BELLEFONTE -- Access to Pennsylvania state parks is free. Unlike many states that charge admission fees at park gates, anyone can pull into any of the commonwealth's 117 state parks at no charge and take in whatever natural experience it has to offer. At parks that offer overnight stays, options range from primitive and hookup campsites to Mongolian yurts, rustic cottages and comfortably furnished cabins.
That range of access and accommodation contributed to the Pennsylvania state park system's recent rating as best in the United States by the American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration and the National Recreation and Park Association.
But in recent years, the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which administers the parks, has begun exploring ways to accommodate a previously overlooked "outdoors user group" -- the well off.
Free access to picnic tables and mountain lake swimming is a good deal for middle class families and the financially strapped, but it takes more to attract those who might otherwise drop $500, $800 or more for a weekend at a ski lodge, spa or luxury resort.
In hopes of reaching out to people who enjoy nature as well as disposable income, last week DCNR officially opened the first luxury hotel located in a Pennsylvania state park. The $7.5 million, 16-room Nature Inn at Bald Eagle, overlooking Sayers Reservoir Lake in Centre County's Bald Eagle State Park, is comfortable, gorgeous and pricey -- perhaps the most visible sign of a successful park system stretching its wings from primitive to posh.
"The Nature Inn is kind of a new tier of overnight accommodations in the state park system," said DCNR secretary John Quigley, during a May interview. "It's designed to attract people who normally wouldn't go to a state park. Or maybe they have been through the system -- started out camping and then in cabins -- and they don't necessarily want to rough it anymore, but they still want to take advantage of the state parks and connect to the natural resources."
Read full story at: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10248/1084884-140.stm
Source: The NatureInn.
