Sunday, July 01, 2007
By Michael A. Fuoco, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PATTON, Pa. -- Standing near a brand-spanking-new 55-foot-long bridge, Andy Gonsman and Don Holtz looked contented in the serenity of their Cambria County surroundings.
Below them ran Whiskey Run through a ravine toward Chest Creek a few miles away.
Above them towered beech and pine and maple trees and outcroppings of multicolored sandstone boulders.
Ahead of them lay 50 miles of ascending, twisting and descending trails they helped cut through a 6,000-acre swath of timbered ravines, open grasslands, and scenic expanses in the Allegheny Mountains. The result: a park for riding ATVs, dirt bikes and four-wheel "side-by-sides."
What's not to like about such a setting?
Indeed, there are smiles for miles around the long-planned, now-open Rock Run Recreation Area, being marketed as the "Premier ATV Recreation Park East of the Mississippi."
In Patton, a charming small-town-America place, population 2,026, established business owners and entrepreneurs are excited about the prospect of an economic shot in the arm from Rock Run tourism.
Bed-and-breakfast establishments are popping up, new eateries are opening, residents are converting rooms in their homes for lodgers, and an all-terrain-vehicle supplier has bought a building for ATV rentals and repairs.
There's reason for optimism. Since the official opening at the beginning of May, the park is averaging about 100 riders on Saturday and about half that on Fridays and Sundays. Tuesday through Thursday are slower days, and the park is closed on Monday.
The park also is marketing its proximity to other popular tourist attractions such as Prince Gallitzin State Park, the Horseshoe Curve, Seldom Seen Tourist Coal Mine, the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site and the Johnstown Flood Memorial.
"I think it's great for the area," said David LaSota, owner of D.W. LaSota Engineering, who converted a 1912 schoolhouse into offices for his firm with apartments on the second floor, including one furnished for rental to tourists.
"People are really excited about the development as well as the energy that it has brought to town. There is a lot of traffic on Fridays and Sundays.
"I think this is the first step in really bringing jobs back to the area and promoting economic growth, obviously in the service industry."
Riders have come from throughout Pennsylvania, which last year ranked fifth in the country for new ATV sales, according to the Specialty Vehicle Institute of America.
And many of those riders have been from the Pittsburgh area. The draw of an ATV park about 90 miles away isn't a surprise because Allegheny County leads the state with 7,320 registered ATVs, followed by Westmoreland County with 7,105. Statewide, there are 164,931 registered ATVs, a number increasing monthly, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
But Rock Run is attracting nonresidents as well. Riders have come from nine other states, including Minnesota, Connecticut, Virginia and even as far away as Washington,
"So far, so good," said Mr. Gonsman, who was the project coordinator for the development and is now park manager.
"It gets better every week," added Mr. Holtz, a township supervisor in Chest, where the park is located, and a member of Rock Run Recreation Inc., the nonprofit corporation that operates the park.
"We've had an excellent breed of riders who don't put any garbage down, who don't make new trails. There's low impact on the environment. We've had a lot of families, which is what we want.
"You can't find what we have here anywhere else."
Network of trails
ATV trails are popular. In West Virginia, for example, the Hatfield-McCoy Trail System has several hundred miles of trails through five southern counties, and ATV clubs routinely maintain trails for their members in Pennsylvania and other states.
By contrast, though, Rock Run is a self-contained park whose master plan calls for increasing its myriad intersecting trails to 150 miles as well as developing 250 campsites, snowmobiling areas and nonmotorized trails away from the ATV riders for hiking, biking and horseback riding. And the plan calls for connecting those trails to the adjacent 6,000 acres of state game lands and then to the 6,000-acre Prince Gallitzin state park.
"Only a third of the 6,000 acres [in Rock Run] have been developed, so we have a lot to go," Mr. Holtz said, adding that any money in excess of operational costs will be put back into the project.
Plans for such a park date to the Ridge administration, said state Rep. Gary Haluska, D-Patton, who served on a committee that looked at using former surface mines for motorized recreation areas. The committee narrowed its search to Cambria, Clearfield and Somerset counties.
In the meantime, the coal company that surface-mined the area that is now Rock Run from the 1960s through the 1990s went into bankruptcy, and its 6,000 acres became available. The Cambria County Conservation and Recreation Authority acquired the land with a grant from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the funding coming from ATV registration fees.
"It was the moon and stars and planets aligning, which doesn't happen that often," said Mr. Haluska.
In all, nearly $8 million in grants and bonds were invested in the planning, engineering and development of the property, two-thirds of which is in Cambria County with the remainder in Clearfield County. Included in the park are four mine-water treatment areas.
The authority owns the land and the nonprofit board operates the park, employing Mr. Gonsman in a full-time capacity and three others as part-timers. The rest of the work necessary to maintain the park and man the Visitors Center is done by volunteers, such as Mr. Holtz.
Dee Columbus, executive director of the authority, said the project, involving both conservation and recreation, "fit our mission perfectly. It's been a great success so far and we look forward to it continuing and growing."
"It's a unique piece of property and a real neat project," said Mr. Haluska, himself an ATV rider. "This isn't just a regional park but a multi-state attraction. There isn't anything quite like it."
A two-hour ride through only a portion of the trails last week seemed to support that statement. With Mr. Gonsman and Mr. Holtz as guides and drivers of side-by-sides, the tour began as all trips do, at the new Visitors Center where riders purchase passes -- $15 daily, $37 for three days and $120 annually for an individual, and there are family rates. Also required are helmets and signed waiver forms, which, like the passes, are available online at
Rock Run Recreation Area, The Premier ATV Recreation Park East of the Mississippi.
From there, it's onto the trails, which are designed for all skill levels and marked on a provided map -- green for easy, blue for more difficult and black for most difficult. The trails are designed for relatively slow riding, about 10 mph.
At trail intersections, an orange post includes the number for the trail and the global positioning location so that if an emergency occurs, riders will be able to tell rescuers where they are.
The trails bend through a forest canopy and suddenly enter a sun-dazzled meadow only again to be quickly surrounded by all manner of 40-foot-tall trees and plant life. Daisies and other wildflowers dot the ground and rugged boulders jutted out from hillsides. In the woods, unseen, are deer, rabbits, turkeys, grouse, coyotes, bears and bobcats.
In one treeless section about a mile long, aptly dubbed "Boulder Field," giant sandstone boulders, dumped there during the mining process, present a visitor with a scene so rugged and strangely beautiful, with its colors of rust and orange and tan and gold and silver and black, that it appears to be on another planet.
Not far away was a "play pond," and on the crest of the ridge, riders looked deep down into a lush, wooded valley. On clear days, visibility is 30 miles.
"In the fall, it's breathtaking," Mr. Gonsman said.
Article Reference:
New recreation area allows ATV drivers fun without hassles
