The Dept. of Forests, Parks, and Recreation is holding a public meeting to present plans for an additional camping loop at Lake St. Catherine State Park, located in Poultney.
The meeting will be held from 5:30-7 p.m. on Aug. 29, in the Nature Center at Lake St. Catherine State Park. The public is invited to attend the presentation and view a draft plan of the proposed expansion. A public comment period begins on Aug. 15, 2024, and closes on Sept. 12, 2024. Comments and questions should be sent to Rick Hedding, parks regional manager, at [email protected] or 802-770-0297. If emailing, please include “Lake St. Catherine Proposed Design Feedback” in the email subject.
To be clear, there is no funding or timeline yet in place for the plan. The goal is just to seek comments on the draft before engaging more costly services, including engineering and design work.
The plan reviews the opportunity to provide more camping sites at the park to support new recreational activities including a disc golf course and mountain bike trail access. The drafted plan proposes a new camping loop, which provides the opportunity for new services like hookups for waste, electric, and water.
No other state park currently offers water and electrical hookups at its campsites for guests, according to Hedding, so Lake St. Catherine State Park could be the first, if the draft plan is brought to fruition.
The plan includes 21 back-in RV sites (minimum electrical hookups), 15 new tent sites, formalizes circulation patterns, minimizes the impact on existing east loop campsites, separates campsite types (RV, tent) and designates quieter tent sites along the southern edge, and creates central common space with bathhouse, playground, and open lawn areas within RV camp area.
The new loop would be expanded onto park-owned land that had formerly been leased for growing corn but no longer is. That portion of the property has sat dormant for a couple of years, according to Hedding.
Now it will utilized for expanding sites and create an access point for mountain biking, which will connect to the popular Endless Brook Trails (part of the Slate Valley Trails System) whose trailhead is just across Route 30.
