Vanlog, Loyalsock State Forest
September 19, 2020
After driving up late following a Friday evening class, we boondocked at the Mohegan Sun Casino in the Poconos. Vanna White the Camper Van was very happy because this is the very same parking lot where we first laid eyes on her, fell in love with her, and agreed to buy her in April, 2019. So she felt right at home at the casino. We left early, around 7:30 for one more hour of driving to World's End State Park early Saturday morning.
Parking at the "Chapel," an outdoor seating area just off the roadway in the state park where couples often get married (in fact, there were people there setting up for a wedding later in the day), we headed into the hemlock and fern-filled forest on the Double Run Trail. It wasn't long before we crossed over two wooden footbridges and then wound our way through the woods to Cottonwood Falls. All of the waterfalls in this area of the state are rather sparse right now due to an unusually dry summer here on the East coast.
Crossing over the park road, we then headed upward on the fairly steep High Rock Trail to High Rock overlook before completing the loop back to the car at the chapel parking area. 3.5 miles in total.
After a circuitous route through some dirt forest roads that took us past our eventual campsite, we drove up High Knob Road to the High Knob Overlook, with panoramic views of Sullivan County. It was a clear day and the information sign said that we could see for about 20 miles.
We parked the car so that we could have views of the distant mountains outside the van's sliding door, since it was rather cool and breezy at that elevation, so we preferred to dine indoors. Then we drove through the park to the nearby town of Forksville, PA. Parking at the local church, we walked across the red covered bridge and past the old-fashioned country store for some rural scenery. On our return through the bridge, a friendly passerby chatted us up and it turns out he was the mayor of Forksville!





We returned to the chapel parking lot adn intended on doing the Link Trail to the Rock Garden and Loyalsock Canyon Vista. However, we got about 0.6 miles in on the trail when a college-aged male came running down the trail toward us with a sheathed knife above his head warning that there were three bears not much farther down the trail. If it had only been one bear, I might have continued since I did have my bear spray with me. But three bears! I think we might have been outmatched. So we retraced our steps back to the car. We then drove back on the forest road known as Shanerburg Road and found our free (but reserved) dispersed camping site in the Loyalsock State Forest.

After a dinner of hamburger, potatoes (home-grown), carrots, and onions (also home-grown) in a tin foil meal over charcoal, we extinguished our fire and drove back to High Knob Overlook for sunset. Lots of people were there, including one guy who was entertaining the children with his model airplane. We also got to witness a woman back her car out of her parking space right into a car on the roadway. But the sunset was nice.
We returned to camp and had ourselves a proper campfire and some s'mores before a rather cool evening of sleeping in the van. (The tent was just for show to keep our site reserved during the daytime).
Good night, moon!