Parker Lake is a 20 acre impoundment of Laurel Run sitting in the middle of 968 acre Parker Dam State Park, deep in the northern Clearfield County woods. The swimming area is a built sand beach on the lake's west shore, backed by mown lawn, picnic tables and a stand of pines. Everything about it is small and family scale. The bottom shelves out gradually and the water reaches a maximum depth of five feet at the buoy line, so there is no diving and no deep end to speak of.

The water runs cool and tea tinted. Laurel Run and Mud Run both drain hemlock and red pine forest before they reach the lake, and the tannins they carry give it a dark amber cast even when the water is clean. Late July and August are the warmest you will get. Early June can still feel sharp up here on the Allegheny Plateau.

The beach is open late May through mid September, 8 A.M. to sunset. There are no lifeguards. Pennsylvania posts its park beaches as swim at your own risk, and Parker Dam is no exception, so the five foot buoy line and the posted rules are the whole safety system. Smoking is banned on the sand and in the swimming area. A food and refreshment concession and a camp store run daily from Memorial Day to Labor Day, weather permitting, and seasonal boat rentals operate about noon to 6 P.M.: kayaks, canoes, rowboats, pedal boats and paddleboards. Only electric motors are allowed on the lake, at no wake speed, which keeps the swimming end of it quiet.

Admission is free. Pennsylvania charges no entrance or day use fee at any of its 124 state parks, so the beach costs nothing and you pay only for camping, cabins and rentals. The park itself is open every day, sunrise to sunset, with day use areas closing at dusk.

The Civilian Conservation Corps built this place. Camp S-73-PA went in at the corner of Tyler and Mud Run roads in 1933, and the crews laid up the present dam in native sandstone on the site of William Parker's old splash dam, a relic of the log drive era. The park was designated a recreational reserve in 1936. The Lou and Helen Adams CCC Museum, housed in the original CCC built park office near the breast of the dam, opens Saturday and Sunday afternoons through the summer.

On May 31, 1985, an F4 tornado tore straight through and flattened much of the old forest. The 1.2 mile Trail of New Giants walks the regrowth, and the 1.6 mile Laurel Run Trail passes both giant surviving white pines and the blowdown scar. Beaver Dam Trail crosses the Mud Run wetland on a boardwalk. The 73 mile Quehanna Trail into Moshannon State Forest and the Quehanna Wild Area starts at a trailhead just south of the lake. Timber rattlesnakes live in this country, so watch your footing on rocky ground once you leave the beach.