Ricketts Glen State Park

The biggest draw to this state park (which no one in Pennsylvania I spoke with seemed to know about) is the 22 waterfalls! We saw 18 of them on a four-mile moderate hike, but if you want to see the additional four, you could make it a seven-mile hike. The trails are very well marked.

We stayed in the large loop, which is a peninsula on Lake Jean. Many of the sites have lake views. The bathhouse was clean but not adequate for 73 sites. The campground was about ¾ full and there was often a wait in the bathroom. Showers looked reasonable but I did not use them. There were many tent campers in this loop, which does not allow pets (the other, smaller loop does allow pets). There are no hookups at all in the park. The water had been tested earlier in the season and unsafe levels of manganese were detected. All water spigots were shut off and covered but we were told it was safe to wash our dishes and brush our teeth. However, the water for the dishwashing sink was turned off as well as the water in the restroom at the trailhead. Since we had a reservation, we received a phone call in advance of our stay letting us know about this.

There are trails to the beach, but we woke to rain the next morning, so we did not explore this.
One trash/recycle area a distance away from the campsites which seems typical for PA state parks. Alcohol is strictly forbidden – we were warned that if a ranger saw any alcohol outside of our vehicle, we would be cited. Quiet hours are 9 pm – 8 am, which is more restrictive than other state parks, however, some did not observe these quiet hours (a guitar-playing singing camper thought he was talented, but I disagree!)

This park was recommended to us by someone we camped near the night before - the waterfall hike was gorgeous!!

As stated in the previous review, the road in is very steep and rather narrow (and we're used to the Colorado Rockies!) and there is NO cell service in the park. We were able to get reception about halfway down the hill.

We felt the price was high for a tent site in October, but the sites were nice with lots of trees and the bathrooms/showers were clean. The only flat place to set up a tent was on the parking pad, but it was big enough and we were able to get stakes in easily. It was very quiet.

Be aware of a $6 "transaction fee" added onto the out-of-state rate if you don't make a reservation and pay the reservation fee!

We targeted this state park to see the gorgeous waterfalls and we were not disappointed! The campground is located at the top of a small mountain - approaching from the south there is a long, steep grade to climb to reach the campground. The trail descends for a couple miles before looping around to climb back up. The trail has many stone steps making it easily navigable and the waterfall views are amazing!

The campground itself has spacious sites with good space in between, though you can see your neighbours through the forest. The footing at the site was a reddish dirt that got mucky and tracked everywhere when it rained. We were there in May 2015 and had no cell signal on our Canadian carriers - I understood there was no coverage there for any carrier but call ahead and ask as this could change.

A quirk of the Pennsylvania State Park system is that they only allow dogs on designated dog campsites, which clusters them all in the same area on a limited number of sites. We have a dog and when I asked what would be the option if there was no dog site available, the ranger said there is a kennel down the road! They also restrict dogs in certain areas of the park but there were still plenty of places we could take her including the waterfall trail. If you have a dog, best to call ahead and be sure a dog site is available.