Woodland, PA

While in Woodland, I stayed at Woodland Campground.  I was there May 15 – 17.    Not too far from the campground is an area where they have wild elk.  One day I decided to go elk hunting, shooting with my camera, not a gun!  I saw my first elk just 30 – 40 feet from the road.  The second picture was taken from Winslow Hill, which is a popular place with the elk.  There are 2 elk in the picture, but they were far away.  

There are a couple of state parks close by.  I had planned to visit both and do some hiking.  My first was Parker Dam State Park.  My knee had been bothering me a bit recently so I thought I would keep it easy by hiking one of the easy trails and then a trail called “Trail of the New Giants”.  I was told it was rated a moderate trail and looking at the topo map it looked like there was only one steep section. The picture below was taken at the start of the New Giants trail.  I am guessing it is some sort of fungus?  The larger one was almost baseball size.

In 1985 a tornado came through this area taking down many of the trees.  A sign said they had removed a lot of the trees, but there were still many on the ground.  it was still a beautiful hike.

I finally got up the short steep section of the trail which lead to an view of the park below.

When hiking in mountainous area, I always liked going downhill better than uphill.  But I had heard many people say they didn’t like going downhill because it hurt their knees.  I never knew what they were talking about until this hike.  Going down that steep section hurt!!  But I made it, even stopping to take pictures of some columbine on the trail.

The next day, I took it really easy because my knee hurt so bad.  The only major walking I did was at Walmart.  The day after, I visited Bilger’s rocks, which probably wasn’t the smartest thing since I like to climb over and on the rocks.  But it was a neat place.  I was the only person there at the time, I later learned on the weekends they have tours of the area.

The above picture was taken from above the rocks.  After this, I found the entrance and started the walk through the rocky area.

It’s hard to judge the size of the rocks, but you can just make out the path in the middle of the picture above.  You walk under the overhang, which is probably 8 feet or higher.

Close to the entrance is this carving-

There are signs all over warning people against damaging the rocks (drawing or carving).  But this carving is dated 1921.  It was hard to get a picture of the entire carving and the words ( I managed to cut off the year and artists initials).  I wondered what the artist was thinking to create this--  “The World is looking to US”.

Other pictures of the area-

 

My next stop was Cook Forest State Park.