Upcoming Events

Cook Forest State Park, new parking lot at Cooksburg Canoe launch

Please meet at the new parking lot at the Cooksburg Canoe Launch for an intermediate skill level kayaking class. Remember to bring your swimsuits, sturdy river sneakers, change of clothes, and lunch. Everyone WILL get wet! Designed to integrate skills learned in ACA’s Introduction to Kayaking, we will be focusing on T-Rescues, self recovery, buddy assists, and ferrying. Participants must pre-register by 6/16 by contacting Dale Luthringer at (814)744-8407. Cost is $40/boat with check or money order made out to the ‘Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’. All boats and kayaking gear provided. We’re only accepting 5 participants for this course. Space is limited so please reserve early. Sorry, no children under 16 years old. Minors must be with a participating adult. This course can be used as a pre-requisite to Kayaking 301 and to justify skill level requisites for more advanced river boating programs to be held later this year. Participants who complete any of our kayak trainings qualify for a 50% discount on future river boating programs.

Friday, June 20, 2025 9am to 1pm

Clear Creek State Park
38 Clear Creek Park Road, Sigel, PA 15860-6702

Calling all self-proclaimed naturalists! If you are a mushroom hunter, fisherman, birder, or just like walking the trails and discovering the diversity of our parks, we need YOU! To help us learn about the diversity of organisms in our park, we are competing with other parks in a state-wide Bio Blitz competition!

To participate, download the iNaturalist app on your phone, create an account, and start uploading observations found in your favorite parks! iNaturalist is a free citizen science project application that allows users to locate and identify organisms anywhere in the world! You don’t have to be an expert to join, simply take photos of organisms in the parks you visit (or your own backyard) and upload them to iNaturalist – all of which is done in the app itself. It’s very user friendly and can help scientists discover new populations of organisms and track those that may be declining. It really is an awesome tool for research!

To get started, visit https://www.inaturalist.org/home and create your account. Then, simply visit our park in June and upload sightings within the park! They will automatically be submitted as part of the Bio Blitz. The more sightings, the more chances our park will win, so record everything!

Rules for submissions are as follows:

Recordings of birds and frogs are acceptable, as long as they are clear enough to recognize. You can upload merlin recordings as well through a PC.
Trail camera photos are accepted and encouraged for nocturnal life. Time and date stamps should be visible. Honors system on this one!
Plants must be WILD in your park. We will not accept garden grown plants/trees this year. It’s too easy to stand in a butterfly garden and grab dozens of species without moving. They need to be growing wild, whether they are native or invasive. This goes for natives in butterfly gardens as well. I would like to know where these species are growing wild, not where they’ve been planted. If you’re not certain, you can include it, but make note of its uncertain origin.
No dead animals. Let’s not include roadkill, and absolutely no taxidermy.
No pets or “escapees”. The bobwhite running around your park is not wild, and neither is the loose dog.

Sunday, June 1, 2025

More dates through June 30, 2025