PITTSBURGH – “This forest is gorgeous!” Galen Scheufler thought as he drove his patrol truck along a stony creek toward the Mill Run Campground.
Scheufler had been a park ranger with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District for less than a year when he discovered not only one but two rare forests near Youghiogheny River Lake.
He had been on his daily summer patrol when the first discovery caught his eye. The road was narrow and bumpy, barely wide enough in some areas to fit his pickup truck, let alone two lanes of traffic. He drove slowly and carefully, admiring how the sunlight pierced through the multi-layered canopy, skimming across thick, mossy trees on the other side of the stream.
“Every summer, I marveled at how beautiful the forest looked across the creek,” Scheufler said.
Finally, after so many days of patrolling and driving along the forest at Mill Run, Scheufler decided to investigate it. The thought — the possibility — that this might be old growth kept lingering in his head. He shared his idea with a fellow ranger, Shaylin Dresher, and together, they crossed the creek to examine it closer.
As they trekked deeper into the woods, they came across giant and majestic trees, both living and dead. Scheufler went home and scoured through books he owned on old growth. He made a checklist of traits to look for, and to his amazement, everything checked off.
Large, girthy trees, including some with hollowed interiors? Check. A multi-layered canopy? Check. Large, downed logs? Check. Dead trees standing upright, known as “snags”? Check. Uneven terrain with deep depressions and mounds caused by tree root systems? Check.
We started coming across massive dead trees. We cut samples with a chainsaw to count the tree rings. We were counting upwards of 150 years for some of the trees,” Scheufler said.
For the next several weeks, he brought more park rangers from his office into those woods to see if they agreed with his assessment, and they did. Finally, he decided to take action to give the forest the recognition it deserved.
Less than one percent of all forests east of the Mississippi River are considered old growth, containing trees older than 70 or 80 years old. Although thousands of campers and residents had traveled that road over the years, few had realized how special it was.
“We’ve been coming to the area since the 1970s,” said Susan Johnston, who lives within walking distance of the campground with her husband, Bill, and their golden retriever, Nola.
Scheufler and fellow park rangers at Youghiogheny hosted a small ceremony, Dec. 3, at the campground to celebrate the forest joining the Old-Growth Forest Network, becoming part of the exclusive club in North America.
Approximately thirty people attended the ceremony, including Susan and her husband, along with other officials, volunteers, and supporters.
“We always valued the beautiful forest and the moss and the sponginess of the soft soil,” Susan Johnston said. “We’ve been enjoying it not realizing how old it was, but I think we did have a sense that it was kind of untouched. It felt special.”
After the ceremony, the group took a walk along the creek to learn more about the forest and how the discovery happened.
Scheufler started working as a part-time, summer ranger during college. He majored in wildlife biology at California University of Pennsylvania. While some college students binge-watch trendy TikTok dances and reels, Scheufler tore through books and educational videos on old trees and forest systems.
“For the last five or six years, I had been teaching myself about old growth, what to look for,” said Scheufler.
After graduating college, Scheufler became a full-time ranger for the Army Corps and spent more time patrolling two federal campgrounds, and other lands and waters at Youghiogheny River Lake. Pittsburgh District constructed the dam which forms the reservoir in southwestern Pennsylvania. The manmade lake stretches south into Maryland for miles where the Mill Run Campground is located.
Each day on patrol, Scheufler thought, “If that’s not old growth, then it is extremely mature woods.”
Old forests have declined yearly in North America since the boom of logging industries and natural invasive threats. In the late 1800s, logging companies cleared acres upon acres of forests for lumber.
“I’ve often wondered and still daydream about what North America looked like before mass logging of our eastern forests occurred,” he said. “When I came across early European explorers’ journals and diaries that described mystical forests where the sun never reached the forest floor, I was hooked.”
Scheufler looked over old Pennsylvania photographs from the early 1900s during the height of logging. He barely recognized the land in those pictures because so much of the state had been clear-cut. It was like a razor had shaved the landscape to its skin.
Nowadays, the demand for lumber continues, pushing logging companies to cut trees when they reach 10 to 40 years of age. Much of the cutting frequency depends on the tree types, land-ownership agreements, and types of lumber needed. It is rare to find forests with 100-year-old trees outside of national parks in America.
“Most people look at the woods in their backyard and think that’s what all forests look like, but really the majority of young forests are overrun by invasive plants and probably aren’t healthy ecosystems,” Scheufler said.
Old trees hold more carbon than young trees, reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They lead to spongy and moist forest floors, turning the soil into a natural filter that keeps nearby creeks and streams cleaner.
Older forests also provide staggered layers of canopy and hollowed trunk cavities offer diverse habitats for a wider variety of insects, fungi, birds, reptiles, and amphibians.
“I care about old-growth because I realize how scarce this resource is,” said Brian Kane, the Mid-Atlantic regional manager for the Old-Growth Forest Network.
The Old-Growth Forest Network is a nationwide nonprofit with volunteers across the country who find the last remnants of old-growth forests in North America. The network also works as an advocacy group of allies across the country working to protect old growth.
“Some foresters believe we can cut down old growth, and as long as we replant it, it’s fine,” said Kane. “But it’s not replaceable. It’s a unique resource. It’s taken centuries to emerge.”
Hiking in the woods has also been shown to improve people’s moods and mental well-being.
A Japanese study from Chiba University found that walking through forest areas decreased the negative moods of depression, tension, anxiety, anger, hostility, and fatigue and improved the participants’ positive mood of vigor compared with walking through city streets. Older forests emit more than 120 chemical compounds from not only the trees but also the fungus and forest bacteria that thrive off older trees.
"Some of these molecules enter our lungs and are picked up by our bloodstream. That sweet forest air actually becomes part of us,” Scheufler said.
Kane said he is thankful for Scheufler, who took personal initiative to submit the Mill Run forest into the network for official registry. Scheufler worked diligently for months to collect information, photographs, and other materials to send to the network.
While gathering documents, Scheufler plunged into historical records and photograph archives at the ranger station. Suddenly, he came across a paragraph claiming that many of the trees at another forest nearby had never been logged. This second forest — Klondike Ridge — was much closer to the ranger office by the dam in Pennsylvania, whereas the Mill Run forest was several miles south in Maryland.
Excited, Scheufler grabbed his ranger partner, Dresher, and together they hopped into the truck to explore the second forest. The terrain was steep, requiring determination and sweat to climb up various sloping hills.
“Lo and behold, we found even bigger trees at Klondike Ridge!” he said. “We discovered two different sites of old growth that were completely different habitat types.”
The rangers estimated the size of the forest in Maryland at about 12 acres. They will conduct surveys to assess the size of the Klondike Ridge forest in Pennsylvania.
With the two discoveries in separate states, Pennsylvania now has 35 old-growth forest registrations, while Maryland reached 11. There are a total of 275 registered old-growth forests across the country so far. Forests that enter the old-growth network become protected land, which bans logging and other invasive or destructive practices.
“I can assure you these areas are in good hands,” Scheufler said. “We will do everything necessary at Youghioughy River Lake to ensure these natural areas will be around for us and future generations to come.”
More information about both Mill Run and Klondike Ridge Natural Areas can be found on the Old-Growth Forest Network website at www.oldgrowthforest.net