Friday, August 13, 2010

Ricketts Glen State Park

This past Monday my dad took Cecilia, John Paul, Max, and I camping at Ricketts Glen State Park in northern PA. The last time my parents were there I was a baby. We drove up Monday and left Wednesday. It took us about 3 1/2 hours to get there and because of traffic about 4-5 hours to come home on Wednesday. But we had a lot of fun in the car!!!




A beaver's dam:



This seriously looked like a movie set and not real life:


We went on the falls trail which has 26 total falls, however if you take the shorter route (it cuts out 4 miles), you only miss about 4 or 5 falls which is a good deal!


The rock under the water in this picture looks so cool because of the way the water has shaped it:



At the meeting place where the two mountain streams meet there were all these butterflies and they let me get really close to them:
I wasn't zooming that much, and this is how up close I got:

Ricketts Glen is in the mountains and so for the first half of the falls trail you walk down the mountain following one stream and then you go up the mountain following the other stream, which is how you get so many waterfalls.
This waterfall is actually the tallest one, it's 94ft tall, however the other half of it you can't see in this picture.




Driving down the mountain this was the view:
On Wednesday we stopped and went on the Evergreen Trail at the bottom of the mountain but right before that trail is the last fall which is the prettiest one of all:
It was truly spectacular and really reminded me of pictures of South America:

There were other people there swimming, but I took this picture anyway because it was so pretty:
The Evergreen Trail was really cool - it had some of the oldest trees in PA including some that have been there since before Columbus arrived in America:




A panoramic of the trail:
This chipmunk was gracious enough to let me get this picture:




This last picture is from the drive back. Because Ricketts Glen is in upper PA we got to drive back through the Appalachian Mountains.


I know this post is another long one, and I apologize, but there were so many pretty pictures to choose from!

1 comment:

Lorrie and Fred said...

I loved this post Mary Kate! Ricketts Glen is one of my favorite places, and your post brought back happy memories for me. It really has spectacular beauty; we've gone there about 5 times over the years with our clan. Thanks!