The Beauty of Forgotten Things: Hillman State Park

 It’s been a good long while since I’ve taken my deep thirst for the outdoors, my never-ending quest for beauty and adventure, to the old reclaimed strip mines at Hillman.  The poison ivy, the deer ticks, the thin forests with brittle canopies.  It’s just not the land of hemlocks and ferns that I love.  Instead of deep shade and trickling trout streams, Hillman has broad grassy meadows, piercing sunlight, spooky groves all in tatters.  Ah, but I’m glad I went there this past Sunday.  It seemed to be as quiet and as beautiful a place as I could desire.

One nice thing about visiting a park rarely is that you forget what you once learned about it, and you get to rediscover it—which I probably say every time I go to Hillman.  It’s even closer to my house than Raccoon Creek, and I didn’t have much time, so I made it my destination of choice.  It was lovely in the light of early evening, with the summer all fresh and green, the trees as-yet-unplagued by wilt, or drought, or disease.  Someone has begun to name the trails in this park and even mark them with signs, which is at once a help and a sorrow.  It’s a help for obvious reasons.  It’s a sorrow because the place no longer has the dangerous character it had back when it was easier to get lost there.  The Wetlands Trail wends between at least five scenic ponds that were devoid of all fishers on a Pirates home game day.  The only fisher here was an elegant blue heron.  Imagine this place just before sunset, when the wood thrush makes his evensong.