The Remotest Spot in Pennsylvania

Let's just admit it: There's not any true wilderness in the eastern half of the country.  You might get lost in the woods--even very lost.  You might never be found, like that poor old woman in Maine who stepped off the Appalachian Trail and never found her way back.  But the rule of thumb in this region is this: When you're lost, head downhill.  You'll eventually hit a moving body of water; follow it downstream.  In time, any river or stream will lead you to a road or a railroad.  The road might not be paved, but it'll take you to people.  A little research tells me that the remotest place in New York State is in the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks, and it's 5.7 miles from the nearest road.  The remotest spot in West Virginia is comparable, deep in the Cranberry Glades Wilderness.  Maryland doesn't have much in the way of mountainous isolation, but it does have some overlooked islands in the Chesapeake Bay that are far from any visitor or road.  Even the interior of Maine's Baxter State Park is only 6 miles from the nearest road.  How does Pennsylvania compare?  The Hammersley Wild Area is a protected wilderness within the Susquehannock State Forest, in the Northcentral part of the state.  Hammersley is a 30,000 acre expanse of forests and upland meadows.  But even at that, its remotest reaches are only 2.7 miles from the nearest road.  I think I want to do a few nights at Hammersley, but the summer is all booked up and rapidly fading.  Maybe in the fall--which might be batter anyway.

Rainbow Family of Living Light 2026 Gathering in Pennsylvania

The Rainbow Family of Living Light came back to the Allegheny National Forest!  They're currently still here till July 7.  My younger daughter and I went out there on July 3, camped out with them, and joined in on the margins of their huge prayer circle at noon on July 4.  Recall that the Rainbows visited the Allegheny National Forest all the way back in July of 2010, and I was fortunate enough to spend a day with them in their huge encampment along Queen Creek--just a few days before my family and I moved away from the forest to far-off Pittsburgh.  For the 2010 articles I wrote about that first visit (on my old blog), click HERE and HERE.  If perchance you are one of The-Several-Rare-Existing-Followers-of-My-Shadowy-Career-as-a-Re-explorer-of-This-World--(and you know who you are)--you might recall that it took me 5 attempts to rediscover that old encampment site fourteen years later, in September of 2024.  For that somewhat maudlin article, click HERE.  I was so happy the Rainbows came back to my forest...

If you don't know who the Rainbows are, let me see if I can give you a general idea: They're essentially modern hippies who gather on federal lands from July 1 to July 7 each year to build relationships and to pray for peace.  They've been doing this since 1971, and there are actually some Rainbows who have been to each and every national gathering for the past 55 years.  The climax of the Rainbow Gathering is always held on Independence Day.  Attendees are advised to enter the "main meadow" reverently and silently to pray or meditate for world peace.  Then, at noon, they all gather in a circle and begin the group prayers with haunting vocalizations of the "OM," the primordial sound of the universe.  It starts off low and simple and gradually develops into more complex harmonies--if that's the right word.  After about half an hour of this, it breaks into wild drumming and dancing.  It's a powerful thing to hear and see.

Here's Forest Road 119 with the Hickory Creek Wilderness on the right--where no parking is allowed.  The Forest Service temporarily made the road into a one-way from east to west, and there were cars parked on the south side of the road for about two miles in either direction of the main entrance to the Rainbow encampment.  

I was hellbent on visiting the Rainbows while they were in my forest.  I was so grateful to them for returning, and I wanted to actually be present this time for the prayer activities on July 4.  I halfheartedly invited my younger daughter to go with me.  She's always up for a hike and a campout, but I didn't think she'd actually come.  I'm glad she did.  The last time the Rainbows met in the ANF, the hike from Forest Road 119 to the main meadow was about 3 miles long.  This time, the walk was less than half that distance.  In fact, I'm not even sure it was the same meadow this time, though it was in the same general location as the 2010 meeting.  The 2010 meadow was bordered on the north by Queen Creek, and the 2026 meadow did not seem to be adjacent to the creek.  I'm not sure.  Anyhow, we made camp on a very steep hillside about a quarter mile from all the action...  Good thing I brought a hammock tent because all the nice level areas were taken.

So here's the thing about the Rainbow Gathering: All the stuff that makes it cool and unique and distinctly "Rainbow" is also the stuff that you're not supposed to take pictures of.  It's common etiquette at Rainbow to leave your cell phone in your tent.  Don't take photos.  There is indeed some nudity and a little light drug use--mostly marijuana.  But people here engage in deeply personal (and yet communal) acts--like prayer, and swaying to the spirit, and meditation, and dancing.  It's a sort of invasion to film any of that.  It's not a performance but a deeply personal act of devotion.

And so, these pictures don't begin to capture the essence of the gathering.  The thing that made this visit to the Rainbows so cool was to be in a patch of hemlocks and beeches, deep in the forest that I know and love, and there to find such a different experience from the solitude that I usually seek and find there.  The sunlight breaks golden into woodland shadows through clouds of sage and incense smoke.  Guitars strum softly, and unfamiliar instruments gently play.  The best thing of all is to see the vast and motley array of humanity in its full expression.  People of every race and gender gather there.  Some are dressed in wildly eccentric fashion.  A few are wearing "furry outfits."  Whereas some are wearing little or nothing, others are dressed as if they're about to go clubbing.  The tattoos, the jewelry, the hairstyles, the raw beauty of the human animal!  A Rainbow gathering is a gift for the senses: sights, smells, sounds.  I paused before entering the Main Meadow on July 4 to let a self-appointed shaman purify me with a smoking bundle of sage.  When he was done, I said, "Amen."  I think my daughter found that a little cringe-worthy...

It's especially meaningful to experience all of this chanting and dancing and drumming in a forest, where it echoes off hemlock and beech.  But again, I say all of that in order to apologize for the fact that these several photos cannot begin to do the gathering justice.  I wanted to photograph people--individuals--but I didn't feel that I should.

At the entrance to the main meadow, there's a map of the various special interest sites with a legend, which is pictured below.  You might want to click on these photos to make them easier to see.  Notice that there's a medical unit, a Jesus camp, a place to have your dreams interpreted, a place to make music with others, and a place to see or purchase art, etc.  They have food stations and shared cooking fires and places to get coffee as well as less obvious things like "egg camp" and "mom's basement," whatever those are...

My daughter and I brought our own food and ate it in the privacy of our own small campsite without a fire for cooking.  As welcome as we felt, we weren't comfortable with the idea of just showing up and eating a stranger's food.  We also neglected to bring our own utensils and camp-plates, so we were not able to join in the huge common meal in the main meadow on the evening of July 3.

This is the kind of thing that appears in the forests when the Rainbows are here.  No idea what this place was about.  We stopped to see, but there was no one there. 

I've been following some of the many Rainbow Facebook groups, and a lot of them bemoan the fact that a criminal element seems to have made its way into the gatherings.  This time, an elderly man had his cane stolen.  There have been a few aggressions.  I actually did see a campsite right along Forest Road 119 with a cardboard sign out front that read "Just Here to Find Women."  And what do I have to say about that?  It's hard for a movement to remain true to its original vision.  Over time, any idealistic movement will create traditions in an attempt to keep the vision alive.  With the passage of decades, the vision can become less important to some people than the traditions that were meant to preserve it.  This is what happened to the movement created by Jesus, which developed into some really weird expressions of Christendom that do not begin to resemble their founder: that purveyor of mercy and nonjudgment, the wandering poet, the barefoot Galilean who got the whole Christian thing started, but who in no-wise supported the half of what a lot of modern day "Christians" (evangelicals and conservative Catholics) support.  

And yet, there are many still within Christendom who "get" and follow the message of Jesus--maybe not the majority, but "many."  I think most Rainbows are there for all the right reasons: they have hearts for peace and goodwill toward humanity.  But there will always be those outliers who are just there for the curiosity of it, or the carelessness and recklessness of a few nights in the woods smoking pot and hooking up.

In 2010, the Forest Service estimated an attendance of 12,000 people at the Rainbow gathering in the Allegheny National Forest.  This year, the Forest Service estimates an attendance of only about 2,000.  This makes me sad, but it's in keeping with the spiraling trends that most voluntary associations have experienced since the pandemic.  I know it's true for churches...at least for unglamorous, socially responsible churches with educated clergy who preach love and not hate.  

Thank you, Rainbows, for coming back to the Allegheny!  I'll be right old by the time you make it back our way again, but my daughter just might be there.  This is a poor quality photo that my wife snapped as my daughter and I were piling into our 24-year old car to leave to go spend a night with the Rainbows.  We'd been spending a few days at our second home up North, so the Rainbow camp was close by.

A Campout at Buzzard Swamp, Allegheny National Forest

When my children were little, one of our favorite books to read together was The Bear's Water Picnic, which tells the story of a bear who invites his animal friends to a picnic on a raft on a pond.  The illustrations always put me in mind of this place, the dismally-named Buzzard Swamp in the Allegheny National Forest...just a few miles from Marienville.  It's a wildlife management area and bird sanctuary, and unlike most other locations in the forest, it's grassy and level.

Actually, I'm not exactly sure which came first: Did I like to read The Bear's Water Picnic to my kids because it reminded me of the beautiful Buzzard Swamp, or did I like Buzzard Swamp because it reminded me of happy times, reading to my daughters with one on each knee?  I don't know.  It doesn't matter.  There are 13 official "ponds" at Buzzard swamp, some of which could almost pass for lakes.  In addition to those 13, there are countless little meres and marshes and tarns...

I've been visiting the main southern area of Buzzard Swamp for many years, especially during the pandemic when I often camped there.  But I'd never ventured very far along the northern ponds and their grassy track leading toward Lamonaville Road.  On this trip, I decided to change all that.  I hiked as far as Pond 8, which is by far the loveliest of the 13 that I've seen.  It's got no duckweed; it's surrounded by green forests, and there are no people.  It was strange: when we arrived to the more popular southern segment of the wildlife management area on a Tuesday afternoon, we saw 5 or 6 other groups of people--mostly fishers and cyclists. One local guy had attached a pair of wheels to his kayak with bungee cords, and he pulled it behind his bike from the parking lot to the dam.  The very next day, all day long, we saw only a father and a son fishing at the largest dam.  Until this trip, I'd barely ever encountered another soul at Buzzard Swamp.

I need to go back to Pond 8 someday with a kayak.  

Laurel Caverns, Fayette County...and a Few Links to a Colorado Trip

For Father's Day, my younger daughter took me to the Laurel Caverns on the ridge just east of Uniontown.

I brought my kids here when they were little, but it was fun to come back.

None of the chambers in the Laurel Caverns are huge, and there are not many crazy rock formations, but it's a fun place to walk all the same.  

You can take a quick 35-minute tour, or a longer 1-hour tour, or several different tours where you go scrambling over rocks and down pitch-dark tunnels with a headlamp.  We did the 1-hour tour.

The guide said the caverns have been a state park since last year.

The colored lights added depth to the place, drawing the eye to far-off crevices and chambers that it would otherwise miss.

Some rooms, like this one, are off-limits.  You can look, but you can't enter.

One of the larger chambers.  For scale, see the sawhorse-style railing at the opposite side, blocking entrance from that direction.

Same chamber.

This unpresuming little hole in the ground is the original cave entrance as it was discovered by John Delaney in 1794.

The westward view from the parking lot.

A RECENT COLORADO TRIP:

For some pictures of the White River National Forest in Colorado, click HERE.

For the true ghost town of Dyersville, Colorado, click HERE. 

For the mountain known as Prospect Hill, click HERE. 

For Boulder and the Flatirons, click HERE. 

 

A Curiosity in Marienville

My father used to be the pastor of this church, back when it was still a church.  It was the first parish he ever served.  He taught at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh during the week and preached here on Sundays.  I was not born yet.  Now this place is a thrift shop that sells used clothes, coffee mugs, and old paperbacks.  

I gotta say, my father probably should have stayed in art.  He was a good artist.  But he came under the influence of a conservative preacher who told him the art-scene was bad--full of drug addicts and homosexuals--so he swore off art and went full time into the ministry.  There's been a lot of bad religion in my family...

I tell people I grew up in a cult.  

A guy in the church painted this hideous mural when my father was the preacher here.  Just a curiosity.  There are a lot of curiosities up in the North Country--like the guy a few miles south of Marienville who dresses in purple bell-bottom pants and a wizard's hat and stands out by the road for people to marvel at him.

"Smarter Than the Average Bear"

Yogi Bear used to brag to his friend Boo-Boo that he was "smarter than the average bear."  I hope I can say the same.  My poor birds have been hungry, and I have no patience with a destructive bear coming into my yard and even up onto my porch to eat all their food and destroy the feeders.  So I applied the backpacking principle of the "bear bag" to my birdfeeders.  It's kind of hard to see in these photos, but the birdfeeders are suspended by a cord at least 10 feet off the ground and 5 feet from the trunk of the tree.  This is how you hang your food bag when you're backpacking in bear country.  I can lower them for refills.

I rehung the birdhouse that that execrable bear keeps pulling down in search of eggs, too.  And I saw the sweet little bird who lives there just a while later.  She's a red-eyed vireo who was taking a big leaf inside the birdhouse to pad her nest.  Such a delicate, tiny thing.  I'm definitely on her side against this bully bear.  I fear that I can't move the birdhouse to a safer, higher location.  Now...if something pulls the birdfeeders down after I've hung them 10 feet off the ground...I might get a little spooked.

A Mystery and Maybe a Bear

See this mess?  That's the scat of some evil creature along with the pipes from a windchime.  I had two big birdfeeders and a hummingbird feeder up at my place in Venango County.  When I came up last week, I found them all smashed to the ground along with an occupied birdhouse.  At first, I thought a vandal had done it; there's usually no one home up there, and the nearest neighbors are pretty far away.  Something or someone came up onto the deck, tore down a birdfeeder, and bent the nail that held it sideways into the rafter.  The bottle from the hummingbird feeder was completely gone, but someone had to unscrew it from the frame in order to remove it.  A little birdhouse was toppled to the ground with a nest inside.  And the main birdfeeder out front?  It had been attracting squirrels, so I attached a small windchime to the bottom of it.  Squirrels are twitchy, and whenever they stepped onto the birdfeeder, it caused the windchime to make a tinkling noise that always scared them away.  (I came up with that little trick myself, and I'm very proud of it.)  But last week, that birdfeeder was all bent up and on the ground with its windchime.

My first thought was that it was a vandal.  My second thought was that it might have been a bear.  But can bears unscrew bottles?  And yet, if it was a vandal, why did they only target things that bears would eat--like birdseed, sugar-water, and bird eggs?  If it's a bear, I thought, it was probably just passing through.  So I put things back in order and hoped for the best.  When I came back up after work on Thursday, same thing!  Except worse this time.  The big birdfeeder out front is completely gone, and the evil creature left a gift--that nasty scat in the top photo.  I found the pipes from the windchime scattered throughout the yard and mangled.  It looks like something...chewed them.  I love this place, but weird stuff happens here.  The creepy and mysterious creature in the woods behind the house turned out to be a red fox, which is way cool.  But I don't know if I'm equipped to share my space with a bear.  I mean, it came up onto the deck!  Oh, and it also snapped one of the cables that serves as a railing.  It must have climbed on the cable to get to the birdfeeder.  So destructive, it makes me want to take up hunting.