The swimming season at Raccoon Lake runs from late May to mid-September, 8:00 a.m. to sunset, and it has ended for 2026. The beach itself stays open for picnicking and walking outside those dates, but swimming is only sanctioned inside the posted season and inside the buoy line.

Raccoon Lake sits at the centre of Raccoon Creek State Park, a 7,572-acre block of Beaver County woodland spread across Hanover and Independence townships about 30 miles west of Pittsburgh. The lake covers 101 acres and is fed by Traverse Run. Its designated swimming area is a 500-foot sand and turf beach on the southwestern shore, reached from the beach parking area off Route 18. DCNR calls the beach ADA accessible and keeps a bathhouse and a concession stand within walking distance of the sand.

There is no entrance fee. Pennsylvania is one of a small group of states that charges nothing to enter or use its state parks, and that covers the beach, the parking, the picnic areas and the trails. The only money changing hands at the lake is at the beach concession stand and at the Raccoon Creek Boat Rental concession, which rents canoes, rowboats, kayaks and hydrobikes. Note that the park's own swimming page posts the beach season as late May to mid-September while DCNR's statewide swimming page gives a shorter window of late May through late August, so the tail of the season is worth a call to the park office at 724-899-2200 before driving out.

No one is watching the water. DCNR pulled lifeguards from state park beaches in 2008 and kept them only at Presque Isle and at Fuller Lake in Pine Grove Furnace. Raccoon Lake runs under the open swim policy, which means you swim at your own risk and park staff patrol the beach instead of a guard sitting on a chair.

The other thing to plan around is bacteria. The park samples the swimming water weekly through the season against Pennsylvania Department of Health standards, and it has shut swimming down in each of the last two summers. In July 2025 an elevated E. coli result closed the swimming area for several days, which the park attributed to stormwater runoff after heavy rain, and it reopened on 14 July. In July 2026 another elevated coliform count closed swimming from 10 July with a retest due the following Monday. The park does not publish its test numbers, so a sign at the beach is the only warning a visitor gets. Heavy rain in the days before a trip is the signal to check the park's own updates first.

Boating on the lake is electric motor only at no-wake speed, with two launches and 48 mooring spaces. Anglers work it year round for bass, walleye, muskellunge, crappie, bluegill, yellow perch and bullhead catfish, and the feeder streams are stocked with brook and rainbow trout.

Two other well-known parts of the park are not swimming spots. The Wildflower Reserve at the eastern end covers 314 acres and more than 700 plant species along 4.5 miles of trail, where visitors are required to stay on the path. Frankfort Mineral Springs, on the western side, is the remnant of a Victorian health resort built by Edward McGinnis, with a waterfall and a rock grotto but no bathing. The park's oldest cabins date to 1935 and the Civilian Conservation Corps, and 114 of its structures were listed on the National Register in 1987. Cell service across the park is unreliable.