Pine Creek Gorge East Rim

Pine Creek Gorge East Rim. Leonard Harrison State Park. , Explore Pennsylvania's Grand Canyon , Imagine a vast sheet of ice, hundreds of feet thick, inching over this landscape like a giant bulldozer. Several such glaciers sculpted this landscape. As the last glacier receded north more than 10,000 years ago, its melt-waters helped carve Pine Creek's deep gorge. Today, the waters continue to gradually deepen "Pennsylvania's Grand Canyon.", Humans, too, have shaped this land. In the 1890s, Leonard Harrison operated a lumber mill in Pine Creek Gorge at Tiadaghton. Loggers felled the gorge's massive white pines and floated log rafts down Pine Creek to Williamsport sawmills. Today visitors can retrace that logging voyage, rafting Pine Creek for the pure adventure of it., George Washington Sears [inset photo], a well-known outdoor writer who used the penname "Nessmuk," called Wellsboro his home for 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 forests and parks. White-tailed deer, beaver, elk, river otter and fisher were reintroduced to this area throughout the 1900s., Leonard Harrison State Park honors Leonard Harrison of Wellsboro, who donated the park's original 121 acres to the Commonwealth. In 1968, 12 miles of the gorge were designated a National Natural Landmark, additionally protecting 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 1988. 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.