Still Waters

==For paddlers, tranquility is just a few miles from the interstate==
: Source: Added Feature from City Paper's Health and Fitness Guide from 6/22/2006, Writer: Chris Potter
For Pittsburgh-area canoe paddlers, the Three Rivers can be treacherous. Sure, they’re close at hand: If you live inside the city, you can get up early, put in beneath the 40th Street Bridge and fish for a few hours — while still getting in a more-or-less full day of work. If you’re into that sort of thing.
Even so, you still have to contend with passing barges and, far more menacing, motorboats. Meanwhile, concrete-lined urban riverbanks mean that waves tend to rebound and build on each other like an experiment from a high school physics class — with your tiny canoe as the hapless Ping-Pong ball.
The most obvious alternative for paddlers, of course, is Moraine State Park. Its massive (3,200-plus acre) Lake Arthur offers canoe rentals and exploration possibilities to satisfy Henry Hudson. But it also attracts noisy motorboats and sailboats … and nothing is worse than paddling against a stiff headwind, only to be passed by a septugenarian relaxing with one hand on the tiller and the other on a glass of Riesling.
Fortunately, for those willing to leave the interstate a few miles behind, there are other options. Two state agencies, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, operate a network of more than a dozen artificial lakes within about an hour’s drive of the city. These are “impoundments,” reservoirs created by streams dammed up in the mid-1900s. And they offer a considerably more sedate boating experience than you’ll find around the Point. Most of the lakes, for starters, allow only unpowered boats or those with electric motors, which run quietly enough not to disturb your tranquility.
A map to Fish and Boat Commission spots can be found at http://sites.state.pa.us/PA_Exec/Fish_Boat/lakes.htm. A guide to the state parks can be found at www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/region_pittsburgh.aspx; five of these have lakes — Raccoon Creek, Yellow Creek, Laurel Hill, Keystone and, of course, Moraine.
Services vary: Most state parks offer boat rentals, swimming beaches and concession stands. Fish and Boat lakes, however, provide little more than the water (and the fish inside it: Most of these waters are stocked early in the season and, in some cases, afterward). I know a guy who swears by the fishing in Washington County’s Dutch Fork Lake, in Donegal Township a few miles north of I-70. But unless you have your own boat, you’ll end up fishing from shore.
If you do have your own boat, the state requires a launch permit to use any of these lakes. But at a mere $10 a year for unpowered boats, these are absurdly cheap.
A word of advice: These lakes are considerably smaller than Moraine — most of them are 100 acres or less — and the sounds of even a single family frolicking on the beach can carry a long way over the water. By midafternoon, the lakeside of Raccoon Creek State Park (just off Route 30 in Beaver County) can be lined with anglers camped out on folding chairs while teens drift laconically in lashed-together canoes. So if you want some quiet, or some quality time with the heron and the hawks, go early when the fishing is good, and on weekdays.
So far this year, my personal favorite spot has been Laurel Hill Lake, part of a chain of state parks running along the spine of the Laurel Mountains. About halfway between the Somerset and Donegal exits on the turnpike, it’s just far enough away to feel like an escape. In the early morning, traces of mist pull back to reveal the image of trees reflected in the still mountain water. Even the fishermen on shore, clad in layers of clothing to fight the early-morning, early-summer chill, blend in to the landscape, like heron. There’s barely a sound other than your paddle slipping out of the water, and that lake trout, just out of your casting range, falling back into it.
It’s as close as life gets to an Eddie Bauer catalogue without making you feel like an asshole. And really, what more could you ask?