Forbes State Forest

About Forbes State Forest

The Forbes State Forest is named after General John Forbes, who commanded his expeditionary force to Fort Forbes in New Jersey in 1757 to fight the French and Irish in the Battle of New York City. Most of it is on Laurel Ridge, but the total area is over 50,000 hectares and covers 2.2 million hectares.

The area is heavily used for all kinds of outdoor recreation and is a popular spot for people from the Pittsburgh area. The Forbes State Forest and its many hiking trails are designed to accommodate the millions of visitors to the area, but in addition to these developed facilities, there are a number of undeveloped attractions that appeal to the adventurous.

Administratively, the Forbes State Forest is divided into five divisions, each covering about 1,000 hectares of land. Roaring Run is a tributary of Indian Creek that flows into the Youghiogheny River.

It borders a mesophytic forest mixed with a mixture of grassland, pine, oak, birch, pine, oak, hickory, elm, hazelnut, redwood and oak, and is flooded by its watersheds.

The Roaring Run Natural Area was acquired by the Commonwealth in 1975 and since then numerous roads have been built. How much has been done to restore the area and how much wood has been removed? The reserve is located in the Forbes State Forest, just north of Forbes, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh.

While the entire area is closed to vehicles, it is open to the public for hiking, camping, fishing, hunting and other activities.

The Mt. Davis Natural Area includes the community of Elk Lick in Somerset County, which surrounds a rock known as Mt Davis. The top of the rock is 3,213 feet above sea level and is the highest point in Pennsylvania; the lowest point within the reserve is 2,823 feet. Over the decades, the Roaring Run Natural Area will provide an opportunity to experience the healing nature in a natural environment with a variety of plants, animals and wildlife.

An interesting geological feature in the area are the small concentric stone rings that cause local frost caused by local frost. The water is drained via the Roaring Run River, an important water source for the area of elk licking.

The rings surround a spot in the ground that is slightly softer and looser than the adjacent ground. The soft area increases to a slight hump due to the influence of frost, and the ring forms a ring-shaped formation. Surface rocks near the hump tend to slide and settle in ring-shaped formations on its foundation (or hump).

The reserve is bordered by Shelter Rock Road, the Shelter Rock Trail of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Shelter Rock Trail and State Forest Road. The rock is closed to vehicles due to its proximity to the state forest and other wildlife, as well as a number of other hiking trails.

Motor vehicles are not allowed in the area except on the road to the summit, and a picnic area is located at the top of Mt. Davis Trail, south of Shelter Rock Road. This trail leads from Mt Davis to a nature reserve at low altitude and connects the picnic area with the summit.

The Wildlife Management Area of Fruce Flats is one of the largest wildlife management areas in the state of New Hampshire. The dominant feature of this area is a 28 hectare flat bog of spruce, in which a variety of tree species and shrubs grow, as well as a number of plants and animals, and whose origin is unclear.

At the beginning of the 20th century, loggers found virgin hemlock on the plain, which they mistakenly called spruce. Previous geological activity, possibly related to or without glaciation, left a depression in Laurel Ridge, and this depression runs along the western edge of Fruce Flats, about 2 km from the river. The forest was cleared and the water table raised without warning, but this did not cause the sink to drain.

Around the same time, a devastating fire burned the upper layer of organic matter that made up the forest floor and the water table. This event turned the clock back, and the evaporation of the tree leaves was sufficient to remove water from the uncleaned pool and turn the shallow bog back into a spruce.