{"id":3536,"date":"2025-05-22T16:05:45","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T16:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rvparkiq.com\/industry-insights\/?p=3536"},"modified":"2025-05-28T16:11:44","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T16:11:44","slug":"new-campground-opens-at-bald-eagle-state-park-in-howard-pa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rvparkiq.com\/industry-insights\/new-campground-opens-at-bald-eagle-state-park-in-howard-pa\/","title":{"rendered":"New Campground Opens at Bald Eagle State Park in Howard, PA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- VideographyWP Plugin Message: Automatic video embedding prevented by plugin options. --><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.centredaily.com\/latest-news\/a5rtpl\/picture306929041\/alternates\/FREE_1140\/005BaldEagleStatePark.JPG\" alt=\"White Pine Camping Loop showcased at Bald Eagle State Park | Centre Daily  Times\" width=\"624\" height=\"362\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #222222;\"><span style=\"font-family: Lato, Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">State and local officials celebrated the opening of a new campground at Bald Eagle State Park in Centre County on Wednesday, which comes at a time when state campgrounds see a spike in reservations because of federal campground closures.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #222222;\"><span style=\"font-family: Lato, Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">In March, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced they were closing campground reservations at Raystown Lake on a rolling basis because of a federal hiring freeze. Since then, many campers have moved to state campgrounds.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #222222;\">\u201c<span style=\"font-family: Lato, Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Camping is up 30% already,\u201d said Cindy Dunn, the secretary of the state\u2019s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. \u201cThis area here in Bald Eagle is up 55%.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #222222;\"><span style=\"font-family: Lato, Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Since those federal campground closures, the Shapiro administration launched its \u201cStill Open. Still Awesome\u201d campaign to encourage outdoor recreation at state parks. Dunn said events like this are part of that effort.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #222222;\"><span style=\"font-family: Lato, Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Bill Kocher, the park operations manager at Bald Eagle State Park, said the new White Pine Loop will help accommodate campers displaced from federal sites.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #222222;\">\u201c<span style=\"font-family: Lato, Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">White Pine Loop is a 22-campsite, full hookup, pet-friendly campground with 50-amp service, ready for the bigger trailers,\u201d Kocher said.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #222222;\"><span style=\"font-family: Lato, Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Kocher said a lot of parks don\u2019t have the infrastructure to support newer RVs.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #222222;\"><span style=\"font-family: Lato, Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">People have been camping at White Pine Loop since last year, but some parts weren\u2019t finished until recently. Officials also said they wanted to celebrate Memorial Day and the unofficial start of summer with this opening ceremony.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #222222;\"><span style=\"font-family: Lato, Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">The White Pine Loop is part of a $1.9 million state-funded project at Bald Eagle State Park. According to DCNR, the state has invested $120 million in infrastructure improvements to state parks and forests since 2023.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.witf.org\/2025\/05\/22\/new-campground-opens-at-bald-eagle-state-park-as-reservations-spike-at-state-campgrounds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #222222;\"><span style=\"font-family: Lato, Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Source<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>State and local officials celebrated the opening of a new campground at Bald Eagle State Park in Centre County on Wednesday, which comes at a time when state campgrounds see a spike in reservations because of federal campground closures. In March, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced they were closing campground reservations at Raystown Lake on a rolling basis because of a federal hiring freeze. Since then, many campers have moved to state campgrounds. \u201cCamping is up 30% already,\u201d said Cindy Dunn, the secretary of the state\u2019s Department of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3537,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rvparkiq.com\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rvparkiq.com\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rvparkiq.com\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rvparkiq.com\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rvparkiq.com\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rvparkiq.com\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3538,"href":"https:\/\/rvparkiq.com\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536\/revisions\/3538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rvparkiq.com\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rvparkiq.com\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rvparkiq.com\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rvparkiq.com\/industry-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}