OUTDOOR ADVENTURE BC3 graduate visits all Pa. state parks in under a year
“So, I can't make this up,” Butler County Community College graduate Trevor Nordquist begins.
Within seconds of leaving the last of Pennsylvania's 121 state parks he visited within 302 days and satisfying a goal born of his newfound love for Mother Nature, Nordquist looked up and noticed a brown-and-white object in the gray mist above.
The object floated in the drizzle just off Hawk Point Overlook in Susquehannock State Park in southern Lancaster County, then it dove toward the Susquehanna River 450 feet below.
“The last point in my whole trip,” Nordquist said, “and it's a bald eagle.”
His first sighting, on Aug. 16, 275 miles from his home in Butler, was as if Mother Nature was acknowledging Nordquist's travels to a Great Lake, whitewater river, the state's Grand Canyon and old-growth forests.
He would add 15,000 miles to his car, tug a backpack, endure his first tick bite that left him bedridden for four days “with a fever, chills, the whole nine yards” and pitch his first tent alone “and with a lot of struggles.”The bald eagle “put an exclamation point on what I did,” Nordquist said. “It ended it in the most rewarding way. Put a closure on it. This is it. He did it. What are the chances of the whole entire experience ending like that?”Nordquist, who earned an associate degree in general studies in 2014 from BC3, was inspired from afar during the summer of 2019 to visit each Pennsylvania state park upon his return from working 10 weeks in Greeley, Colo., with the nonprofit community service provider AmeriCorps.It was in Colorado where, Nordquist said, “I fell in love with the outdoors.”He returned to Butler County in August 2019. On Oct. 15, he visited his first series of five state parks in northwestern Pennsylvania, beginning with Oil Creek State Park in Venango County.Within the next 10 months — excluding December, January and March, when he did not travel — Nordquist visited state parks as close to home as Moraine State Park in Butler County and as far away as Neshaminy State Park in Bucks County, where hikers can view the Philadelphia skyline.Visits ranged from two minutes to seven hours spent at the Leonard Harrison and Colton Point state parks in Tioga County, on the east and west rims, respectively, of the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon. Trips ranged from one day to four.Nordquist said he realized Pennsylvania “is actually extremely beautiful. I always brushed off Pennsylvania as being my home state, so I never gave it the credit that it deserves. There's just so much, so much to see here. It's a huge state, and every corner of it has something different to offer.”Each state park in Pennsylvania is unique, said Chris Calhoun, who served as a law enforcement ranger with the National Park Service before becoming coordinator of BC3's park and recreation management program.Nordquist's achievement, Calhoun said, “is impressive.<i>Bill Foley is coordinator of news and media content at Butler County Community College.</i>
