Sheltered Lands

  H E R S H E Y,  P A This beer just opened has been very long-anticipated.   Not just any beer though; a beer opened in Delaware marking the beginning of a vacation originally scheduled for June but kicked down the road three months by a pandemic.    Here now, with this beer, the adventures are about to commence.   The beer is doubly special.   In addition to kicking off a vacation, it serves a philanthropic good deed.   Much of the seventy bucks I paid for a case of Trail Day pilsner will be donated to protect 15,000 acres of connected lands on the Kittatinny Ridge.   The ridge runs 185 miles through Pennsylvania, and in part, serves to filter the water Tröegs Independent Brewing of Hershey uses to make Trail Day.   Both Tröegs and The Nature Conservancy appreciate clean, high-quality water so teaming up to build awareness of this critical resource was an ideal partnership.     As I was passing through Hershey recen...

Forest Pools Preserve, Carlisle, Pennsylvania C A R L I S L E,  P A In the 1970’s The Nature Conservancy (TNC) turned over 1,400 acres to the state of Pennsylvania who, in turn, used that land to created King’s Gap State Park on South Mountain.   In 2007, TNC acquired another seventy acres in the foothills of King’s Gap and currently manages that property as the Forest Pools Preserve .   TNC’s attraction to the property, simply put, was amphibians .   On this preserve are several vulnerable water sources – seasonal, ephemeral pools that provide habitat for frogs, salamanders, newts, fairy shrimp and rare plants such as the pink lady's slipper. These pools are a distinctive type of wetland usually devoid of fish allowing development of natal amphibian safe from predation.   Most pools dry up during part of the year but then refill with winter’s rains and snow melt.   These pools and the amphibians they nurture face a multitude of threats: pollu...

Cove Mountain Preserve, Marysville, Pennsylvania   M A R Y S V I L L E,  P A The odd numbered Interstate 81 is an iconic north-south route through the America’s Mid-Atlantic, but in Pennsylvania it nearly changes to an even-numbered east-west route.   Highways generally follow the path of least resistance, and in Pennsylvania, I-81’s path lies along the foothills of the Kittatinny Ridge – an s-curved ridge that runs from the state’s south-central border near Hagerstown to the Delaware Water Gap.   The Kittatinny serves as a forested corridor allowing wildlife to move through the state, and its varying elevations make it a hardy landscape adaptable to changing climates.    This Pennsylvania treasure is the single most important resilient landscape in the state, and a vital component of the Appalachian Mountain chain’s role in preserving forests, clean streams and natural diversity. About halfway through the state, the Kittatinny reaches a drama...