PHOTO PROVIDED Shown is a view from Rider Park in this photo by Sara Street, Rider Park manager. Rider Park will be partaking in Walk in Penn’s Woods day on Sunday.

Every year, there’s a statewide sponsored initiative throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by the Pennsylvania Forestry Association for numerous nature walks. This year, that event falls on Sunday, Oct. 9 and Rider Park is part of said initiative.

Rider Park is hosting a Walk in Penn’s Woods from 9-11 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 6, and for Rider Park manager Sara Street, she’s more than happy Rider Park is able to be a part of it.

“I always think Rider Park is this secret here in this community. For some reason we aren’t as well known as we could be,” Street said. “So it’s kind of a well-kept secret, but I am so happy to share this with as many people as I can.”

Anyone who wants to partake in the Walk in Penn’s Woods event at Rider Park can register by either calling 570-321-1500 or emailing AmyP@FCFPartnership.org.

Street will be taking part on the walk alongside members of the Lycoming Audubon Society. The tour will partake in the meadow area where an American Woodcock Habitat Enhancement project is being implemented. Those who attend will then head onto various trails at Rider Park to enjoy the woods and find some vistas.

“There’s many, many walks planned for that weekend throughout the state. We’re just one of the sites and the idea is that it’s a walk just to appreciate the benefits of Pennsylvania forests. Some of them talk about sustainable forestry practices,” Street noted. “At Rider Park since we’re not actively logging, we’re more of creating bird habitats. So we’ll talk about that kind of thing.”

Street was also quick to point out the health benefits of hiking, not just physically but also from a mental perspective.

“I also talk about forest bathing and multiple benefits you get from walking meditatively through the woods,” Street said. “That lowers your blood pressure, you have immune boosting properties for even a month past the event. It’s just really beneficial to kind of enjoy the woods.”

The walk will start in an area where Rider Park received a grant this year to enhance the American Woodcock habitat. That grant was through the Pennsylvania Society of Ornithology, Street noted. The walk will also go through the north end of the meadow and go to Cheryl’s Trail, a loop trail to a brand new vista that Rider Park put in with Penn College and Larson Design.

“(They) helped us put up a new fence around the vista. That looks southeast down Pier 87 and you can see the Slabtown Bridge,” Street said. “That’s new as of last spring. We’re going to take a look at that and walk along the new green trail. It’s under a mile long and go to the Penn Vista.”

In total, people can expect an approximately 2.5-mile loop hike with moderate elevation changes throughout.

Street is glad to be able to use the new green trail. When she began at Rider Park in the spring of 2022, she did a visitor survey and one of the things that was brought up was people wanted smaller trails. Numerous trails at Rider Park are old skid trails from when logging took place in the late 1970s into the 1980s. That means they’re somewhat wider.

“It messes with your wilderness epic. Everyone wants to walk on smaller, single trails so you feel as a hiker or biker that it’s more enclosed. You’re more engrossed in the forest and it doesn’t smack of human impact,” Street said. “So there was a request to diversify the width of trails at Rider Park and this was an area where I think there was a social trail, there were people using it but it wasn’t a maintained trail.”

Street noted that a little gorge goes through the middle of said trail, so switch backs were built with help from the Pennsylvania Outdoors Corps.

“They helped build a tread so we could go up the far side and it wasn’t as steep. We had a flat tread surface to walk on,” Street said.

The Walk in Penn’s Woods event at Rider Park is one of just numerous throughout October that the park will be partaking in.

On Oct. 4 there will be Star Party where those who attend will star gaze alongside the Central Pennsylvania Observers and Lycoming College students of physics.

Family Nature Adventure will be held on OCt. 5 in conjunction with the James V Brown Library and LCLS as Street will lead a tree identification walk.

Oct. 4 will also feature tree planting to help enhance the American woodcock habitat in Rider Park. That event will have people helping plant trees and shrubs.