Kinzua Skybridge

One of the key attractions in northern Pennsylvania is the Kinzua Skybridge.  Once a train trestle or viaduct that crossed a deep gorge (over 100 feet deep and 2,000 feet long,) the viaduct allowed trains to carry passengers and products for over 120 years. Eventually the trestle became too fragile to allow trains to cross and then the trestle was partially brought down by a tornado in 2003, while it was under repair.  Rather than rebuild, the state decided to make it into a tourist attraction.  You can walk out to the end on the part of the trestle that remains.  There are beautiful vistas and the shocking remains of the trestle lying on the floor of the gorge.  The visitor center was pretty new – I like how they used steampunk furniture for the gift shop.  Really fit in with the emphasis in the displays on the engineering feats of the bridge. There are numerous hiking trails, including one that goes down to the fallen columns. The bridge was originally made of iron in 1880 but had everything replaced with steel about 40 years later.  The viaduct was in commercial use until 1959 and then was sold to the state. Excursion trains ran for years out to the viaduct and back. Then it was shut down in the early 2000s, when it was found that erosion had eaten through several of the structural beams. It was ranked as the fourth tallest bridge in the U.S. and touted as the 8^th Wonder of the World. 

We spent two nights at a KOA campground a few miles away. I really liked it – grassy sites and nicely wooded.  Everything is so green! Really quiet, I think there were only 3 or 4 campers there.  While we were there, the Perseid meteor showers were supposed to be at their peak.  The first night, the skies were clear so we got up around 4 am to go outside and see the stars. The campground is on the edge of what Pennsylvania calls the Dark Area. One of the state parks is identified as the darkest state park in the country. We weren’t in the perfect spot because there were lights in the campground, but it was darker than anything we have at home. 

We saw some meteors and a lot of the Milky Way, but sleepiness and clouds in the sky took over and I headed back to bed.  The next morning, Russ was talking to the camp manager who told him that he saw a bear over by the dumpsters (about 80 yards from us and where we had to park our truck) in the early hours.  I never even considered that there were bears in the area and there I was, wandering around in the dark.

We are spending a few more days in the wilderness of northern Pennsylvania, then we will head southeast to Philadelphia and congestion.

One of many unknown Pennsylvania bugs.

We traveled mostly on state roads which were usually two lanes with dense woods on both sides. They were uncrowded and, thus, pretty pleasant to travel on.

The more we went into Pennsylvania's wilderness, the steeper and twisty the roads became.

There are a lot of rivers in the area. We saw a fair number of people out fly fishing and boating.

This is a church that has been around for a while. United Methodist churches abound - many more than what we saw in Wisconsin last year.

Occasionally, we would see a field of sunflowers, but the majority of the fields are filled with corn or beans.

The mountains clear in the back, that looks flat across the top is called a ridge.  There is a large area that ranges from the Blue Ridge Mountains up to the Appalachians that is full of ridges and valleys. Because they sweep from southwest up to northeast, east-west travel was almost impossible before modern technology allowed roads to be built.

This is supposed to give a perspective on the size of the bridge.

The trains would encounter high winds and had to travel slowly over the bridge.  Two tracks were put in.  The train would travel on the inside set of tracks. If the wind caused the train to jump the inside track, it would remain confined to the bridge.

This is the gap created when the tornado hit the trestle.

At the end of the standing trestle, a plastic window system was put in so you could see down to the valley floor.

The excursion trains were stopped when it was discovered that many of the bolts that fastened the bridge to its feet were found to be rusted through.

Some of the spans were twisted by the tornado.

On one of our explores through the area, we found this original wooden oil derrick. Derricks like this sprung up all over the area in the 1800s and were used until the oil boom busted. Then they were left to rot into oblivion or be repurposed into tourist attractions. At one time, the county of Verango was producing more oil than any other oil field in the world.