Public Parks in Upstate PA 13
State parks and forests, national recreation areas, wildlife refuges and city parks.
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Ricketts Glen State Park
The Falls Trail drops through two wooded glens past more than twenty named waterfalls, among them 94-foot Ganoga, under old-growth trees, with Lake Jean's beach and campground up top.
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Lackawanna State Park
Wooded hills laced with bike and bridle trails surround a lake of quiet coves, with a swimming pool and campground within easy reach of Scranton.
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Frances Slocum State Park
Named for a girl seized by Lenape raiders in 1778 who chose to live out her life among the Miami, this park curls around a horseshoe-shaped lake with camping, boating and a pool.
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Worlds End State Park
Loyalsock Creek snakes through a deep, twisting gorge here, with a creek swimming area beside CCC cabins, the rugged Loyalsock Trail and overlooks that draw crowds when the leaves turn.
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Locust Lake State Park
Campers fill sites on both sides of this forest-fringed mountain lake, with a beach, fishing and paddling close at hand and trails winding through the woods.
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Tuscarora State Park
Locust Mountain rises steeply from the far shore of the lake here, a summer favorite for its sandy beach, lakeside picnic area and good fishing.
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Vosburg Neck State Park
The North Branch of the Susquehanna makes a great looping bend around this quiet peninsula, where trails follow an old canal and rail line past buildings and graves from the 1700s.
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Mount Pisgah State Park
Songwriter Stephen Foster, who spent part of his youth in the area, gave his name to the lake here, set beneath Mount Pisgah in Endless Mountains farm country, with a pool, paddling and trails.
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Salt Springs State Park
Fall Brook tumbles over a series of three waterfalls in a narrow gorge shaded by ancient hemlocks, with a 19th-century farmhouse and a small campground close by.
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Hawk Mountain Sanctuary
The world's first refuge for birds of prey, where hikers climb to rocky lookouts on the Kittatinny Ridge to watch thousands of hawks, eagles and falcons stream south each fall.
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Nescopeck State Park
Anglers wade a well-loved trout creek and birders scan the marshes in this valley of wetlands and woods, where an education center offers nature programs.
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Pinchot State Forest
Named for conservationist Gifford Pinchot, these northeastern tracts include the Pinchot Trail, a long loop through boggy plateau woods, hardwoods and laurel thickets.
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Archbald Pothole State Park
A glacial pothole 38 feet deep, drilled into the bedrock by swirling meltwater and stones at the end of the Ice Age and uncovered by coal miners in 1884.
