From the Writer: On Tuesday morning, April 21, 2015, a man named Robert “Bob” Webber died at age 80 at Williamsport Hospital. Bob’s wife, Dorothy “Dotty”, preceded him in death on Jan. 4, 2012. I was fortunate to have visited Bob in his hospital room two days before he passed to shake his hand, to chat with him, recalling some fond memories we shared, and to thank him for all he had done during his lifetime for the Pine Creek area. Bob was a very gentle, quiet man, who lived a very simple, truly “off the grid” life. He spent much of his time working and hiking out in the woods, of which he was highly knowledgeable. He and his wife deeply respected and loved nature. Bob and Dotty sincerely hoped that others would also enjoy the forestland. To help make that a reality, they created and maintained more than 50 miles of trails in the woods around their mountaintop home high above Pine Creek and the village of Slate Run. Hopefully, these trails will remain for the enjoyment of generations to come, and will be maintained by others who shared Bob and Dotty’s love of the land. Bob Webber truly “hiked” to the beat of a different drummer. He was one of a kind. I, and many others, will sincerely miss him. Happy trails to you, Bob. You are now a legend. In tribute, the following story of Bob and Dotty Webber’s life together is republished after originally appearing in the Dec. 8, 2006, issue of the Reading Eagle.

By DAVID IRA KAGAN

PINE CREEK – Bob and Dotty Webber do the things most retired couples do.

They spend much of their time reading, gardening, and going to the local general store for the necessities of life.

Just like most retired couples-almost.

What sets them apart is apparent at first glance.

Since they married in 1961, the couple has been living like pioneers, in a rustic cabin without running water, electricity or a telephone.

To keep their kitchen warm during the frigid mountain winters, they burn firewood, which Bob cuts in the nearby woods and then splits and stacks in huge piles in their side yard.

A coal stove heats their living area. Two nearby springs provide them with all their water. A small, wooden outbuilding houses their refrigerator, “powered” by bags of ice.

The nearest community is tiny Haneyville, reached by two miles of dirt road followed by a 13-mile stretch of paved, but narrow, two-lane.

Yet, for all the hardships, Bob and Dotty Webber believe they have been living the good life – a life filled with breath-taking sunsets, mountain vistas, and clean air.

And it’s a life they are more than willing to share with folks from the outside; in fact, Bob has worked hard to encourage visitors to his world.

A Berks County native and now retired state Bureau of Forestry ranger, Bob has become known to hikers as the man who blazed trails through some of Pennsylvania’s most remote wilderness areas. Over the years, Bob has lovingly cleared, marked and maintained a network of hiking trails in the Pine Creek area of Lycoming, Clinton and Tioga counties, ranging from the short, scenic 1.7-mile Bob Webber Trail to the challenging 42.4-mile Black Forest Trail.

Seventy-one-year-old Bob Webber was bitten by the environmentalist bug while a student at West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, studying general courses in biology and chemistry. After one year, deciding against continuing college work, more interested in obtaining a job and living in the great outdoors, Bob moved to the remote Pine Creek area in 1956.

At first, he labored in the flagstone quarries and cut pulpwood in the woods for the paper mills. After a half year, a job opened up with the Bureau of Forestry, and Bob’s half-a-century career in forestry began.

As a ranger, Bob spent many hours tramping through the woods of Tioga and Tiadaghton State Forests, developing a love of the mountains, especially the beautiful mountaintop vistas. Recognizing the lack of trails in the Pine Creek Valley area for hikers to enjoy, Bob devoted himself to the task of building them, a true labor of love through the years.

Bob laid out his first – and longest – path, the 42.4-mile Black Forest Trail, in 1970, with the help of fellow forester, John Eastlake. With his favorite Woodman’s Pal machete, he cut back laurel and other brush; and with a two-headed axe, a pick and a rake, he dug and smoothed out switchbacks up-and-down the mountainsides.

While Bob labored in the forest, Dotty tended their cabin.

Asked what she has enjoyed about her life in the deep woods the past 45 years, she emphatically exclaimed, “Everything! I like cooking, tending the stoves, cleaning the kerosene lamp chimneys every day, and feeding and caring for my cats. The only thing I like about modern civilization is paper towels!”

At home together, Dotty and Bob have been avid readers.

Bob, perhaps not surprisingly, enjoys books on travel and American history, while Dotty loves American poetry.

Of her reading habit, Bob said, “She’s read so many books that she says it’s a wonder she has eyes!”

After finishing the Black Forest Trail, Bob, with the help of youth camp crews, blazed the 9.1-mile Golden Eagle Trail in the mid-1970s. He speaks proudly of the vista he cleared on this trail overlooking the remote 19th-century lumbering area called Beulah Land. From the late 1970s through the 1990s, Bob lovingly laid out and cleared over 25 more miles of hiking and skiing trails in the Pine Creek area.

Bob and Dotty are living testaments to the health benefits provided by a “Natural life.”

According to Bob, “We don’t get sick much – just occasional colds, for which we take two aspirins at the first sign. And right now we don’t feel too different from when we were younger!”

When asked if age (both are over 70 now) or fears about their remoteness in case of an emergency are concerns, Bob answered, “No, the nearest phone is only four miles away at the Black Forest Fire Company, and we own a Jeep Wrangler.”

At home, he and Dotty are stewards of their cabin lands.

They plant a yearly garden, in which they grow tomatoes, potatoes and string beans (their three favorites) and other vegetables. A well-manicured vista only a few yards north of their neatly maintained, three-room cabin offers them inspirational views of the ridges, the clouds, the glorious sunsets, the stars and sometimes, a brilliant display of the Northern Lights.

Their cabin clearly welcomes all visitors-with its “Welcome” sign above the front door, the hanging flowerpot, the flowers on the windowsill, the wind chime and the small American flag waving from the eaves.

Bob and Dotty enjoy sharing their lives and love of Nature, and, according to Bob, they get “quite a lot of company.”

Bob, a great storyteller who also looks the part in his overalls and his signature greenish-brown woodsman’s cap, will sit at their small kitchen table by the wood stove and gladly relate, with great expressiveness, the story of “No-Nose,” the large black bear that “visited” their cabin one winter night.

Bob’s contagious laugh and merry eyes alone are enough to entertain.

Dotty, clearly comfortable in her blue jeans and moccasins, with her white hair pinned up in a bun, is less talkative, content to play the role of prodder – “Tell them about . . . .”

She enjoys watching the effects of Bob’s tales on his listeners, and only occasionally offers up a “correction” during his narratives. And she’ll offer visitors a cup of green (her favorite) or black tea while they sit entranced listening to Bob.

As fall wears on and winter approaches in the eternal cycle of Nature, Bob and Dotty Webber once again are happily preparing for the welcomed challenge of gathering wood, stocking up on supplies, checking their snowshoes and skis, and making sure their cabin will hold up under the intense pressures of snow, wind and cold.

An old friend, Earle Layser, now a photo journalist living in Wyoming, has said of the Webbers, “Bob and Dotty have demonstrated that a rich and meaningful life is not necessarily dependent on contemporary society’s measures of a ‘good life.’ The latter relies on consumerism, materialism and technology, while Bob and Dotty nonjudgmentally find their richness and meaning in the timelessness of the outdoors and living close to Nature.”