Sproul State Forest: Spend a Winter Day

Ansel Adams may have said that the trick to good landscape photography is knowing where to stand. But in the middle of a central Pennsylvania winter, I submit to you that the first challenge - even before that - may simply be finding a place to park!

With clouds clearing, sunshine and blue skies arriving on the scene, and temperatures bounding into the mid-50s F, my husband and I took to the wilds of Sproul State Forest. We were headed for a favorite backpack site we refer to as Pine Glen, but this time we would only be spending the day.

We arrived to find, to our dismay, that most of the side roads were still snow-covered and icy. The road we usually park on was nearly impassable, covered only by the tracks of pick-up trucks and snowmobiles.

The nearest parking lot was likewise snow-covered and scary looking. My husband parked my Mazda by the edge of it, put on the emergency flashers, and walked back in to see how deep the snow was.

With a nod, he climbed back in and revved the engine: as my Mazda has great tires on the front, he thought it could do it. "He who hesitates is lost!" I said, as he put the car in reverse and hossed it back up into the snowy parking lot. Success!

From there, we gathered up our gear - daysacks, folding bag chairs, mini coolers - and hiked up through the woods into increasingly deep snow. It was starting to melt a bit, and as you may (or may not) know, that makes traction even worse. It quickly became grainy and slick for walking (comparable to hiking in wet sand).

I wanted to see how our little pond was doing (main photo above). It's a favorite place, and the picture may look familiar, as you've seen this pond a time or two before on these pages. The pond was melting, and my heart leapt to think of the young amphibians who will soon live there. We once spotted a sleek black fisher with a long floofy tail by this pond, but not on this day.

It took twice as long as usual to make the walk into our campsite, and once there, we set up our party pad for the day. The ground was still covered in snow and ice. Had we decided to spend the night, as we usually do, we'd have been camping on snow-pack (which is not so great, actually).

We found a sun spot, set our chairs out, placed a half-groundsheet on the ground, and put our gear on it to keep it all from getting soaked. Then we fired up the tunes box and really got the party started, with the Hooters, Eric Clapton, Eddie Vedder, REO Speedwagon, and Thin Lizzy among the artists featured in the soundtrack for this glorious day.

We had brought some friends along. Alex the Alligator, Little Bear, and the Tiny Tiger joined us on our deep-woods adventure. The Tiny Tiger, in particular, had a grand time. We had brought along his round disc, and he took to the slopes, trying his paw at sledding. Nothing but powder, baby!

While he did have some fun, the Tiny Tiger seemed a little bit worried by the snow. In fact, he wondered if tigers even belong in places where there is snow. My husband regaled him with tales of tigers and the diverse habitats they hail from, including snowy places such as Siberia. And that seemed to mollify him.

"But what kinds of tigers live in these woods?" the Tiny Tiger asked, in a very little voice. And he might have puffed up his chest a bit when my husband and I looked around and told him that perhaps HE was the only tiger in the Pennsylvania wild woods! (Imagine! His very own private habitat!)

And later in the day, the Tiny Tiger ran into a Snow Witch Doctor - or maybe it was a Snow Shaman, who can know these things? - in the shadows of the big pines. You may enjoy photos of the Tiny Tiger's sledding adventure and the Snow Shaman in the extras. :-) Yes, it was quite a BIG day for the Tiny Tiger!

And then, when the sun started to move westward in the sky, and the shadows grew longer, we packed up our gear and hiked out. The snow and ice on the road was melting, and I stopped and took some pictures of the tree-shadows on it. A monochrome photo may also be viewed in the extras.

A sunshine day. A mid-winter thaw. A pretty pond in golden light. Adventures filled with blue skies and green trees. And good music, and a Tiny Tiger's grand adventures. And a resurgence of hope; yes, hope lives here in these beautiful wild woods. It was a GOOD day, a four-photo Blip-day!

When we visit this place, we are usually camping out for the night, and we occasionally hear coyotes howling, although that was not the case on this day. One of the songs we were listening to seemed to perfectly describe that experience, so I'm including it as the soundtrack for this day. Here is Thin Lizzy, with Cowboy Song.

I am just a cowboy, lonesome in the trail.
Starry night, campfire light,
And the coyote calls where the howlin' winds will.
So I ride out to the ol' sundown.
I am just a cowboy, lonesome on the trail . . .