A Walk on the Wild Side

I recently visited my hometown in the mountains of Clearfield County. The area is sparsely populated with lots of woods, streams and mountains. If you love malls and shopping, this is not for you. If you love the outdoors-fishing, hunting, canoeing, hiking, this is paradise.

My favorite activity is either hiking or riding my ATV around the mountains. You never know what you'll find around the next bend: maybe a blacksnake or rattlesnake; it might be a deer with a fawn; it may be a fox or coyote, hawk, snapping turtle-and the list goes on.

At the turn of the century, the mining of coal from deep mines (tunnels into the sides of mountains) changed. The industrial age brought heavy equipment that was able to strip the earth's surface-exposing the valuable coal.

There were few laws in the1920's to the 1970's and coal strippers played havoc with the land. Huge ravines were cut-coal was extracted-and the area abandoned. The result was a ravaged landscape with huge open pits with high walls. It was a mess.

Then along came the beaver. They dammed the ravines and created beautiful lakes and ponds. Local men privately stocked these waters with bass and sunfish -on their own-with no state assistance.

In the one picture you can see where the end of the beaver dam was recently washed out by heavy rains. The dam height is about 18 feet-the water level dropped considerably. Note how the dam was built in a coal stripping ravine.

The one problem with hiking in the mountains is that there are no bridges- you just tie your shoes around your neck and wade through the ice cold water.