreme.  You could hear the snowflakes touching down.

I’m glad this place exists.  And it owes its existence to public-minded “liberals” who thought it would be a good idea for the state to make outdoor recreation available to its citizens.  The Commonwealth tried to put a state park within 25 miles of every person within its boundaries.  What happens in a Trumpian hellscape where the only thing that matters is private ownership, and the state abdicates its interest in providing for the wellbeing of its citizens?  Republicans always want to privatize public lands or use them primarily for drilling and mining and lumbering—anything to turn a buck.  But money cannot buy what these places offer.  A soulless person can never understand that.