Raystown Lake — Attraction in Penn Township

Overall, I gave Raystown Lake a solid (1) star because of the management system. I have been to a lot of different lakes in Pennsylvania and this is by far the most disappointing. The location allows (2) vehicles per site and requires additional vehicles to leave the site and travel (20) mins to an overflow parking lot with no security to prevent tampering of personal vehicles. The sites are all close to one another without much privacy and noise ordnance is not enforced. During several of my stays, a party boat parked itself near the campsite and blared music for hours until a nearby camping family reported it to a Park Ranger. Even after that, it took them several hours to follow through with correcting the problem. Instead, the Park Rangers focus on the low hanging fruit violations like parking.

Raystown Lake also supports carp bowfishing. For anyone who does not know what this entails, it’s where a large boat covered with lights, travels close to the shorelines spotting carp and allows persons to shoot arrows at fish in hopes to kill them. The dead bodies of the carp are removed from the water and disposed of in the trash. This is absurd slaughtering of a fish that is not used as a food source but instead is used for meaningless...

A long time ago, my past history revolved around a family homestead, both my paternal grandparents homesteadswere HERE...now mostly under water, younger when this all happened I saw the effects of losing the homesteads...it was HARD...my greatgramma wept, it was the home she reared my grandmother in, where she had all her past memories...she didn't feel it was right for the lake to come before our heritage...SO many memories...but today I still wish I had the old road/family's land maps...the part I most want to relay is as a child, that was my memories, as a one of the oldest members of my living family now, I look forward to the summer, being on the lake above all the places I called heritage...I'm drawn to the lake as a comfort...I tried to find one of the homesteads that should be in the beer barrel bay area near the point, the other I know of certain where is was near Marklesburg... but to get back there in the 'PARTY'area is challenging, but I DO love the lake!!!It's as close as I'll get to our families homesteads... it would be nice if the Visitor center could have a framed copy of the area prior to the new dam... it would mean a lot to a...

This is a great place to relax and enjoy a slower pace for a while. Friends invited us up and we shared their RV site with our tent in past years. This time we tried one of the cabins in The Pines section. It was a chilly weekend getting into the 40's overnight so we brought a small space heater. Our friends have a boat and we tooled around the lake a bit enjoying the fall colors. The lake bottom has some interesting features to explore even from the surface. We used a depth and fish finder as cruised around. There is much to see and do nearby but you can easily occupy yourself at the lake, as well. Hike to Balanced Rock in the Trough Creek Wilderness Area or visit The Eastern Broad Top and Trolley Museum in Orbisonia where you can ride vintage rail equipment and explore a place time has all but forgotten. Have lunch at our favorite place - A&W Restaurant. Hit Altoona for more railroad sites and see the famous Horseshoe Curve. Hope to...