With their hike completed, 11-year-0ld Moriah Conley, left, her 9-year-old brother, Nathan, and her 6-year-old sister, Rebecca, show off some of the many varieties of leaves you can find at Ricketts Glen State Park, including hickory and maple.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Hikers explore lesser-known facets of state park
Click here to subscribe today or Login.
According to the sign, the group is heading in the right direction for the Old Bulldozer Road Trail.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Daniel Conley from the village of Gardners in Adams County, second from left, and his children, Nathan, Rebecca and Moriah, admire the view from an overlook as they take a break from their guided hike along the Old Bulldozer Road Trail at Ricketts Glen State Park on Thursday morning.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Environmental Education Specialist Rhiannon Summers leads eight hikers on a Discover Ricketts hike at Ricketts Glen State Park on Thursday. The 5-mile hike started off on level ground but included a steep descent near the end.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Environmental Education Specialist Rhiannon Summers, center, talks about a man-made dam that was built many decades ago in what is now Ricketts Glen State Park.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Perched near an overlook at Ricketts Glen State Park, a hardy little group of hikers saw miles of red, orange and yellow foliage — when they looked out toward the horizon.
If they shifted their gaze down, down, down, they saw traffic far below on Route 118.
“How are we going to get down?” 9-year-old Nathan Conley asked. “The short way or the long way?”
“We’re going to get down the safe way,” environmental education specialist Rhiannon Summers assured the boy, who was one of eight hikers she led Thursday morning on a 5-mile “Discover Ricketts” hike that included the steep Old Bulldozer Road Trail.
Summers has been leading hikes in the park for the past few months, giving interested visitors a chance to see facets of Ricketts Glen beyond the wildly popular Falls Trail with its 21 named waterfalls.
Last weekend, Summers said, the park was more crowded than she had ever seen it before. “We had a holiday (Columbus Day) weekend, we had higher temperatures than normal and we had the colorful leaves.”
“It was a perfect storm,” she said, adding that once the parking lots were filled on that busy weekend, visitors parked along the highway and even in a hayfield more than a mile and a half from the Falls Trailhead.
Thursday’s group, in contrast, didn’t have to deal with crowds, meeting early on a mid-week morning and taking a less-traveled, but still lovely, trail.
“It’s so pretty. I love the hemlock trees,” said Heather Conley, of Gardners, near Gettysburg, whose family of campers — including her husband, Daniel, and children Moriah, 11; Nathan, 9, and Rebecca, 6, — joined Summers and three adult hikers for the trek.
What do the children, who are home-schooled, enjoy about hiking?
“Getting to see the leaves,” said Moriah.
“Just being outside,” said Nathan.
Their mom, Heather Conley, said it’s been a tradition for her family to visit Ricketts Glen “ever since my grandparents were first married.”
Her grandparents brought her mother to the park as a child, and her parents brought her. More recently, she and Daniel have brought their children, each of whom has been carried around the Falls Trail in a baby carrier.
No matter how old you are, one of the adult hikers commented, you can learn something each time you visit the park.
Thanks to Summers’ expertise, the hikers had an on-site science lesson that included an answer to a timely question: Why do the leaves change?
“When the trees realize the darkness is starting to get longer, they know it’s time to stop putting energy into the leaves and they put it into the trunk and the roots,” Summers told the group. “The chlorophyll goes away and what you’re seeing is the true color of the leaf.”
Showing the children a topographical map, Summers explained how its contour lines would let them know how steep their trail descent would be. A map also showed an area that was open to hunting — which is why everyone in the group had been asked to wear fluorescent orange.
Along the way, Summers offered leaf recognition tips as she pointed out the large, mostly oval leaf of a cucumber magnolia; the compound leaf of a hickory tree and the smooth, shiny, currently bright red leaf of a tupelo.
There were chestnuts to spot, too, plus a little brown millipede, that Summers gently moved off the trail so it would be less likely to be flattened by a hiking boot.
As the sounds of Route 118’s traffic became louder and louder, the group realized it had come to the end of the Old Bulldozer Road Trail. (Thanks to a shuttle system Summers had arranged, the eight hikers descended the hill without having to climb it.)
If you are interested in exploring part of Ricketts Glen State Park beyond the Falls Trail, Summers will lead another Discover Ricketts hike on Oct. 23. The 6-mile, moderate hike involves hiking the Little Cherry Run Loop Trail “to see our hidden gem waterfall.” Hikers must register in advance by emailing [email protected] or calling 570-477-7780. They also should wear fluorescent orange, and bring a face mask.