There is a small creek that runs behind some of the sites – it was fun to explore and skip rocks. They had cute one room cabins for rent – though we didn’t go in them the people we talked to said they were well worth the money. Don’t forget to show your access pass for a 50% discount. They have central water to fill tanks and a dump station at the entrance of the park. Our site was a grassy covered raised area. Thankfully they have a staff member in the entrance booth until 9pm so they were able to quickly tell us if there was an available site. Willow Bay CG We went to this park for a one night stay on a whim. At Red Bridge Recreation Area you can parking in the car parking area for $5 a night. We double checked with the ranger stations and got the same answer from all rangers "park anywhere you want that is safe and not in the way of traffic." There are some park areas that have designated times (such as Kinzua Beach) which have gates that close after dark. We camp for piece and quiet and are not comfortable camping in the wild wild west!īoondocking was a breeze in this NF, plenty of pull off spots and they allow for parking in large parking lots as well. Unfortunately, we don't think we will be returning to this area anytime soon. Sites are somewhat apart from each other and the campground hosts were nice as well. Heart's Content organized campground is very nice. The only other sites that were halfway decent were on forest road 145. Most were also close to the road and were between a ton of oil and gas wells. After we left we scouted the area for other potential sites and unfortunately most of the site were in the same condition. They were very apologetic and concerned but did inform my that the dispersed sites are local party areas and that a lot of people target shoot from those sites!! We also heard a ton of shooting all weekend as well. We contacted the forest recreation manager and let them know about what had happened along with the condition of the sites. We packed up as much as we could throughout the night and then slept with our clothes and shoes on the rest of the night until morning. We heard their truck go down the road and then 2 minutes later heard them driving really fast back the other direction and then heard 3 clear and distinct gun shots right below our campsite and then they drove away. They apparently had no good intent or they would have turned around like the others. It wasn't until my husband got dressed and came out of the tent and started to approach them did they respond to us and tell us, "they didn't see our lights?" But meanwhile they sat in our campsite for over 5 minutes. We had her on a leash and the truck just kept sitting there with their lights on us. We got out of our tent and yelled "Hello" to them with no response. They just sat there with their truck running. Saturday night we were woken up by a pickup truck that had pulled in with their brights on pointed directly on our tent. About 8 people pulled in at the base of the hill and turned around. We put solar and battery operated string lights out for other campers to see that the site was taken for the weekend, as well as, parking our truck at the top of the rise of the driveway into the site. Took pictures of about 20 different types of mushrooms and just enjoying the forest. The majority of the weekend we spent relaxing. We also burned the logs that had graffiti on them. My husband and I cleaned up the site the best we could but found glass all weekend. Also, someone had taken down a tree to burn and had carved KKK and swastika's in the wood. Wow! out of all of our years camping this was it!!!! Flat, up on a hill, dry, remote, matured trees, beautiful!!! The only negative was again the amount of broken glass, garbage, food, toileted areas, and rusty nails scattered around the site. This year we went back for a 4 day weekend but site 116C was taken so we pulled into site 116D. Very large, set back off the road, flat and surrounded by beautiful trees. Last year we found a great site, 116C, off of fire road 116. We also got tired of hearing the loggers chain sawing down the trees and heavy trucks going up and down the road. We spent most of the time picking up over 150 gun shell casings along with broken glass and trash. Three years ago we camped at a dispersed site off fire road 119. We have traveled all around the PA part of the forest and have seen some beautiful areas, We have also seen some very run down lack of maintained areas as well.
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