Promised Land State Park

The land here was long the hunting ground of the Lenni-Lenape, the Delaware people, before European settlers arrived. Among the newcomers was a community of Shakers, the plain-living religious group known for their furniture and their discipline, who took up this stretch of the plateau hoping to farm it. The soil defeated them. It was thin, rocky, and unforgiving, and in bitter humor they named it the Promised Land, then contracted the forest to be timbered and moved on.

The irony only deepened over the next decades. Loggers stripped the hills, and by the time the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania bought the tract in 1902, the land was cut over and bare. It became Pennsylvania's fourth state park, opening to the public in 1905, and the state set about undoing the damage, planting hundreds of thousands of trees to bring the forest back. The barren ground the Shakers scorned is now a lush highland, the name finally living up to itself.

Two lakes give the park its shape. Promised Land Lake and the smaller Lower Lake sit among the trees, quiet water for canoes and kayaks, for fishing the warm-water species, and for a swim off the beach on a hot afternoon. Great blue herons stalk the shallows, loons and ducks pass through, and the boggy inlets draw a whole cast of plateau wildlife down to the water's edge.

Much of the built park dates to the 1930s, when a Civilian Conservation Corps camp operated here from 1933 to 1941. The young men of the CCC were fed, clothed, and paid a small wage in return for hard conservation work, and across the country they left behind a distinctive rustic style of stone and hewn timber. At Promised Land their cabins, bridges, and buildings still stand and still serve, a piece of Depression-era history you can sleep in and walk across rather than just read about.

Beyond the lakeshore, Promised Land and the surrounding Delaware State Forest offer around fifty miles of trail, from easy lakeside strolls to longer routes that climb into the deeper woods. Paths like the Bear Wallow, Burley Inlet, Rock Oak Ridge, and Mountain Laurel trails wind through hemlock groves and hardwood, past bog edges and boulder fields, with mountain laurel putting on a show in early summer.

Because the park is wrapped in state forest, a walk here can open out into thousands of acres of quiet backcountry, so it feels far bigger than its 3,000 acres. It is a fine place to spot wildlife, from herons and beavers to the black bears that share these mountains, and a genuine four-season park, green and cool in summer, blazing in fall, and hushed and white in winter when the plateau holds its snow.

Promised Land lies on the Pocono Plateau in Pike County, off PA 390, an easy drive from Greentown and Hawley and a short hop from Interstate 84. The park office near the lakes is the place to start, for maps, current lake and trail conditions, and advice on which loop or which lake fits your day and your energy.

The plateau sits around 1,800 feet up, so it runs cooler than the valleys and can hold weather the lowlands miss, a blessing in summer and worth dressing for the rest of the year. Give yourself time to paddle a lake, walk a laurel-lined trail, and look closely at the sturdy old CCC stonework. It is the kind of restful, green highland stop the Poconos do best, and a name that was once an insult now fits it well.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.