News of note
For Philadelphia, the victories keep piling up. Wissahickon Park's Forbidden Drive was named the 2018 Trail of the Year on Valentine's Day. A little love to the Friends of the Wissahickon, please!
Are you a happy camper? Maybe you need one of our stickers to show the world that fact! Your choice of a tent or trailer comes with your new (or renewed) PPFF membership for our special 125th anniversary of state parks and forests membership promotion. Check them out and sign up at http://bit.ly/125years125voices.
Have you taken our advice yet and clicked into the Bureau of Forestry's "Forest Fridays" columns on Facebook? I hope so because the last couple of weeks have been such fun with topics as diverse as Valentine's Day and bourbon. All with a forestry bent, of course! If you use Facebook, you really ought to follow Forestry's page; and even if you aren't a Facebook user it's a public page so you can access it (and State Parks' as well) for all kinds of up to date and fun stuff.
Most of us think DCNR when we think of outdoor recreation and state government but the Department of Transportation gets a nod as well with their increasing and increasingly welcome focus on pedestrians and biking. Bill and I actually met many moons ago at a meeting of the Department's Pedalcycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. PPAC was instrumental in pulling together those bicycle routes you see on signs as you drive across Pennsylvania. Priorities like these are part of the Department's Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan, the update of which is now underway. Much like the planning survey we asked you to take as DCNR works through its state parks planning process, we encourage you to visit the website, take PennDOT's survey, and participate in any webinars or public meetings that make take place as the process unfolds. Biking and walking in our state parks and forests is a wonderful thing but they are daily activities of life as well in healthy communities.
Speaking of walking and healthy communities, note the Highmark Walk for same below!
And speaking of increased transportation and recreation links, the ribbon was cut this week on a new 33-mile snowmobile trail linking Prince Gallitzin and Black Moshannon state parks. The hard work of the Glendale Lake Snowmobile Club saw the project through from concept to completion.