Underwhelmed

Today we drove from Mansfield, Pennsylvania to Titusville, Pennsylvania with most of the distance driven on US highway 6. Running from Provincetown, Massachusetts, to Long Beach, California, it’s also known as the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, in honor of the Union army during the Civil War. For many years it was the longest highway in the country at 3227miles but is now eclipsed by US 20 which is 118 miles longer.

A short trip down a winding side road takes you to what is known around here as the “Grand Canyon” of Pennsylvania. Carved out of the earth by Pine Creek, the bottom of the canyon averages around 800 feet below the rim. Unlike its Arizona namesake, this canyon has trees and vegetation from the rim all the way down to the creek, totally concealing the relatively gently sloping canyon walls. For the local folks who haven’t ventured much past the western outskirts of Erie, this might seem like a pretty neat geological feature. But for anyone who has seen that hole in the ground in Arizona, this “Grand Canyon” in Pennsylvania is a little underwhelming.

The granddaddy canyon has starkly barren walls, with steep, almost vertical drops of over a mile with many people having fallen to their deaths. This pretender to the throne would almost seem to invite a leisurely hike to the bottom, caressed along the way by the warm green arms of a myriad of different types of trees, bushes and grass.

At the bottom of the Arizona original is the raging Colorado River, traversed, if you dare, by only the bravest of individuals in sturdy boats and even then only at certain times of the year when the water level allows such foolishness. Visible today in the gently flowing water of Pine Creek at the bottom of Pennsylvania’s pretender was a hip booted fly fisherman casually walking around looking for the best place to cast his line.

I certainly don’t mean any disrespect to the Keystone state but I didn’t even bother to take a picture.