Camp Tionesta its been 45 years since this beautiful camp was destroyed for no good reason

Yes its hard to believe it will be 45 years  come August 2021 that the beautiful Camp Tionesta was destroyed and eliminated all over lies from a deceitful  and deceptive  Allegheny Trails Scout Council

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Those who made that decision are now mostly long gone and  many have passed away   You would have to be in your 50's to have attended the week long summer  camp like I did for several years with the now closed Troop 224  which I regret to this day very being affiliated with .

The camp sat on US Forrest property along Tionesta lake which was formed when the Tionesta valley was flooded .

You can still see the road which lead into the camp  in picture above it appears to be just open ground now some day I would like to go back up and explore the old camp along with old Semiconon

The camp was abandoned and forgotten and a big lie as usual was told everyone why they closed it.
They aid Government would not renew lease . This was a lie they would renew lease but a 10 year lease which Allegheny Trails council did not want to commit to since they had land donated and where building a big new camp heritage in Farmington Pa. where all the council big wigs could stay with there family's in nice homes and they could send their ids for the summer. Yea I remember seeing all the slides of the new plans and construction. Went to camp one time and never been back I was so disappointed in what I saw we went from rugged  wilderness based camps to standard public summer camp. Our troop  no longer in business refused to stay there .

Scratch above is how I remember the camps layout .
The water front at bottom was the Tionesta Lake which was actually part of the abandoned Pa Route 62 when it was rerouted to build the lake and dam to help protect Pittsburgh from floods
and it had miles of trails to explore a natural breeding trout stream as well. They offered an overnight   Bivouac trip where you went across the lake on canoes and camped  however our troop never did it.
Its a shame today's scouts will never know about this camp and its great times and what a rugged wilderness type camp was really like.

 Old even then  Writing stationary they gave us to write home 

Boot and Paddle Canoe Trip What I always suspected has been confirmed a Tick bite in 1974 During a Trip was infected with Lyme Disease

In summer of 1973 and  1974 I took a 150 mile long canoe trip  from Tionesta Pa to Pittsburgh known as Boot & Paddle Program which I have written about in previous article and its experiences.

However during that trip  which hundreds took over the years it ran from 1960's to late 70's
I was bitten by a Tick no big deal several scouts where and leaders just backed them out carefully with hot piece of steel or a cigarette .Little did we know those ticks at the time where infected with the then unknown Lyme disease .I woke up with a tick the last nights stay over behind a power plant  and they removed it

Just recently after doing extensive research and listing to several experts on radio and then finally having a blood test  after bringing my concerns to my Dr. it proved I was in fact infected in the past with it and it went untreated because Dr.s at the time had no idea what it was and thought it nothing more then a variant of ring worm by the distinct red bulls eye it leaves for several weeks

This explains many of the malady's I have had over the years when you look at what the disease does to a body untreated which in my case where often ignored or missed by Dr.s


Lyme really did not come to the forefront till the 90's and still so much is not known about it. If caught early it is aggressively treated with antibiotics when not it can lead to a life time of many medical issues from arthritis to cancer and many more thing we just brush off as getting old.
I have been trying to get word to those who took trip with me to let their Dr.s know they to may have been infected and while its way too late to do anything about it at least it gives some answers why some of us have gone thru medically what we have.We would all be in our 50's to 90's in age or deceased and many of us did die young from cancer and other diseases these ticks might well have contributed to.

I cant blame Dr.s for missing it lets face it medical treatment back then was no where near as good as it is now and even if they did suspect what would they have treated us with till advanced science came up with the answers.