Hawk Mountain
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Hawk Mountain is a mountain ridge, part of the Appalachian Mountains, located in central-eastern Pennsylvania near Reading and Allentown. It is a part of the Blue Mountain Ridge. It is primarily known as home to the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. Located along the Appalachian flyway, the Sanctuary is a prime location for the viewing of migrating raptors with an average of 20,000 hawks, eagles and falcons passing the lookouts every year. The birds are identified and counted by staff and volunteers to produce annual counts of migrating raptors that represent the world's longest record of raptor populations. These counts have provided conservationists with valuable information on changes in raptor numbers in North America.
The mountain is also home to the Hawk Mountain Scout Reservation and Hawk Mountain Camp (two Boy Scout camps) and Civil Air Patrol's Colonel Phillip Neuweiler Ranger Training Facility. Also known as the "Hawk Mountain Ranger Training School," the school molds cadets into highly effective members of a Search and Rescue team, as well as teaching them survival skills, confidence, dedication, discipline and teamwork. The school's summer curriculum runs for nine days and simulates the conditions which will be encountered on a mission; a winter program is held over the course of a weekend and focuses on cold-weather operations. At both programs, cadets learn to work under stressful situations while building bonds with one another.
