Kitchen Creek is a tributary of Huntington Creek in

Luzerne County, Pennsylvania Luzerne County is a county in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and is water. It is Northeastern Pennsylvania's second-largest county by total area. As of ...

, in the United States. It is approximately long and flows through Fairmount Township and Huntington Township. The

watershed Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...

of the creek has an area of . The creek is designated as a high-quality coldwater fishery.

Course

Kitchen Creek begins in Fairmount Township, near the border between Sullivan County and Luzerne County. The headwaters of the creek are also immediately south of Cherry Ridge. The creek flows southeast for some distance, passing through Lake Lehigh. It then turns south-southwest and enters a deep valley known as the Kitchen Creek Gorge, traveling over numerous

waterfall A waterfall is a point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in several wa ...

s as it passes through

Ricketts Glen State Park Ricketts Glen State Park is a Pennsylvania state park on 13,193 acres (5,280 ha) in Columbia, Luzerne, and Sullivan counties in Pennsylvania in the United States. Ricketts Glen is a National Natural Landmark known for its old-growth fore ...

, where it receives the tributaries Shingle Cabin Brook and Maple Spring Brook. Upon leaving Ricketts Glen State Park, the creek turns south-southeast and receives the tributary Boston Run. Further downstream, it picks up the tributary Maple Run. After a while, the creek passes through Patterson Grove and enters Huntington Township, where it almost immediately reaches its confluence with Huntington Creek. Kitchen Creek joins Huntington Creek upstream of its mouth.

Geography, geology, and climate

The elevation near the mouth of Kitchen Creek is above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

Lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

s, and

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited Summit (topography), summit area, and ...

s are present at the headwaters of Kitchen Creek. The topography of the creek's watershed is described as "rough and hilly" in a 1921 book. The

channel Channel, channels, channeling, etc., may refer to: Geography * Channel (geography), in physical geography, a landform consisting of the outline (banks) of the path of a narrow body of water. Australia * Channel Country, region of outback Austral ...

of Kitchen Creek is

sinuous Sinuosity, sinuosity index, or sinuosity coefficient of a continuously differentiable curve having at least one inflection point is the ratio of the curvilinear length (along the curve) and the Euclidean distance (straight line) between the ...

. The creek flows through

rock formation A rock formation is an isolated, scenic, or spectacular surface rock outcrop. Rock formations are usually the result of weathering and erosion sculpting the existing rock. The term ''rock formation'' can also refer to specific sediment ...

s made of

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

and

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especial ...

. There is a

gorge A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tenden ...

and waterfall system on the creek. This system is known as the Kitchen Creek

Ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion. The rate of

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...

in the watershed of Kitchen Creek ranges between and per year.

Watershed

Kitchen Creek looking downstream in Ricketts Glen State Park

The watershed (or

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, t ...

) of Kitchen Creek has an area of . The watershed is situated in southeastern Sullivan County and northwestern Luzerne County. There are a number of

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

s in the watershed of Kitchen Creek. The largest is

Lake Jean Lake Jean is a lake in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Luzerne County and Sullivan County, Pennsylvania, Sullivan County, in Pennsylvania, in the United States. It has a surface area of approximately and is situated in Colley Township, Sullivan Coun ...

, with a surface area of 296.0 acres and the second-largest is Lake Lehigh with a surface area of 137.0 acres.

Ganoga Lake Ganoga Lake is a natural lake in Colley Township in southeastern Sullivan County in Pennsylvania, United States. Known as Robinson's Lake and Long Pond for most of the 19th century, the lake was purchased by the Ricketts family in the early 185 ...

is the third-largest lake in the watershed, having a surface area of 78.8 acres. The watershed's fourth-largest lake is Lake Rose. It has a surface area of 47.0 acres. In the early 1900s, the main industry in the watershed of Kitchen Creek was

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

. Communities in the watershed of Kitchen Creek include Red Rock. This community had a population of 27 in 1921.

Biology

The creeping snowberry plant is present in the Kitchen Creek Ravines. Other plants in the ravines include Braun's holly fern, swamp currant, great-spurred violet, and white twisted-stalk A

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

species known as

Swainson's thrush Swainson's thrush (''Catharus ustulatus''), also called olive-backed thrush and russet-backed thrush, is a medium-sized thrush. It is a member of genus ''Catharus'' and is typical of it in terms of its subdued coloration and beautiful, ascending ...

is found in the ravines of Kitchen Creek. The creek is designated as a high-quality coldwater fishery.

Virgin timber An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological feature ...

was present at the headwaters of Kitchen Creek as late as the early 1900s.

References

{{authority control Rivers of Pennsylvania Tributaries of Fishing Creek (North Branch Susquehanna River) Rivers of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania Allegheny Plateau

Course

Geography, geology, and climate

Watershed

Biology

See also

References