Boondocking in Susquehannock State Forest, PA

I’d been researching boondocking spots in in Pennsylvania since we had been able to stay in the Michaux State Forest this spring. The Allegheny National Forest doesn’t allow motorhomes for boondocking, but the Susquehannock State Forest does. There’s one spot the gal in the office felt we’d fit in to, Twelve Mile Camping Area. It is about a half mile off of Hwy 44, which is a narrow, squiggly highway. She e-mailed our camping permit so we’d have it to show to a park ranger.

You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them in a new window. 


When we pulled off the highway, kind of a tight corner, the Twelve Mile Trailhead is right there so we pulled in to that (large parking lot) and unhooked the Jeep to see what the camping area looked like, which is about a half mile away. Luckily we didn’t take the motorhome, the road to the camping site was blocked off!  There’s a performance rally race scheduled for Saturday and they don’t want vehicles on the road, so the side roads are closed.

   

So, back to the parking lot and we stayed there. The next day, Saturday, was the race and there was a lot of traffic. Even afterwards there was a lot of traffic, both 12-mile road and highway 44. A park ranger came in to the parking lot and didn’t seem to have a problem with us staying there. There had been an accident and they told us a helicopter was going to be landing here, so we moved to the very end of the parking lot, hoping we wouldn’t be getting blasted by the rocks, etc. from the wind with it.  Only ambulances drove by.



This seems to be a very popular spot for stopping to use a cell phone, or as a pit stop. People are either driving in the parking lot or parking alongside the road and using their cell phones, or using the forest as their bathroom. A few hikers parked for the trailhead. One man did trail maintenance as he hiked and took pictures. Both 12-mile Road and Hwy 44 are busy.



Our camping permit was only for a couple of days, as we didn’t know if there’d be any kind of cell service. Luckily, we usually had at least 1 bar, and up to 3 bars 1x Verizon. There were a few times there was no service. We were able to text and make/receive phone calls. We had gotten 4 PBS TV channels. I e-mailed the office and asked if we could stay more days, told her we were at the trailhead and not the camping area. We had driven there with the jeep after the car race was done. There were some low branches that we wouldn’t be able to squeeze by, and the camping area is all tall grass. There’s picnic tables and fire pits. I forgot to take pictures of it. That, and the road to it, would be quite a mess with the rain we had.