Ohiopyle, Pa

Hello all. I enjoy this forum, just wish it got a bit more traffic. Anyway, most of this site is great for dreaming(for me anyway), but the reality is I don't have the time, resources, know how, or spouse support for giant, wild adventures. But that is ok. I am good with some family car camping relatively close to home.

Anyway, we just returned from a trip to Ohiopyle, Pa. We went a few years ago and knew we wanted to get back there. So much fun!

The first thing I want to say is that everything we did was tremendously dog-friendly. From the campgrounds to the places in town and trails in between, dogs were all over. All owners and others we encountered were reasonable, if not excited to talk about and pet our dog. Much of the outside seating in town even has water dishes out for the dogs.

The Kentuck Campground is nice with almost all wooded sites. We stayed on a site on Hickory Rd. There are a lot of sites in this campground(over 200, I believe) and very few looked like "bad" ones. The bathrooms/shower houses are reasonable; nothing extraordinary, but not unpleasant either.

The highlights for our family (Mom, Dad, 2 boys, ages 6 & 3, and dog) were the following:
1. Just going into town to play at the playground, grab some ice cream and walk around. This filled any need for the "touristy-vacation" activities for me. Be advised, public restrooms are very limited in this little borough. This can be a real challenge with kids!
2. Cucumber falls - really cool spot, very easy access, which means very crowded, especially on Sat & Sun. We hit it on Friday morning after a little rain, and the crowd was picking up as we left.
3. Natural water slides - also very easy access (crowded). My 6 yr old had a blast on a short stretch of rock, just sliding on his butt. 3 year old wasn't ready to give it a try. The main "slide" didn't have very many people since the water level was up and running pretty fast, so we were upstream a little bit where there were some slower options for the young ones.
4. Cucumber picnic area. This spot is not nearly as popular as the others, but very cool for the kids. Alot of the spots butt right up to the water and offer ankle to knee deep water to play in and endless rocks to throw. We went 2 years ago and again this time and saw very few other people.
5. Cascades - This involves some hiking (I think about 1.5 miles from where we parked), but even the kids handled it well. Due to the hike, this was also much less crowded than other places.
6. Ropes course/Zip line - This was awesome for my 6 yr old. I expected him to be scared, but he did great and loved it. I had to go with him due to his height, but it was fun. If I had been by myself, I likely would have been disappointed, but with him it was worth it.

We didn't raft this year, but once the boys are older we certainly will. Also, we skipped Laurel Caverns (went 2 years ago) and Falling Water (Frank Lloyd Wright house) which we checked out in the past. They are in the area, maybe 20-30 minutes from the campground. Everything we did this time was within a 10 minute drive from our campsite.

Bummer...just realized my pictures are too big to load. I will see if I can figure that out, since that was part of the reason for this. They are just cell phone shots, I am not photography person!
 

nwoods

Expedition Leader
Sounds like a fun trip. Just post your photos to Flickr or somewhere, then link ‘em
 
Cucumber Picnic Area & The Ohiopyle Falls (Youghiogheny River)
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Mccaf

Adventurist
Nice area. Spent a lot of time there in the 70s rafting and camping, lots of great memories. Is that roasted chicken place still there next to that one Road? OMG, they would cook it outside and had a huge fan that blew it across the road. You HAD TO turn around and go back lol.
 

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