Laurel Hill State Park covers 4,062 acres in Somerset County, in the middle of the Laurel Highlands, and the sand beach on 63 acre Laurel Hill Lake is its center of gravity in summer. The beach is open daily from late May to mid-September, 8:00 am to sunset, with a concession and restrooms nearby. There are no lifeguards, which is standard across Pennsylvania state parks now. Gasoline motors are prohibited on the lake, so the water stays quiet for swimming, kayaking and canoeing, and the lake is small enough to paddle end to end in an easy afternoon.

The park is a Civilian Conservation Corps park, and that is not incidental background. Two CCC camps, NP-5-PA and SP-15-PA, arrived here on July 1, 1935 with 200 men each. They built the dam that created the lake, plus the roads, bridges, trails, cabins and picnic areas, working stone from the site. The land was one of five Recreational Demonstration Areas in Pennsylvania, federal projects meant to convert marginal farmland into public recreation, and it transferred from the Department of the Interior to the Commonwealth in October 1945, when the park officially opened. The Laurel Hill Recreational Demonstration Area was listed on the National Register in 1987 with 198 contributing buildings and four contributing structures, the largest collection of CCC architecture in the Pennsylvania state park system, and it got a state historical marker in 2021.

About 15 miles of trail run through the park. The Hemlock Trail is 1.2 miles through the six acre Hemlock Trail Natural Area, a stand of old growth eastern hemlock that survived the logging era only because the ground above Laurel Hill Creek was too steep to work. The Copper Kettle Trail is a 1.25 mile ADA accessible bike path along the western shoreline and is the easiest way to reach the beach on foot or on wheels. The Pumphouse Trail runs 1.6 miles to the CCC built Jones Mill Run Dam. The Shay Trail and the Tram Road Trail both follow the old logging railroad grades and are named for the Shay locomotives that worked them.

Camping is substantial: 262 sites, 149 with electric, plus eight cottages, six CCC era group cabin areas, and Laurel Hill Lodge, which sleeps 14. Two Boy Scout camps, Conestoga and Buck Run, are inside the park. The visitor center is in a farmhouse at the campground entrance and has a gift shop. The office number is 814-445-7725 and reservations go through 888-PA-PARKS. Picnic areas are numbered 1, 3 and 4; there is no number 2, and area 3 is the one next to the beach.

The rest of the Laurel Highlands is within a half hour. Ohiopyle and the Youghiogheny are southwest, Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob are about 25 miles west, the Flight 93 National Memorial is 20 minutes northeast, and the Great Allegheny Passage rail trail crosses the region. Somerset, with food and lodging, is ten miles east on PA 31.