Bendigo State Park may be one of the smaller of Pennsylvania’s State Parks, but is very beautiful. Read on for more information about the park’s amenities!
As always, follow the principles of leave no trace when you're exploring the wonderful trails of Pennsylvania!
Bendigo State Park Amenities
Bendigo State Park is a 100 acre park located in Elk County, Pennsylvania. It sits in a small valley that the East Branch of the Clarion River runs through. This river used to be polluted from mining drainage but is now clean and great for fishing. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission stocks the river with trout. When we visited in late April when it was snowing, the park was completely empty except for a handful of fisherman.
20 acres of the park is developed, about half of which is a large picnic area. I imagine in the nicer weather, this park is packed with picnickers! If you’d like to rent one of the three pavilions, you can do so via the Pennsylvania State Parks reservations site. For a park map, visit the PA DNCR site here.
The park also hosts a pool, a playground, and a basketball court. The park also hosts educational events and Fish for Free days, where fishing licenses are not needed and participants can borrow fishing reels. For more information on park events, visit the PA DCNR website.
Visiting Bendigo was part of an awesome weekend in Northern PA. If you're looking for more weekend itineraries, check out my guide to road trips from Pittsburgh!
Visiting All PA State Parks
If you’re trying to visit all of the Pennsylvania State Parks, I recommend combining Bendigo and Elk State Park, as they’re about twenty minutes apart. In our visit, we visited Kinzua Bridge on a Saturday afternoon and Bendigo and Elk on a Sunday morning.
Personally, I thought Bendigo was not worth visiting, especially in the winter. It seems like a great place if you like fishing or picnicking and is probably a valuable resource for the local community. It was very pretty and peaceful in the winter, but didn’t have any hiking trails, which is what I look for in a park.
Looking to visit more Pennsylvania State Parks? Check out my post listing all of my PA State Park guides for tips on visiting some of my favorites!
How to Get to Bendigo State Park
Bendigo is located in Jones Township, Elk County, Pennsylvania. It is four miles northeast of Johnsonburg on SR 1004, which branches off of US 219 in Johnsonburg. If you put “Bendigo State Park” into your GPS device, you will get right to the park. However, I highly recommend downloading offline maps as cell service was not great in this area.
Have you visited the park? What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!
Post Updated October 24, 2022