If you’re looking for scenic views and outdoor adventures in Pennsylvania this summer, a new book has you covered. “Scenic Natural Wonders of Pennsylvania,” by Pittsburgh author Tory Mather, features waterfalls, caves, overlooks, wildflowers and more. In fact, there are 84 places across the commonwealth to explore.
The Allegheny Front’s Savannah Colberg met up with Mather in Pittsburgh’s Frick Park to learn more. It’s part of Savannah’s series “Environmental Travel Guide through Pennsylvania.”
LISTEN to their conversation
Savannah Colberg: Who or what motivated you to write this book?
Tory Mather: I have been someone who has been writing my entire life. I have kept a journal all through elementary school, middle school, high school and college. And I had a friend write a book in 2023, and seeing her go through that journey really inspired me that I felt like I had a book to give the world, too.
Colberg: So the places that you’ve visited they can either be in your book, not in your book, what have been some of your favorites and why?
Mather: That is a great question, and I could probably talk for like two hours about that. But for places in the book, I really loved visiting Ricketts Glen State Park. That is a state park in northeastern Pennsylvania that has 22 named waterfalls on a four-ish mile trail. Basically, every time you turn a corner on this trail, it’s like waterfall, waterfall, other waterfall. I love waterfalls, and I was super excited to visit Ricketts Glen for the first time. That was one place.
Almost every place that I had not been to before I started writing the book, I was like, okay, I’m going to go and visit and see if it deserves a place in the book. But Ricketts Glen I knew was going to be in from the beginning because I had heard such great things about it.
And then, more local to Pittsburgh, I really love Raccoon Creek State Park. The wildflower reserve is in the books, and that’s got over 700 different species of wildflowers. So no dogs are allowed to keep it preserved, but it’s really cool, especially in late spring, to see all of the flowers blooming.
Colberg: What are some of the main things you remember learning about Pennsylvania while writing your book?
Mather: I think, things that I learned that I didn’t know, basically how diverse the landscape is. We have mountains, we have wildflower reserves, we have natural areas, we have bogs, we have something called the serpentine barrens, which is this very different type of soil — so the diversity of ecosystems that are in Pennsylvania,
I think even someone who had at the time been living here almost 10 years on two different sides of the state, I did not realize how diverse the state was.
Learning about what endangered species we have, I have always been an advocate of conservation and I think it made me even more be like, we have to preserve these places; they are amazing. Everyone needs to know about all of these things.
Colberg: How did you decide what locations specifically were worthy to include in your book?
Mather: That is a great question. I am a spreadsheet person. So I created a spreadsheet of basically every place that I potentially considered to include in the book. I found those via reaching out to organizations that worked in the area, whether it was a conservancy organization or a destination marketing organization or just friends across the state.
Call them up and be like, ‘Hey, if you were going to, you know, tell someone one place in your area to go visit, like, where would you go?’ I put them all in a spreadsheet, and then I mapped them by region and type.
I wanted to make sure the book had something for everyone. So anyone across the state who bought the book, they could pick it up and be like, ‘Oh, there is this place near my house that I can go to.’ And then I mapped everything out and planned what I was going to visit.
Then just over the year, I visited the place and decided, do I want this in? Do I not want this? And slowly over the year, the spreadsheet went from 200 to 150 to 100, and then slowly narrowed it down to 84.
I wanted to make sure the book had something for everyone, so anyone across the state who bought the book, they could pick it up and be like, ‘Oh, there is this place near my house that I can go to.’
That was hard. I mean, there are places that I didn’t include in the book that I really liked, but I wanted to make sure that I was treating it like almost a balanced portfolio, where there is something for everyone.
There’s something that’s wheelchair accessible. There’s something that’s a 10-mile hike, there’s, you know… caves, there’s natural areas. I like to joke that if I wrote this book just for me, it would be 84 waterfalls, because that’s my favorite thing — I wanted to include more than that.
Colberg: Okay, I have two questions following that up. What’s specific about the 84 number?
Mather: That was just the number that my publisher gave me. This is a series. Pennsylvania is the first one to come out, which is very exciting, but they said 84 is the number, and that’s what I get. Hopefully, maybe on the next one, they’ll give me 100 or 150 so I can include more places.
Colberg: So waterfalls are your favorite. What is your favorite waterfall that you’ve been to?
Mather: Oh man, that’s really hard. I feel like there are so many good ones.
My favorite that I didn’t include in the book is Frankfort Mineral Springs, which is in Raccoon Creek State Park. I didn’t include that one because I included the Wildflower Reserve in Raccoon Creek, but that was a tough choice.
One that I did love that I included is Lewis Falls, which is near Ricketts Glen in Northeastern PA, and I like it because it’s a beautiful waterfall, but it’s also work to get there. You go down this unmaintained gravel road, and you park at a trailhead, and then you have to hike up a hill. It’s worth the time to get there.
Colberg: Why did you choose to meet here today [in Frick Park in Pittsburgh]? What’s specific about this place?
Mather: I love Frick Park, and Frick Park is one of the reasons that called me to Pittsburgh. My in-laws live in Squirrel Hill, and when we came to visit them, I would go trail running or go hiking in the park with my dog.
I want people to find a place that they love… and I want them to conserve it. I want them to advocate for it with their legislators; I want them to go volunteer to pick up trash; I want them to tell other people about it and how to be a good steward of that place.
When we moved here, we decided we wanted to live near the park. I live on the other side of the park in Regent Square, and it’s just such a great resource for the community here. Any time I’m like, ‘Okay, I want to go for a hike, but I don’t have a ton of time to drive somewhere,’ I can always find a hike in Frick that I enjoy doing.
Colberg: Last question, what do you want people to take away from this book?
Mather: That’s a great question. I want people to find a place that they love, a natural place that they love, and I want them to conserve it. I want them to advocate for it with their legislators; I want them to go volunteer to pick up trash; I want them to tell other people about it and how to be a good steward of that place.
I’m in my mid-30s and I did not really become outdoorsy until my early 30s, and learning about outdoor spaces has made me so much more vehemently, like, I want to make sure these places exist for the future and I want to make sure like my nephews who are five and under get to explore the same places in the same manner that that I got to.
I think there are a lot of threats out there right now to some of our natural places in Pennsylvania, so just making sure people are paying attention and willing to put in the work to keep these places the way they are.
Colberg: Awesome. Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me here today.
Mather: Thank you for having me. This was so fun.
Tory Mather’s book “Scenic Natural Wonders of Pennsylvania,” published by Reedy Press, is available at online retailers, some local book stores, and directly through Mather on her Instagram @torytalkstrails or right here at this link https://reedypress.com/shop/scenic-natural-wonders-of-pennsylvania/
