Last days in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania

I was driving around with my boss. “I could never live here,” he said, “there’s no adventure.” He is from Canmore, in the heart of the Canadian Rockies, and has been on the cover of climbing magazines.

I agree.  There’s no adventure here.  Or at least there’s no real wilderness.  No matter where you are, at least in this area, you never seem to be far from an old logging trail, never feel like you couldn’t pop out into someone’s back yard, and you’re never safe from tripping on an ancient, forgotten barbed wire fence. 

But climbers are a snotty bunch.

Drew and I, in one of the few tasks we’ve had all week, went to go check out a point that was marked as hazardous – a 100 foot cliff.  We parked at the corner of Burfield and Pleasant Valley Roads, and walked down through a hay field next to a house.  Behind the house was an open forest of young-mature hardwoods.  We walked past a tree house that looked like it doubled as deer stand, and a deer stand that looked like it doubled as a tree house. The forest sloped down open gullies to a small babbling brook, which ran past the cliff we were sent to find.  It was no more than 30 feet tall, of course, but what we found was one of the most pleasant spots I’ve seen here.  I couldn’t help but think that it looked like Calvin and Hobbes’ back yard, a thought I kept to myself.

“This looks like Calvin and Hobbes’ back yard” Drew observed.

The cliffs were not big enough to allow time to discuss the impermanence of existence while in free fall with a wagon and a stuffed tiger, but they were over 6 feet, which meant that we had to make sure the survey crews flagged a safe route around. We moved a couple of flags, an action that we duly documented in order to justify our paychecks.     

I’ve been to Canmore, and it’s beautiful.  And please do believe the hype – the climbing is really good.  But kicking around in a borrowed creek in a borrowed forest, I realized that this was the back yard I wished I had as a kid.  Fairbanks was hardly a place that deprived kids of activity, and I don't wish that I was from Pennsylvania instead of Alaska, so don't take that away.  But even as a kid growing up I knew that I was missing something – we didn’t have a creek in the back yard, and none of the trees in Fairbanks are conducive to climbing or to building tree houses.  We also didn’t run off on summer afternoons to go swimming; Sweet Baby Jesus, do you need to ask why?

I’m not saying I was deprived, but I could see how this forest, this decidedly non-wilderness, with no climbing and no Rad anywhere, could be a lot of fun for even a relatively unimaginative little boy, even a boy from the video game generation.

But I’m not a kid anymore.  I’m grouchy and cynical and picky about what I do, where I spend my time and who I spend it with.  Still, I think my boss wasn’t being fair to Pennsylvania.

That said, 3 more days.  I'm not certain how many minutes, though.