Snyder Middleswarth and Tall Timber Natural Areas

[jmitchell]

https://endlessmountains.wordpress.com/2016/09/16/snyder-middleswarth-and-tall-timber-natural-areas-bald-eagle-state-forest/


https://www.flickr.com/photos/49239558@N04/albums/72157673840338235/with/29554510582/


I recently went on a hike through the Snyder Middleswarth and Tall Timber Natural Areas in the Bald Eagle State Forest (PA). The natural area protects an old growth forest that had never been logged, and was home to massive hemlocks that were 150 feet tall and over 400 years olds. Sadly, many giant hemlocks have died from the wooly adelgid. There are still some large trees. Regardless, it is a beautiful, isolated place- offering forest hiking at its best with small streams and rhododendron jungles. Nearby is the impressive vista of New Lancaster Valley, a broad, sweeping forested valley surrounded by mountain ridges.


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[ki0eh]

To put this area in A.T. perspective, it is about a 1.5 hour drive north-northwest of Duncannon, at the southeast margin of a jumble of forested ridgelines south of I-80, northeast of US 322, and well west of US 15.

In a straight line the closest town someone outside of PA may know to it is State College, but probably a 1.5 hour drive on convoluted roads from there as well.

Mid State Trail aka Great Eastern Trail traverses the northwest margin of the jumble, and there would be connecting forest trails from here to it, but that series of paths would be a 2 day hike for many of us.