A Dam Good Hike 2/9/21

Whipple Dam State Park is 12 miles from State College in the mountains that border "Happy Valley" to the south. This is the same area in which Penn State's Stone Valley Recreation Area is located: it is a mile or so away by the way a crow flies.

The land the park sits on was purchased from the native Iroquois by the colonial government of Pennsylvania in the mid-1700s. A local iron ore find, plentiful water, and acres of old-growth forest provided the perfect combination of resources for the Monroe Iron Works. Remnants of a stone furnace can be seen in the woods just to the east of the intersection of McAleys Fort Road/Rt 26 and Charter Road. In the last half of the 19th century, after the iron works closed, a sawmill took up operations near the furnace site on Laurel Run. The stream was dammed to create a lake for the sawmill. In 1904 after the saw mill closed, the state repurchased the land for recreational use, e.g., Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts. In the 1920s a wider area was designated Whipple Dam State Park after the owner of the lumber mill, Osgood Whipple, and the dam was rebuilt. Other improvements were made by the Civilian Conservation Corp during the Great Depression.

Source <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipple_Dam_State_Park>

Most recently, the park closed in February 2020 for renovations, e.g., sediment removal from behind the dam, new observation decks, fish habitat improvement, improved parking, new beach sand. It reopened on January 31, 2021. The next Sunday, we visited to hike the 3 mile Lake Trail as a COVID GOOTH (Get Out Of The House) activity.

The trail extends north along the east lake side into the Laurel Run backwater where it crosses Laurel Run, and then turns south up and along the side of the west boundary mountain and then down to lake level. It was a partly cloudy and cold day - temperatures at lake-side just below 30 with a 20 degree real-feel due to the wind. But it was a great day to hike the trail, especially the backwater area that is typically very wet from water flowing off the east boundary mountain toward the lake and the stream. With the ground frozen, however, areas that would have been muddy were mostly firm under foot.

The roots of this toppled tree and a number of other trees that were destine to fall were interesting.

The foot bridge over Laurel Run at the northern extent of the trail was wind protected by the narrowing valley and so showed little sign it was mid-winter. Neither did the western section of the trail that headed back to the lakeside after rising and falling a few hundred feet in elevation.

All in all, a "dam" good hike!