Public Parks in The Alleghenies 19
State parks and forests, national recreation areas, wildlife refuges and city parks.
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Black Moshannon State Park
A tea-colored lake fringed by bogs, where a boardwalk leads among carnivorous sundews and pitcher plants, with CCC-built cabins, a beach and miles of forest trails all around.
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Cowans Gap State Park
Mountains wall in the valley around this small lake, with a beach, Civilian Conservation Corps cabins and the Tuscarora Trail climbing to ridge-top views through the surrounding state forest.
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Prince Gallitzin State Park
Glendale Lake reaches into many wooded coves across the high Allegheny Plateau, with a long shoreline for boaters and anglers, a big campground and a swimming beach.
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Canoe Creek State Park
A big colony of bats summers in an old church and winters in a former limestone mine here, alongside historic lime kilns, a lake with a beach and trails through woods and wetlands.
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Shawnee State Park
Campers, boaters, anglers and hikers have plenty of room to spread out around a big lake with a sandy beach, in the ridges along the old Lincoln Highway.
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Trough Creek State Park
A rugged little gorge cut by Great Trough Creek, with a swinging suspension bridge, Balanced Rock perched improbably on a cliff, Rainbow Falls and an old Ice Mine that breathes cold air in summer.
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Greenwood Furnace State Park
The stone furnace stack and surviving buildings of a 19th-century iron village sit beside a small swimming lake, with trails climbing into the rugged Seven Mountains.
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Bald Eagle State Park
The Nature Inn, a green-built lodge, looks out over a long reservoir beneath Bald Eagle Mountain, where boaters, anglers and birders spread out across the water and wetlands.
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Blue Knob State Park
Pennsylvania's second-highest mountain rises above remote woods with long views and cool summer air, with a swimming pool and campground below and a ski resort on its upper slopes.
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Poe Valley State Park
Off the beaten path in the Seven Mountains, a little swimming lake with a beach and campground, and nothing but forest on the slopes around it.
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Penn Roosevelt State Park
Remote and rustic, this tiny park sits in a mountain bowl of the Seven Mountains, with a small pond, the remains of a Depression-era CCC camp and backcountry trails heading into Rothrock State Forest.
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Raystown Lake
The largest lake entirely within Pennsylvania, a long reservoir winding between forested ridges, with houseboating, beaches and the Allegrippis Trails, a nationally known mountain-bike network.
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Whipple Dam State Park
Cool water and a sandy beach make this small, forest-ringed lake a low-key summer swimming spot, with shaded picnic groves and short trails in the surrounding ridges.
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Warriors Path State Park
The Raystown Branch of the Juniata River loops around three sides of this wooded peninsula, near the route of an old Iroquois warpath, with river fishing, paddling and quiet trails.
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Poe Paddy State Park
Where Big Poe Creek meets Penns Creek, a famed trout stream with a June green drake hatch, the Mid State Trail crosses an old rail bridge and plunges into a railroad tunnel through the mountain.
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Reeds Gap State Park
Honey Creek runs cool and clear beneath big conifers in this small mountain park, a quiet retreat for a picnic, a night at the rustic campground or a few casts for trout.
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McCalls Dam State Park
Along a gravel road deep in the forest, a handful of picnic tables sit beside White Deer Creek, good for a quiet lunch and some trout fishing in a remote valley.
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Buchanan State Forest
Mountain forest along the Maryland line, with the roadless Martin Hill Wild Area, stretches of the Tuscarora Trail and quiet gravel roads over long, wooded ridges.
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Rothrock State Forest
Deep hollows and long ridges of the Seven Mountains, with the Mid State Trail, the old-growth hemlocks and rhododendron of the Alan Seeger Natural Area and the boggy Bear Meadows Natural Area.
