Wolf Rocks is one overlook. But it tells different tales based on the season.
Sometimes, with rattles.
One year we’d hiked from Laurel Summit State Park – the six-acre site of the trailhead, atop the Laurel ridge in eastern Westmoreland County – to the rocky outcrop in Forbes State Forest in early April. There wasn’t any snow, but there was ice aplenty in the crevices of the stony slope.
We’d scrambled up and down it without a thought.
Two months later we did the same hike, in part to take in the now-blooming mountain laurel that lines a portion of the path. It lends color and aroma to the path in late May into mid-June.
But any thoughts of exploring the rocks came to a quick end.
The rocky face of Wolf Rocks is fun to explore.
Bob Frye/Everybody Adventures
Oh, my son tried it, despite my warnings. But one hop from the top rocks to a shelf a few feet down brought a warning.
A rattlesnake, unseen but heard, shook its tail.
That was it. He jumped back up and together with everyone else was content to take in the view from above the timber rattler.
Well, almost everyone.
One family friend – no fan of snakes – would have preferred even more distance. Say, from back home.
But that’s OK.
Despite her fears, this hike is not to be missed.
It starts in Laurel Summit – a part that consists of one pavilion, a pit-style restroom and a gravel parking lot and nothing else – but winds through the 60,000-acre Forbes State Forest. So it’s got a big woods feel.
The early portion is where the laurel grows. It crowds in on both sides, beneath pines, making the trail a mix of rocky, rooty obstructions between patches of comfy pine needles.
Soon enough, it opens up a bit, to pass through maturing woods with a heavy understory of ferns. There are some cool boulder formations, too.
Keep your eyes open and you may see grey squirrels, white-tailed deer and even, perhaps, a black bear.
The walking itself is relatively easy. Wolf Rocks Trail itself sits about 2,700 feet above sea level. But you park at the top and stay there, so there are no climbs to speak of. It’s about as flat as a mountaintop hike can be.
Ferns are common along the trail to Wolf Rocks.
Bob Frye/Everybody Adventures
There are a few wet spots, but most have – if not bridges – at least plank-like platforms that allow you to keep your boots dry.
The hike is straightforward, too. Follow Wolf Rocks Trail straight to the overlook, ignoring junctions with Wolf Rocks Loop on the left and Spruce Flats Trail and Bobcat Trail on the right.
When you’ve taken in the view – and what a view it is, with no structures of any kind visible — you can walk back the way you came or do the Wolf Rocks Loop for something different. It’s slightly hillier, with a bit of green briar crowding the trail occasionally.
But if offers a change of pace.
This doesn’t have to be just a day hike either. It’s possible – by contacting the Forbes State Forest district office in advance and getting a permit if you plan to stay a while – to camp adjacent to Wolf Rocks. Just be sure to minimize your impact. There are sometimes too-obvious signs of others having passed this way before.
Either way, make a point to get here, and do it more than once. The view from the overlook is stunningly green in spring summer, ablaze with color in fall and alternately stark or snowy in winter.
It’s beautiful in all cases.
Just noisier at times than others.
From Wolf Rocks to Spruce Flats Blog
If you visit Laurel Summit State Park and Wolf Rocks, save some time for Spruce Flats Bog.
It’s unlike just about anywhere else in Pennsylvania.
The bog is a 28-acre pothole of sorts, a depression in the mountain top at 2,720 feet. It’s part of the larger, 305-acre Spruce Flats Wild Area.
And what is a bog exactly?
In this case, it’s a shallow bit of water over six to eight inches of peat atop about two and a half feet of mud.
Most often, bogs occur in lowlands. This one is an exception, one that’s persisted even in the face of man’s efforts to change it.
At one point, this bog was a forest. When early 20th century loggers cut the surrounding hemlocks down (and they were hemlocks, not spruce, despite what the loggers called them), the bog re-established itself. Foresters dried to dry it out and establish a new woodlands, going so far as to dynamite the area in hopes of forcing it to drain.
It refused and persists.
It won’t last forever. Bogs, by their nature, fill in eventually.
But for now, visiting this one offers the chance to see cranberries, cotton grass and pitcher plants and sundew, the last two meat eating plants. There’s wildlife like wood frogs, four-toed salamanders and broad-winged hawks, as well.
It’s all accessible from Laurel Summit State Park. A short hike – less than a quarter mile or so – from the parking area takes you to the bog. An observation platform from there takes you out into the bog for a closer view of this unique habitat.
The trail to Wolf Rocks and Spruce Flats Bog both start at Laurel Summit State Park.
