The Pennsylvania Wilds spans twelve counties in northcentral Pennsylvania and includes more than two million acres of deep forests, rugged hills, and fast-flowing streams, the largest block of public land between New York City and Chicago. Its lands include more than 1.5 million acres of state forest and game lands, twenty-seven state parks, the five hundred thousand-acre Allegheny National Forest, Pine Creek Gorge, eight wild areas, twenty-four natural areas, the largest wild elk herd in the Northeast, thousands of miles of backpacking trails, bike paths and trout fishing streams, the dark skies at Cherry Springs State Park, and valuable hardwood forests. A hundred years ago this landscape did not exist in this form, because Pennsylvania's expansive forests had been completely logged, leaving blighted mountain slopes and sediment-choked streams. Beginning at the turn of the twentieth century, Pennsylvania conservationists led by Joseph Rothrock, Gifford Pinchot, Maurice Goddard, Mira Lloyd Dock and others restored these forests to provide outdoor recreation, water resources and sustainable forest management.