Scenes from the PA Woods: Young Woman's Creek

We have been doing what many people have probably been doing in August, which is to say, trying to fit in as much fun as possible in the waning days of summer. We've been trying for the past few months to get to the pool at Hyner Run, near Renovo; and on this day, we did!

We drove up to the pool in mid-morning, arriving shortly after it opened. And when we got in to swim, we had the place all to ourselves! They had replaced the pool liner earlier in summer, and the pool was really beautiful, all blue, with clear, cool water. We had our fill of swimming, ate a quick picnic lunch, and then drove to a nearby woods we know, where we used to car camp quite often, in what we have come to refer to as "our early years."

And so we put on our stream-walking shoes, packed our day sacks and our chairs and a tiny cooler, and headed up into Young Woman's Creek. It was a lovely day along the creek, temperate, with mixed clouds and sun visible through the trees, and the water clear and cool and refreshing on our feet.

We didn't walk too far before we set up our chairs - my husband's along the creek, mine in the creek itself - and sat down to relax and simply enjoy the day. I picked up my camera and walked around, taking some photos of what I can only describe as a woods girl's (or boy's) paradise.

Legend has it that the name of the creek was derived from the fact that the body of a young woman was found in it years and years ago. One source tells the story thus:

"It is said that a young Indian squaw of rare beauty, the hand of whom had been sought by a young chief of another tribe and whose advances had been forbidden by the father of the young girl, and after all efforts on her part to soften his feelings towards the young chief had proved ineffectual, she deliberately cast herself into the turbid current near the mouth of the stream and was never more heard of."

I thought, as I always do, about the legend, and I pondered the story of thwarted love amid these beautiful woods and waters. And I said the same thing to my husband that I think I must say every time we go there (which hasn't been nearly often enough, lately):

"I am a young woman and THIS is MY creek."

We had done what we often do, which is to say that we brought music along on our adventure. I have a huge collection of CDs, mostly from the 70s and 80s, but some more recent than that. And last year, I started digitizing them, and we've put much of it on our iPods to make it portable. What a delight to have such a collection at our fingertips. And we've each bought tiny speakers to go with our iPods.

At the time I was taking this picture, my husband was wading in a deep pool behind me, with tiny fish - or maybe crayfish - nibbling on his toes. A kingfisher had just flown over us, cackling its way up and down the creek. On our drive in, a hawk had flown over the road ahead of us and perched in a tree; we got a fantastic view of it as it flew overhead. A crayfish, a kingfisher, a hawk: all of these, good signs of a healthy stream ecosystem.

And the tunes were blasting from the iPod: the soundtrack of our life. The song of the day doesn't really have anything to do with the picture I've posted here. The iPod just happened at this moment to be playing the two-CD set, Best of the Doors. Every song on that set is good.

The tune I've selected to go with this picture is what was playing at the time I took it: The Doors, Spanish Caravan. Except I thought, as I listened, that my treasures are not made of silver and gold, and they are not far away in the mountains of Spain. They are right here, right now - waiting for me in these green woods, these crystal clear waters, of central Pennsylvania.