Cook Forest State Park, Old Growth Forest - CLARION JEFFERSON and FOREST COUNTIES 

Hey great minds think alike. While researching I was wondering the same thing and figured others would as well.

I can acknowledge that we have nothing that truly compares to the Grand Canyon or Joshua Tree National Parks here. But, we have our own uniqueness and beauty that the West does not. Plus its a lot easier and less expensive to get to. Hope you manage to make your getaway cabin a reality. Beauty at every turn in that area, and I am quite jealous of those who get to see it more often than I. Thanks for watching! HOpe oyu enjoyed!

@@keystonecuriosity I have been to the Grand Canyon (North Rim) and I will say that each are stunning in their own unique way and I urge anyone that going West is the trip of a lifetime that will change you for the better. That does not mean, however that we do not have some stunning things to see East of the Mississippi, and the PA Wilds are near the top of the list.

At the end of the day, The world is a beautiful place for those who take the time to find it.@@currentsitguy

@@keystonecuriosity As I age I find there is nothing people can make or build that impresses me like nature.

Thank you! Glad you liked them

Depending on where you start from and where you go theres a lot of cool stuff up that way. Glad you enjoyed!

Please dont

@@jacobpoucher tourists coming to see the forest will only be another reason to keep it instead of cutting it down

Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til its gone...

I could get lost in the woods of the Allegheny and never regret the choice to do so. Glad you like it Thanks for watching!

@@keystonecuriosity same here.

I've been itching to do Ft Necessity and Jumonville Glen since I started the channel. I'm not well acquainted with Ft Ligonier but that's going to have to change. Thanks for the suggestion!

Glad you liked it! Happy to see others getting out and enjoying the beauty we have here as well, Hope to see you on the trail at some point!

From what research I did there's a lot of contributing factors. Wildlife is another key part, as is how/where rivers flow. The one thing that is consistent though is that the more we mess with these places, the more adverse affects we see.

@NerdyAboutNature has a lot more details on this topic if youre interested, great presentation as well

We do not have herbivores that eat brier shrubs and small trees. Hunting has nothing to do with it. If you didn't have hunters, conservation wouldn't exist. They're the only ones who put money back into it. The worst thing that has happened is the state decided it would be a good idea to bring in Coyotes who aren't even native to this region, let alone the state.

Hunting contributes to the intrusion of the wilds of PA just as much as adding more hiking trails does. Nature will always find a balance when left to its own devices. Sadly you are right about hunters being the primary contributors to funding conservation. I'd like to see that change more in the coming years @@sonsofliberty3081

According to people who actually study the Forests of Pennsylvania it is TO MANY HERBIVORES not to few. The biggest problem is the last native wolf was killed around 1850 and the last native Mountain Lion in 1871. That leaves the Coyote and the Black Bear as the biggest predators in the state. Coyotes are considered to small to take down deer. Black Bears can take down a Deer, but generally a Black Bear is not nimble or fast enough to do so (Through both Coyotes and Black Bear will eat any dead deer that they come across). Thus there is to many deer in Pennsylvania given the Forests of Pennsylvania are no longer the Second growth forests of the early and mid 20th century. Deer thrive in Second Growth Forests, what Forests become about 10 to 20 years after being clear cut, which most forests of Pennsylvania had been by 1930. Since the 1960s most of the forests in Pennsylvania are no longer Second Growth forests but mature forest, which are hostile to deer and deer is hostile to the undergrowth in mature forests. Deer eating to much of the undergrowth is a huge problem for the forests of Pennsylvania and that is do to to many deer due to not enough top end Predators such as wolves and Mountain Lions. www.timberwolfinformation.org/pa-wolves-in-pennsylvania-or-new-jersey/#:~:text=The%20last%20gray%20in%20Pennsylvania,Lakota%20Wolf%20Preserve%20in%20Columbia. Pennsylvania bounty records show bounty for a wolf was paid as late as the 1890s: www.pennlive.com/wildaboutpa/2010/03/last_true_wolves_in_pennsylvan.html subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2012/04/10/gray-wolves-unlikely-to-make-it-in-the-northeast-study-148514 Wolves lasted to 1897 in West Virginia: wvexplorer.com/2022/01/04/wolf-moon-recalls-time-when-wolves-roamed-west-virginia/ A wolf was killed in 1931 in Pennsylvania, it is believed that wolf was from Ontario and had cross a Frozen Lake Erie: mccleerywolves.com/items/show/77 Report of last Mountain Lion killed in Pennsylvania: mccleerywolves.com/items/show/77 www.pennlive.com/life/2022/10/last-mountain-lions-in-pennsylvania-revealed-in-history-folklore-and-newspapers.html Mountain Lions have been reported in Pennsylvania in recent decades, but all of the reports have been males who walked from Western States in Pennsylvania looking for a mate. Female Mountain lions control much smaller territories then Male Mountain Lions and no Female Mountain Lion has been reported east of the Rockies except for Mountain Lions in the Florida Everglades.

I'm curious what makes a man think to hold the beauty of the world to a select few.

You mean like the Sierra Club?

@@Scott-zm8ei Or like the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club.

God didn't intend for the beauty of this world to shared with only a few..

@@tedlieb4928 yea he did actually