|
|
|
Local Articles
|
|
| Pennsylvania's newest state park insn't exactly an easy walk in the park |
|
admin writes, "Erie Bluffs State Park is Pennsylvania's newest and the 117th in the state system."
|
Pennsylvania's newest state park isn't exactly an easy walk in the park
By Bob Downing | KRT News Service
Erie Bluffs State Park is Pennsylvania's newest and the 117th in the state system.
The still-wild Lake City tract, 12 miles west of Erie and just east of the Ohio line, is long on potential and short on amenities. There are no facilities, no trails, no toilets, no signs. There is a small unmarked parking lot off state Route 5, but that's just about it.
The nature-based park - it was dedicated by Gov. Edward Rendell in mid-2004 - features the largest tract of undeveloped land on Lake Erie along Pennsylvania's 60 miles of shoreline.
The 540-acre park west of Lake City in western Erie County features nearly a mile and a half of cobbled beach flanked by 90-foot-high bluffs. Pennsylvania envisions the park becoming an eco-tourism destination, perhaps with a small environmentally friendly lodge.
But plans for the lodge are coming under fire from Pennsylvania eco-groups like the Sierra Club that do not support such lodges in the state parks.
Erie Bluffs was acquired in late 2003 by the Pittsburgh-based Western Pennsylvania Conservancy from Reliant Energy. It had planned to build a new electric generating plant on the site that is 70 percent forested on the bluff-top plateau.
The conservancy then turned the land - long known locally as the Coho site; it was named after the popular lake salmon - over to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. It is the first new state park in Pennsylvania in 20 years and only two hours from Akron.
"This acquisition fulfills a decades-long vision to make this distinctive tract a state park to be enjoyed by Pennsylvania citizens and visitors to this region," Rendell said at the time of the park's dedication. "With its spectacular scenic vistas over Lake Erie and an adjacent world-class shallow stream steelhead fishery, Erie Bluffs will prove to be a unique eco-tourism destination."
The beach and the bluffs are the big attractions at Erie Bluffs, but the park is not for anyone unwilling to do a little cross-country bushwhacking through the heavy woods.
I made a midwinter visit and found the small unmarked parking lot. It is on the north side of state Route 5. It lies west of the signed Elk Creek Access Area and east of a bridge over an active railroad line.
Visitors are asked to park near the road and walk a farm lane through leased fields of corn - and sometimes soybeans - to the bluffs and the beach, said Dorothy Krupa, head of nearby Presque Isle State Park, which is managing Erie Bluffs.
The views from the wooded bluffs are first-rate, and the Lake Erie scenery is pretty cool.
The beach is narrow, perhaps 35 feet wide with lots of zebra mussel shells and driftwood. It is a rocky beach - with lots of cobble or small stones. The waves break on ledges of gray rock.
Getting down to the beach can be tricky. The bluffs are heavy with loose sandy soil. They are still at risk of eroding and slipping. The bluffs are moving inland at the rate of one to seven feet a year. There is also significant gray clay that gets slippery with water from the seeps or springs in the bluffs.
Many of the park's at-risk plant species are found in the seep areas of the bluffs and, for that reason, visitors don't want to stomp around the seeps.
|
Posted on Apr 10, 2006 08:02am.
(Return)
|
|
|
|
|
Categories
|
|
|
|
