Place

Ricketts Glen State Park

Also known as: Ricketts Glen, Falls Trail

A 13,193-acre Pennsylvania state park straddling Luzerne, Sullivan, and Columbia counties on the northwestern edge of the Pocono Plateau. The park's centerpiece is the Falls Trail — a 7.2-mile circuit past 21 named waterfalls along Kitchen Creek's two branches, falling through a sandstone gorge cut into the plateau edge. Original 11,000-acre purchase by R. Bruce Ricketts in the 1860s preserved old-growth hemlock and white pine; the park retains some of the largest remaining old-growth stands in Pennsylvania. National Natural Landmark designated 1969 (Glens Natural Area).

What it is

Ricketts Glen protects the dramatic edge where the Pocono / Allegheny Plateau drops off in a series of glacial-cut gorges. The park’s three signature components:

Falls Trail (Glens Natural Area) — 7.2-mile loop with 21 named waterfalls, ranging from the 11-foot Murray Reynolds to the 94-foot Ganoga Falls. The trail descends 1,000 feet from the plateau into Ganoga Glen and Glen Leigh, then climbs back. The Glens Natural Area is a National Natural Landmark (1969).
Lake Jean — 245-acre dammed lake (built by R. Bruce Ricketts in the 1880s) at the top of the plateau; swimming, boating, fishing
Old-growth forest — the inaccessibility of the steep gorges saved hemlock and [[kahikatea|white pine]] stands from the 19th-century logging boom. Some hemlocks in the Glens Natural Area are 500+ years old; some white pines exceed 100 feet.

Old growth on the edge of collapse

The Glens Natural Area is one of the very few places in [[poconos|Pennsylvania]] where the original [[eastern-hemlock-forest|eastern hemlock forest]] survives at scale. That makes it doubly important and doubly vulnerable: irreplaceable as a reference ecosystem, and on the front line of the hemlock woolly adelgid invasion. PA DCNR is treating individual high-value trees with systemic insecticide; the long-term outcome depends on cold winters, predator-beetle establishment, and breeding programs nobody can fully predict.

Why it’s listed

Public-trust protection of an irreplaceable forest community at perpetual risk. The park has held the Glens Natural Area for over 80 years and is actively managing the HWA threat. Listing keeps the conservation work visible and the Falls Trail accessible to the people whose support funds DCNR.

Bioregional fit

Ricketts Glen anchors the bioregion’s far northwestern edge. It’s the most-photographed waterfall trail in the [[poconos|Pennsylvania]] state-park system and the bioregion’s strongest old-growth reference site.

Sources

PA DCNR Ricketts Glen State Park public materials
National Natural Landmark Program file (Glens Natural Area)
R. Bruce Ricketts family papers; [[poconos|Pennsylvania]] Historical and Museum Commission

What links here, and how

Inbound connections from across the wiki, grouped by lens and by relationship. These appear automatically — every entity page declares what it links to, and that data populates here on the targets.

Cultural

contains

Poconos 21 named waterfalls along Kitchen Creek; the Falls Trail is the regional walking-as-medicine icon

1 inbound link · 3 outbound