Cabin Camping in Pennsylvania State Parks

I was devastated when my parents sold their Lake Wallenpaupak vacation home in the Poconos. The day the door was locked for the last time, we joined the motley family caravan behind the U-haul, packed to bursting with 25 years of memories, including my honeymoon. I cried the whole four hours back to Philadelphia. (Except for when Dad hit that low awning at the Mt. Pocono Diner with the U-Haul. We TOLD him not to go that way!)

We now had a dilemma. For a quarter of a century, we had no vacation lodging expenses. Now, we were going to have to pay to play. Scouting out our old stomping grounds the next year, we found weekly Pocono rental rates to be twice our monthly mortgage payment. We travelled northwest on Route 6 to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, where we saw scads of campgrounds. We had never considered this before because, well, "smell us, we had an A-frame chalet on a private road in the woods!" How the mighty fall. We looked at each other, sighed, and knew it was our only option. And so, we became campers.

After a disastrous tent camping experience where we ended up sleeping in the back of our truck, we tried the trailers one campsite rented. They smelled bad and were unsanitary. The next year, I sought out campgrounds with cabins. Travelling farther north, we spent two vacations in a tiny cabin at Willow Bay Recreational Area in the Allegheny Wilds. It offered only beds and electricity, but it was new and clean and right on the creek. And in September, we had the campground to ourselves. What are the chances of hurricanes following us, Ivan and Isabel, respectively, two years in a row? The little babbling brook rose six feet and became a raging river overnight, but I must confess to taking gleeful joy in running out into the rain with a flashlight every half hour to check its level, and a vicarious delight in the crashing thunder and splitting lightening. (Always remember your rain pancho!)

The local bear came calling several times, but my husband, the killjoy, refused to let me leave the cabin to get a good look. (HE went out though! No fair!) We had to haul water, cook outside and, if nature called in the middle of the night, dress and drive up the hill because the bear considered us trespassers. The lack of a table forced me to crawl around on the floor preparing meals during the storms. The crockpot I had added to our gear at the last minute turned out to be a scathingly brilliant idea. After the second year, we decided that $45 a night was too expensive considering what these cabins offered and began looking elsewhere. Someone advised us to look into State Park cabins -- and we finally found our Nirvana.

Pennsylvania's State Park cabins were built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, from stone and chestnut trees killed by the blight that once ravaged Pennsylvania forests. While visiting my cousin in St. Mary's over last year's vacation, I asked why her branch of the family was upstate, while the rest of us were city-dwellers. I was surprised and proud to learn that her father, my great-uncle Robert Perryman, had been a "CCC man" who married a girl from Ridgeway, the next town over, and never left.

The State Parks rent Rustic or Modern cabins for almost half the price of privately or commercially owned sites. The Rustics we rent are medium sized one-room affairs, with a refrigerator, stove, bench table, fireplace, gas heater and double and/or bunk beds. My bruised shins are testament to the fact that the heavy wooden kitchen tables and benches will be the only things besides the proverbial cockroaches to survive a nuclear attack. There is no indoor plumbing in the Rustics, but last year at Parker Dam and the year before at World's End, we had a private shower and modern bathroom right next to the cabin. At the parks where you must use communal showers and bathrooms, I have found them to be meticulously kept, although a rather large cricket did join me once. Finally, outside, there are fire rings, grills and picnic tables.

We paid off-peak September rates of less than $180 ($33 a night) for five weeknights in a cabin that slept six. Fridays and Saturdays are $55 a night, and a full week will run you $220.75. Peak season rates for Rustics are $117 more a week.The Modern cabins have bathrooms, full kitchens and separate bedrooms, and run about $100 a week more than Rustics. (The entertainment provided by the chipmunk that occasionally finds its way in is free.) You need to bring all your own cooking utensils, dishes and linens (we just bring sleeping bags and pillows). You'll also need bottled water or a large refillable water container if you're in a Rustic. And don't forget a hatchet to split those large logs provided when you purchase firewood. A clothesline and pins often come in handy, especially if you have children. A final word of advice: these cabins must be reserved well in advance, especially if you want a weekend. Reservations can be made up to 11 months ahead.

Every year we discover another captivating area of upstate Pennsylvania. Last year's trip to Parker Dam State Park brought us to Benezette, where we stalked elk viewing sites along Route 555. We decided to explore nearby Route 666 just to say we had. We found ourselves at a detour sign leading to a dirt road, debating whether it was wise to take such a detour on a route named "666." We went for it. After a 30-minute scenic but bumpy, dusty ride, we were dumped back onto the asphalt at an unmarked road that led us to the three-block-long town of Sheffield, where we stopped in a gift shop for directions. While paying for the Christmas balls I just couldn't resist, I joked to the owner that the detour must be leading a lot of business her way. She smiled and said she spent a lot of money to have that sign put up. (Gas fill-up, $60; Christmas ornaments, $12; feeding the locals straight lines, priceless!)

While camping might not compare to a fancy cruise or luxury resort, I have discovered that I am a city girl with a country heart. I much prefer waking up to the woodsy smell of last night's fire and opening my eyes to the trees rustling against the window. I rise with the first chirp of the birds, brewing coffee as their song progresses from a few cheeps here and there to a full chorus, and savor the sunrise from the porch of a log cabin my great-uncle may have built.

Our evenings are spent stoking a campfire under a blanket of stars and, if we're lucky, a harvest moon. I am mesmerized by the sounds of the night forest -- the soft hoot of the owl, the chirping of mating crickets, the barking of the deer, and last year, elk bugling in the distance. Once, a white creature that appeared to be a skunk wandered into our site and waddled right past my chair. I froze, not daring to reach for the camera, and puzzled over the apparent lack of a black stripe. After speaking with the Park Ranger the next day, he told me I had seen an extremely rare white raccoon.

My mother thinks I'm crazy, says spending a week gathering and packing all that gear and doing your own cooking is not a vacation. But she's never seen a white raccoon. And so, gas prices notwithstanding, we shall continue to wander the highways and byways of the magnificent Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in search of the next State Park, and the road less travelled.

This is a slideshow of our vacation last year at Cook's Forest, Presque Isle and Parker Dam
http://www.associatedcontent.com/slideshow/5499/vacation_september_2007.html?cat=16

(These links will take you to the Pennsylvania DCNR site pages for cabins and rates.)
http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/recreation/cabins.aspx
http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/findinfo/prices_cabins.aspx