Cherry Springs State Park

Cherry Springs owes its darkness to geography. It sits on a high, open plateau surrounded on all sides by the enormous Susquehannock State Forest, with no city or major highway close enough to cast a glow into the sky. That combination of elevation, remoteness, and protected forest is rare in the crowded eastern half of the country.

The park has leaned into that gift, being set aside and managed specifically to protect its darkness, and it was recognized as an International Dark Sky Park in honor of the quality of its skies. Lighting in and around the park is kept low and shielded, and viewing areas are laid out to keep stray white light from spoiling the view.

The park sets aside a dedicated overnight astronomy field for serious stargazers, with rules that keep headlights, white flashlights, and glare out so that eyes can adjust fully to the dark. A separate, more casual viewing area welcomes visitors who simply want to look up for an evening without setting up equipment.

On the right night the rewards are extraordinary: the Milky Way as a bright band overhead, meteors streaking across the dome, and planets and star clusters visible without a telescope. Star parties and astronomy gatherings bring crowds of enthusiasts and their instruments during the best viewing seasons, when the skies and weather align.

This high plateau lies within the ancestral homeland of the Haudenosaunee, including the Seneca, and other native peoples who hunted and traveled these northern Pennsylvania forests. Their descendant nations continue elsewhere today after removal from the region, and the land's deep forests and streams still evoke the wildness they knew.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries these mountains were logged nearly bare in a frenzy of timber cutting, then left as a ravaged landscape of stumps. The forest that surrounds Cherry Springs today grew back over decades of recovery and reforestation, and the region has since been branded the Pennsylvania Wilds for its restored expanses of woodland, wildlife, and dark skies.

Summer draws the biggest crowds, with warm, comfortable nights and the core of the Milky Way riding high, and it is when many of the star parties take place. Even so, high-elevation nights can turn chilly, so warm layers are wise no matter the season.

Autumn brings crisp, often exceptionally clear nights and thinner crowds, a favorite of many regulars. Winter offers some of the sharpest, most transparent skies of all, but the cold is serious and access can be limited by snow. Spring is a transition, with variable weather but long dark nights before the short nights of summer arrive. In every season the key is a clear, moonless sky.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.