SANDY LAKE — Following a brisk cross-country ski tour and picnic lunch of quiche, chili, fruits, cheese and vegetables, we visited an amber field of renewable Pennsylvania bio-fuel, skidded across a frozen lake for an ice-fishing demonstration and toured a winery before swinging back to the condo to clean up in time for a traditional Amish dinner.
And that was just Day 1 of a fun and educational two-day winter recreation adventure. Our host for the upscale eco-tour wasn’t a trendy ski lodge or resort activities coordinator. It was the Pennsylvania state park system.
Specifically, we were hosted by Wil Taylor and his staff from Jennings Environmental Education Center, near Slippery Rock. The center’s Wilhelm Winter Adventure — a sampler of winter activities held at McKeever Environmental Learning Center and M.K. Goddard State Park near the town of Sandy Lake — was among the first events of an emerging brand of upscale programming designed to attract visitors with disposable income to Pennsylvania state parks.
It’s a new concept for the commonwealth. Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has resisted a national trend of charging state park admission fees, insisting on free access to its 117 sites; along with free picnicking, hiking, swimming and educational programming, and low-cost camping sites. But with financial resources stretched thin and Pennsylvanians mirroring a national trend of waning outdoors participation, paying the bills has become increasingly difficult.
State park bureau director John Norbeck said the new, upscale programming is intended to appeal to outdoors user groups that may have been underserved by Pennsylvania state parks.
“There are a number of different audiences we haven’t fully tapped into,” he said. “There are people who don’t get outdoors much or feel comfortable with that … and there’s a demographic group with disposable income that’s looking for quality outdoor recreational activity. We can provide eco-tours with more amenities and services and fulfill our mandate of teaching stewardship and providing outdoor recreation.”
The original idea was to program multi-park tours.
“But it was a little cumbersome doing it with people from different parks coming together, and there were liability issues,” said Barbara Wallace, an environmental education specialist at Ohiopyle State Park, one of DCNR’s eco-tour pioneers. “It fell to the wayside.”
A few parks and other DCNR facilities, however, have pursued the idea independently.
“We thought with all the resources around Ohiopyle, we could put together great eco-tours,” said Wallace. “If [the park system] wasn’t going to do it, we could do it on our own.”
Generally, most money generated at state parks through equipment rentals, concession leases, mooring fees, etc., is reinvested back into the park system. But in a creative attempt to keep some revenue in the park where it is earned, supporters of individual parks launch independent nonprofit friends-of-the-park organizations.
“Those groups accept donations and pay the costs associated with special programming,” said Taylor. “We can use that money however we want. It gives us a little more freedom.”
Norbeck said 23 nonprofit “friends” groups support individual parks across the state.
“They do fantastic work for us,” he said, “providing services that the state government couldn’t otherwise provide.”
Creatively financed with the help of friends groups, the eco-tours raise money that is reinvested into the parks that program them, helping to pay for the many free educational events.
“We still offer [at peak times] 14 hours of free public programming every weekend,” said Wallace. “But there’s been a demand for getting more in depth into a topic. With these tours we can do that.”
The Wilhelm Winter Adventure started at Jennings with an introduction and brief overview of the center’s highlights, and our 10-member group ranging in age from mid-20s to seventysomething was chauffeured north to McKeever.
After a tour of the learning center and a brief ride to nearby Goddard State Park, Jeff Smith, outdoor recreation instructor at Slippery Rock University, led our troop of mostly beginners on a cross-country ski tour over several miles of snow-covered bicycle trail along frozen Lake Wilhelm. Taylor and his staff were posted at road crossings to rescue anyone who might require extraction (we all made it). An elaborate hot-and-cold lunch was waiting for us under a picnic pavilion.
Goddard’s new manager Bill Wasser showed off an experimental field of natural grasses that absorbs agricultural runoff and stores so much energy it’s being considered for development as a renewable bio-fuel. Next came a Lake Wilhelm ice-fishing lesson with fishing guide Ron Donlan (with an EMS rescue truck parked nearby, just in case) and a stop at nearby Wilhelm Winery, followed by a delicious homemade dinner of fried chicken, roast beef, potatoes, vegetables and scrumtious desserts at the home of an Amish family that caters group meals.
We slept in private rooms at one of McKeever’s comfortable and environmentally correct condos. Following a robust breakfast, McKeever staffer Becky Lubold led us on a sensory “earth walk,” and Jennings’ Eric Best guided a winter tree identification snowshoe hike. At a steep grade, Taylor and his staff jogged ahead and positioned themselves at strategic junctures to help with the descent. After lunch, we were shuttled back to Jennings to complete the eco-tour.
Two days of activities, four good meals, seven guides and instructors, comfortable private rooms, transportation and outstanding service and hospitality. The cost: $100 per person.
“It’s a better deal than you’d get at any ski lodge,” said Molly Bradley, an attorney from Mars who sampled the Wilhelm Winter Adventure with several friends. “Just the lodging alone would have cost more, and look at all that we did. I’d definitely do this again.”
Alice Ross, a Butler retiree who completed the trip with her daughters, said the physical exertion was easier to take than the financial pinch.
“For someone on a fixed income, it’s pricey,” she said. “We enjoyed it and the food was good and everyone was nice, but this isn’t for everybody.”
It is, however, a creative new way for state parks to raise money to finance programs that might appeal to other users. Eco-tour possibilities are endless.
“The sky really is the limit for us,” said Wallace.
Taylor said he’s considering another Jennings eco-tour in the fall.
In 2007, Ohiopyle hosted an overnight hiking-biking-paddling eco-tour that was so successful, said Wallace, they’re doing it again this year. Keels, Heels and Wheels, June 13-15, will include moonlight canoeing on Cranberry Glade Lake, a 9-mile bike trip on the Youghiogheny River Trail, a hike to Ohiopyle waterfalls, whitewater rafting, a winery tour and hay ride. The price, including food, equipment rental and overnight accommodations will be $150 to $185, depending on choice of sleeping accommodations.
“If you tried to do this with an outfitter, you’d pay twice or three times as much and would not necessarily get this much expertise,” said Wallace. “We’re trying to fill a middle area between what you’d traditionally get at a state park and a private guide service.”
Ohiopyle’s next eco-tour is a May 9-11 birdwatching adventure. A Feather Quest includes an evening peek at the woodcock mating ritual, pre-breakfast birding hikes, a visit to the Powdermill Nature Preserve bird banding operation, lunch at a Laughlintown pie shop, warbler watching at Laurel Summit, a search for owls and whip-poor-wills and instruction from an ornithologist from the National Aviary.
John Hayes can be reached at jhayes@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1991.
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