Waterfall Park aka Ricketts Glen Park

If I had the job to name Ricketts Glen State Park in Pennsylvania, I would call it Waterfall Park, for I have never seen so many beautiful waterfalls in such close proximity to each other anywhere else.

The trails to go through the glen down to around nine waterfalls is just over a mile, but if one is really fit and decides to do the full circle to see the fifteen named waterfalls, you are looking at around eight miles.

This park is situated on 2000 acres of land but we never got to do much more than visit the closer nine waterfalls in the beautiful gorge, due to the difficult, steep, muddy, slippery paths one has to pick the way on.

At the entrance is a moderately-appearing temperate forest with well-marked hiking trails, which belies the terrain awaiting you as you head downwards to the various falls, but it was worth every effort.

It took us almost and entire half day to visit nine falls for we had to put our feet down gingerly so as not to become casualties.  I hate to think how we would have been brought back to civilization if any of us had a serious fall! Besides, there were quite a number of other adventurers there when we visited, and this included a number of children who just did not understand the dangers they posed, not only to themselves, but to others, by racing around.

Happy troopers stand behind their leader on the trail

I visited this wonderful park in August 2019 with three other ladies from an outdoor Meet-up group in Florida and this visit through the scenic gorge was only one of the events we covered on a wonderful six day trek into Pennsylvania, organized by our fearless leader, Jeniffer Weise.

As a background from Wikipedia, “Ricketts Glen is a National Natural Landmark known for its old-growth forest and 24 named waterfalls along Kitchen Creek, which flows down the Allegheny Front escarpment from the Allegheny Plateau to the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians.”

Naturally, it was originally home to Native Americans but was taken away by the colonizing immigrants, and is now named in honor of a Bruce Ricketts who made lots of money in the lumber industry and in 1860, built a hotel there.

The park is now operated by the state which has modernized the facilities and allows free use by all and sundry.

Each waterfall we saw had its own unique features but the largest and most impressive was the huge Ganoga Falls a real  beauty from every angle.