After a massive summer surge, Pocono beaches consider crowd control

LEHIGHTON, Pa. — The line to get into Beltzville Lake State Park on weekends forms long before dawn, with cars lined up beneath the stars along a hilly, two-lane road in the Poconos.

The gate opens just before 8 a.m. at the nearly 3,000-acre park. Once a ranger counts the 904th car, the park closes. Sometimes that’s happened in less than an hour. Visitors can’t park elsewhere and walk in (though they’ve tried), and park administration said allowing a car in for every car that leaves is not feasible.

“We do get a lot of people who will say, ‘Hey, I drove three hours to get here,’ ” park manager Ben Monk said. “But we close for the day when we are full.”

The park, with its 500-foot-wide beach along Beltzville Lake, opened in 1972 and has been busy since the 1980s, Monk said, but mostly on weekends. The COVID-19 pandemic push to get outside changed that dynamic, however, at both Beltzville and most other state and county parks and once-secret swimming holes.

“The numbers spiked heavily. There was a 39% jump in attendance during the first year of the pandemic and the numbers have stayed high,” Monk said.

On a Friday morning in late August, just after 8 a.m., a few hundred people were already on the beach and filling up the surrounding picnic tables. People were grilling and swimming, and playing soccer in a nearby field.

Seasoned visitors know to set their alarms early.

“If you try to come here on a weekend, at 8 a.m., forget it, it’s over,” said Marcos Mendez, 25, a Reading resident.

Mendez and a large group of family and friends were grilling beside a picnic table beneath an oak tree. He said the park, just under 60 miles north of Reading, is the closest beach.

“Getting to the beach in Jersey is a whole different thing,” he said. "We have everything we need here.”

Beltzville sees 650,000 visitors a year, due in part to its location to population centers like Reading. It’s about 30 miles north of Allentown and Bethlehem and 50 miles south of Scranton and just a few miles off the Northeast Extension (I-476). An electronic sign along the highway often tells late visitors the gates are already closed.

Monk says visitors come from much farther than Reading.

“We have people coming from Philadelphia, New York City, even Baltimore,” he said.

Beltzville has no daily-use fee and doesn’t charge for parking, though many on the beach wondered if that would ever change. In 2016, State Rep. Doyle Heffley (R., Carbon County) told WNEP-TV that he received a petition with nearly 2,000 signatures from people complaining about crowding conditions at the lake. There is a Facebook group called “Beltzville State Park Concerned Citizens” and another called “Coming together to save Beltzville.”

Heffley told the station a parking fee implemented by the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) “could help preserve the beauty of the park.”

The DCNR, according to a spokesman, plans to keep state parks free from fees that would limit admission access. Heffley told The Inquirer his proposal wasn’t very popular outside of his constituency, but he still believes a fee system, one that is cheaper for Pennsylvania residents, makes sense.

”I’m not looking to gouge anyone,” he said. “But a fee would go a long way toward helping with the infrastructure and trash disposal.”

On the beach, visitor Melissa Bittmann said the crowds didn’t deter her. She lives only 20 miles away, in Saylorsburg, and believed a trip to the Jersey Shore would reveal just as many people.

“I have triplet toddlers and a 5-year-old, and this is a lot better than driving over two hours to the beach,” Bittmann, 38, said.

Monk said changes have already been made to deal with the crowding. The park, for instance, no longer allows overflow parking on fields there.

“Our infrastructure couldn’t handle that many people,” he said. “Our bathrooms couldn’t handle it.”

One alternative for people turned away from Beltzville has been Mauch Chunk Lake Park, just 10 miles west in Jim Thorpe. The park, which charges a small user fee, is operated by Carbon County and has its own beach and lake — and its own crowding problems.

Earlier this year, county commissioners proposed limiting the park to county residents and season pass holders. A commissioner told WNEP that “degradation” at Beltzville was one of the impetuses for the plan.

Mauch Chunk Lake’s park director, Dave Horvath, said the park would limited to county residents, season pass holders along with registered campers and families who’ve rented pavillions. There is no camping at Beltzville.

In New Jersey, which has several private lakes with fees, any state park with a beach is “always crowded,” said a New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson.

Heffley said, on a crowded day, there’s more people in Beltzville than the surrounding community. That crowd is also far more diverse than Carbon County, which is 97.8% white.

Monk said many of his staffers speak Spanish, though occasionally, they all get stumped by someone speaking Portuguese.

“Most of the people who come here are coming to have fun,” he said. “Problems are the exception.”