Pennsylvania, Tioga County, Wellsboro
Explore Pennsylvania’s Grand Canyon
Imagine a vast sheet of ice, hundreds of feet thick, inching over the landscape like a giant bulldozer. Several such glaziers sculpted this landscape. As the last glacier receded north more than 10,000 years ago, its meltwaters helped carve Pine Creek’s deep gorge. Today, the waters continue to gradually deepen ‘Pennsylvania’s Grand Canyon.”
Humans, too, have shaped this land. Colton Point State Park is named for Henry Colton, a lumberman, who ran a logging camp in the area during the 1870s. His loggers felled white pines and floated log rafts to Williamsport sawmills. Today visitors can retrace that logging voyage, rafting Pine Creek for the pure adventure of it.
George Washington Sears, a well-known outdoor writer who used the penname “Nessmuk,” called Wellsboro his home most of his life.
“We do not go to the green woods and crystal waters to rough It, we go to smooth it. We get it rough enough at home, in towns and cities.”
–Nessmuk, Woodcraft, 1884.
Cultivating conservation
By the early 1900s, deforestation, forest fires and unregulated hunting had taken a heavy toll on wildlife. To restore its forests, Pennsylvania began purchasing private lands to create state forest reserves and parks, White-tailed deer, beaver, elk, river otter and fisher were reintroduced to this area throughout the 1900s. In 1968, 12 miles of the gorge were designated a National Nature Landmark. In 1993, the canyon became a State Park Natural Area. These designations will additionally protect the canyon’s natural heritage for future generations.
Historic thoroughfare
When you hike, bike, or ski the Pine Creek Rail Trail, you’re following a route that Native Americans traversed for thousands of years. In 1883, the Jersey Shore, Pine Creek, and Buffalo Railroad laid tracks along this route, carrying timber, coal and passengers. Rail service ended in 1968. Now the trail leads the adventurous through more than 60 miles of canyon beauty, from Wellsboro Junction to Jersey Shore, part of a statewide network of rail-trails.
(Native Americans • Horticulture & Forestry • Environment) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.