Ryerson Station State Park

More and more, my recreational life seems to drift in the direction of Washington and Greene Counties. I love them. As overrun as they are by frackers, and industrial trucks, and greedy corporations, they still have a bucolic beauty and charm. They're truly Northern Appalachia. I might harbor a few romantic illusions about life in Appalachia, though I shouldn't. I know very well that my kind is not appreciated there. It didn't work in elementary school, and it wouldn't work still today. And yet, it sure is nice to visit.

The main attraction at Ryerson Station State Park was once its lake, which was destroyed when Consol Energy undermined the dam and refused to pay for the damages despite the state's repeated demands. Since the lake is no longer the centerpiece of the park, the PADCNR has put a little more effort into grooming and marking the hiking trails. It shows, too.

The park is divided into four main hikeable segments:

>the east, which I hiked in March

>the west, which has only one linear trail

>the north, which has a few options

>the south, which is traversed by great mazes and labyrinths of trails. I did much of the southern segment today.

The first photo is a 300-year old oak tree known as the "Wolf Tree." But alas, how the mighty are fallen! The second photo is the overlook along the Lazear Trail. There's supposed to be a lake shimmering in the distance, but alas again. I don't know which is more shocking: the fact that an ungodly rich major corporation can destroy public property with absolute impunity or the fact that there's anything left intact. When corporations are permitted to behave in this way, and the sate is either unwilling or incapable of seeking restitution, it's hard to say that we're still a "great nation."

Ah, but we were still just on the road to greatness back in the days when the Second Great Awakening shook the long hollows of Greene County. In the late 1700s, camp meetings and circuit riding preachers made the narrow valleys in the eastern "Ohio Country" sing with their strange music: plain, confident, homespun. Here's a testament to that uniquely American brand of religiosity and individualism that marked the early frontier...and that has been driving us into self-centered oblivion ever since.