43
Spring at Mosquito Lake may offer camping with ‘comforts of home’
The Vindicator
Photo
MOSQUITO SIGHT: This is a yurt, a type of tent on a wooden platform with electricity. It is one of the amenities the campground at Mosquito Lake State Park will begin to provide next spring.
- Place:Mosquito Lake State Park
-
1439 state Route 305, Cortland, OH
Photo
Congressman Tim Ryan
By Ed Runyan
Cabins and yurts are available about 25 miles from Mosquito Lake at Pymatuning State Park.
WARREN — Next spring, the campground at Mosquito Lake State Park in Bazetta Township will offer two yurts — a type of tent with electricity and other amenities — to campers wanting a different type of camping experience than what the campground now offers.
The two yurts, which will cost $40 to $45 per night, are circular, 16 feet in diameter, about 8 feet high and placed on a wooden platform. They usually have a canvas roof and dome. They generally come furnished with convertible futon beds and bunks, table and chairs, minirefrigerator or cooler, and internal electricity outlets.
Building the two yurts at a cost of about $12,000 is part of a campaign by Trumbull County Commissioner Dan Polivka to secure funding to eventually offer cabins at the park — something he believes will appeal to those not interested in camping in a tent or camper.
“I feel it would be great for Trumbull County, to pop in over the weekend and not have to set up,” he said. He called it camping with “the comforts of home.”
Polivka thought about the idea last summer, when he took his daughter on such a camping trip but had to settle for Pymatuning State Park in Ashtabula County because nothing similar was available in Trumbull County.
On Tuesday, Polivka and Trish Nuskievicz of the county’s planning commission gave local legislators a presentation on the concept to see whether they can help with funding.
Polivka said it would take between $300,000 and $500,000 to convert 10 campsites to cabin sites and add a second shower house.
An official at the Mosquito campground said there are enough vacancies among the 214 sites there to allow some to be converted to cabins.
Converting sites would be less expensive than building the cabins outside the park, Polivka said.
Brent Culver, group manager for planning and development for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said he views the proposal as “reasonable” because of its use of existing facilities.
The response Polivka got from state Sen. Capri Cafaro of Hubbard, D-32nd, was that she would want to know more about the occupancy rates of the cabins at the Pymatuning State Park in Andover, about 25 miles northeast of Mosquito Lake, before committing to such a project for the next budget in 2010.
Ashtabula County is also in Cafaro’s legislative district.
The proposal follows an attempt — now on hold — to secure funding for a lodge on the east side of Mosquito Lake.
Cafaro said she likes the yurt idea, however.
“I’m definitely pro-yurt. Yurts are great,” she said.
Pymatuning offers three yurts, 27 deluxe cabins and 30 standard cabins at a price of between $65 and $90 per night.
Barb Ewing, a staffer with U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, said it’s possible that federal money would be available for the project in the next appropriations process that begins in December or January. She said local officials should get back in touch with her around that time.
runyan@vindy.com