My wife and I love to get away on the weekends.  We have traveled all over the place in that magical time between Friday and Monday.  Some of our weekend getaways inclue Watkins Glen, Corning Glass Museum, Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh, Lake Placid, NY, as well as road trips to no destination in particular.  But one weekend we decided to take a trip to a place called Cherry Springs State Park.  What a place it is!

I first noticed Cherry Springs State Park while I was browsing the internet to look for a place to go.  The site mentioned that it was great for stargazing and camping, and that was good enough for me.  I decided we would go that weekend.

It was a beautiful drive to Cherry Springs.  We got to drive straight through the Quehanna Wilds and Sproul State Forest on our way up. 

When we arrived at Cherry Springs, we were initially disappointed that the camping was so exposed – there were not many trees around.  However, we did not let it bother us as we unpacked the car and set up camp.  For our first supper, I decided to cook steaks on the fire.  I like to bring something like steak for the first night, before we have to start eating eggs or hot dogs for every meal. 

As the afternoon wore on, two park rangers came up to us at our camp site.  They invited us up to the astronomical field for an educational lesson on the sun.  We headed up and were delighted as we got to look at the sun through a special telescope.  We were able to see the actual edge of the sun burning and moving.  It was so cool!  The rangers also informed us that they would have their telescopes out that night, as well.

So after dark, we headed back up to the astronomy field.  The park rangers got their telescopes adjusted, and let us take a look.  We were able to view the rings around Saturn, which was amazing!  I never knew you could see those rings through a regular telescope.  They pointed us to a place in the Hercules galaxy, too, where, through the telescope, it looked like stardust had just been sprinkled all over the sky.  It turned out to be some 1.5 million stars in that section of the galaxy that you couldn’t see with the naked eye.  Another part of our education included learning how to spot a man-made sattelite in the sky, and we even witnessed the International Space Station as it orbitted over us.

The greatest thing about it was the shooting stars.  You only had to look at the night sky at Cherry Springs for a few seconds before you saw another shooting star.  It was not because there was a meteor shower going on, but simply because the sky at Cherry Springs is so dark.  The nearest town, Galeton, was about ten miles away, and it is just a small, podunk town with no light pollution. 

So the next day we went hiking at Lyman Run State Park, which was only a few miles away.  It was a very enjoyable hike, and we looked forward to the next day, as we decided we were going to head for the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon.

The PA Grand Canyon is about twenty minutes from Cherry Springs State Park.  We went up to Colton Point State Park to begin our hike, and we descended to the bottom of the gorge.  There was rushing Pine Creek at the bottom, and across the stream from us was a 65 mile long rails-to-trails.  We were physically exhausted after the hike back to the top, and we slept well that night.  The next day we packed up and headed home.

Anybody who is thinking about a trip to the Pennsylvania Wilds should look up Cherry Springs State Park.  With its combination of beautiful skies, and close proximity to PA Grand Canyon, you can have a great weekend full of hiking, camping, and observation.