French Creek State Park

[SheBantam]

We made a Drive through...sort of to this park on Saturday.

We never got to the campground, as we decided to start in the back and work forward.

First of all, I was relying on those noce signs that Hickory Run and Locust lake have...NOT...so we got lost...did not take the detour (coming in from the south 82 makes a detour to the right and it just may be permanent now) and went straight for about a nile and a half and kept seeing Hay Creek signs.

When you go looking for some of the smaller PA State Paarks, take your mapquest type directions, so not rely on signs, should have known better since the same thing happened to me a couple of years ago getting to Greenbank Furnace SP.

We finally found it and decided to look at the 2 lakes first, as the only reason Raymond would go with me would be to fish...leaving the second lake, Scott Run, we saw the road and I mistakenly took it for the road that we came to the lake on...WRONG...this did not make a circle to THAT raod, but to Fire tower road, which I had seen coming in and told Raymond that we had to be close to the park the (NOT, again), well we were but we were not.  we followed this out to PA 82 and to Shady Maple (NOT the BUffet, rather the grocery and the Goodes Store) then home.  

So we never saw the campground part, except for the organized group (tene) caming sites, which sit right on Fire Tower Road.

I did see where there were a lot of sites open for Saturday night, when I checked online availability.  

Raymond and I are looking to camp there, him for the fishing, me just to get away.  Not sure yet when, but this is one that I can get to in just over an hour, depending on traffic.

[jawilson]

So we never saw the campground part, except for the organized group (tene) caming sites, which sit right on Fire Tower Road.

You were within a stones throw of us; we camped at French Creek this past weekend.

The park is pretty nice, although the bathroom facilities are not up to the standards of the ones I'm familiar with (Hickory Run, Locust Lake, Ricketts Glen, Frances Slocum, etc). They weren't bad, just a bit dated and worn.

The park has 4 main loops, most of which have some pretty decent sites. There's electric on about 1/4 of them, the majority of which are in the pet loops. A surprising number of the sites are on some type of slope, so leveling could be an issue. And we saw at least a dozen sites where the fire ring and picnic bench were 20-50 feet back from the parking pad! I've never seen anything like it.

It was a little less then 2 hours travel for us so we may be adding French Creek to our rotation.