HARRISBURG -- A Somerset County-based Christian camp's run on the Lower Youghiogheny River has dried up.

Commonwealth Court has ruled that the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources acted properly when it barred Summer's Best Two Weeks camp from whitewater rafting in the portion of the river that runs through Ohiopyle State Park unless it used commercial guides and outfitters.

"The DCNR has the authority to regulate activities within its own parks," Judge Bernard L. McGinley wrote in the court opinion issued Friday.

The camp had been conducting trips down the river for 30 years, but six years ago the state began enforcing a rule that requires commercial users to use one of four licensed outfitters. The camp is nonprofit but is considered a commercial business because it pays its counselors, the state agency argued in a court hearing in April.

Noncommercial users are permitted to raft without outfitters, although many use them.

"Unfortunately for the camp [Pennsylvania law] specifically and unequivocally prohibits all commercial activity in any state park without written permission of the DCNR," Judge McGinley wrote.

Camp directors say the agency only wants to protect the financial interests of commercial outfitters, who pay a portion of their profits to the state as a fee.

"Excluding the camp from rafting is about the financial interests of four commercial outfitters," said Jeff Rowes, staff attorney for the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm representing the camp.

"The court ignored our constitutional argument that the government cannot interfere with your liberty unless it has a good reason, and protecting commercial outfitters is not a good reason. There is no evidence the camp was harming them, no evidence the camp was unsafe or harming the environment," he said.

"The life of the constitution depends on courts being willing to enforce constitutional rights."

About 2,600 children attend the camp each year and most pay $600 to participate, although no one is turned away because they can't pay. About 1,000 campers -- those over 12 -- typically participated in rafting trips.

It would cost the camp almost $50,000 to use a commercial outfitter, Mr. Rowes said, but the issue is more than financial.

"The essential feature of the camp's trip down the river is moral instruction, and that is completely absent in a commercial outfitter trip," he said. "It's an important tradition that was seen as a rite of passage for campers."

The camp and the Institute for Justice have not yet decided whether to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

"Summer's Best Two Weeks has an outstanding safety record, and all we want to do is what we've always done: safely and peacefully raft the river," said Kent Biery, the camp's executive director. "This unfortunate ruling denies our campers the powerful sense of accomplishment and lifelong memories that have been an integral part of our program for more than 30 years."

The court decision was rendered by a panel that included Judges McGinley, Dan Pellegrini and Mary Hannah Leavitt.