In the far north-central region of Pennsylvania lies Cherry Springs State Park, an amazing resource that shows how important civil planning can be for enabling the natural world to profit future generations.
The area’s old-growth forests were clearcut in the late 19th- and early 20th- centuries, and an airport was built there in 1935 — inauspicious happenings for those who would enjoy Cherry Springs’ forests and clear skies in the century to come. However, the environmental movements of the 20th century and the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression paved the way for the creation of the State Park as we experience it today, with fecund second-growth woodlands that include many cherry trees. In 2000 the Department of Conservation of Natural Resources declared Cherry Springs Pennsylvania’s first “Dark Sky” state park. As light pollution increases globally, areas where we can see the stars clearly at night are ever scarcer. With the closure of the old airport in 2006, Cherry Springs’ clear starry night skies were deemed so significant that the International Dark-Sky Association named it only the second International Dark Sky Park.
Visitors (such as yours truly in the second photo) come from miles away to witness the views — the Milky Way actually can cast a shadow when it is particularly clear.
