South Shore Recreation Area
This place has sites and nobody may sleep in them.Ask for camping here →
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
In the agency’s own words
South Shore Recreation Area is located on the south side of the Cowanesque Lake along State Route 49, just five miles west of Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania. The area is easily accessible from Route 15 and offers a great location for boating, picnicking and fishing. Keep reading
Recreation
Cowanesque Lake offers a variety of outdoor activities including boating and fishing. A variety of native fish inhabits the area's streams and lakes. The North and South Tailrace areas provide access for fishing below the dam. The fields and forests around the lake are popular destinations for hunters looking for large and small game species that inhabit the eastern hardwood forests. Many miles of hiking trails circle the lake, including the Mid State Trail, which travels through the recreation area. It links the trails at Cowanesque and nearby Hammond Lake into a long path that extends all the way through Pennsylvania from Maryland to New York.
Facilities
The recreation area offers three group shelters. The Iroquois and Oneida Shelters have electric and water hookups; the Mohawk Shelter has water hookups only. All three sites are fully accessible and comfortably accommodate groups of up to 100 people in a lovely lakeside setting.
Natural Features
Cowanesque Lake is situated in the Endless Mountains region of Pennsylvania, along the Allegheny Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains. The surrounding land paints a scenic picture of rolling terrain and open fields.
What the agency tells you
Don't Move Firewood: Protect your forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. Visit Dontmovefirewood.org for further information.
Dumpster receptacle for the Iroquois, Mohawk, and Oneida Shelters is located at the Mohawk Shelter parking lot.
Follow all applicable rules and regulations
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- FLUSH TOILETS on 1 of 3 campsite records, FLUSH TOILETS (SEASONAL) on 1 of 3 campsite records, ACCESSIBLE FLUSH TOILETS on 2 of 3 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- WATER SPIGOT on 1 of 3 campsite records
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Cell signal · Cell signal · Army Corps says
- Yes
- Fall color · reported 2 days ago, in Tioga County
- Peak color
Nothing here to sleep in
The agency files 3 records here and marks every one of them day use, not overnight. On its own record there’s nothing here to spend the night in.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 13
What you actually pay
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 4
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
3 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 3 mapped sitesAll 3 records
| Day Use | Iroquois | day use | 15 amp | yes | 977 ft | 205 ft |
| Day Use | Mohawk | day use | yes | 837 ft | 168 ft | |
| Day Use | Oneida | day use | 15 amp | yes | 837 ft | 348 ft |
The agency files 3 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It files them as day use. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Tompkins1.1 mi
Lawrence Recreation Area2.0 mi
Ives Run6.2 miLambs Creek Recreation Area12 mi
Backbone Horse CampgroundFinger Lakes National Forest · 41 mi
Blueberry Patch CampgroundFinger Lakes National Forest · 41 miFrom US 15 South, take the Lawrenceville Exit. At the bottom of the ramp, turn right onto State Route 49. Recreation Area will be on the right approxmately 5 miles.
From US 15 North, take the Lawrenceville exit. At the bottom of the ramp turn left. Recreation area will be on the right approximately 5 miles.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Lawrenceville, PA
Typical weather
Typical October night 39°F, day 61°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 15°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
South Shore Recreation Area is in Pennsylvania’s 15th congressional district. Its representative, Glenn Thompson (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
The agency’s own record files sites here and marks every one of them day use. The draft asks whether any could open to overnight camping, and if not, why.
- The member who votes the moneyGlenn ThompsonU.S. Representative · Pennsylvania’s 15th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationDavid McCormickU.S. Senator · Pennsylvania
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJohn FettermanU.S. Senator · Pennsylvania
Read the draft, or change the wording
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject South Shore Recreation Area has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Glenn Thompson, I’m a constituent in Pennsylvania’s 15th district. South Shore Recreation Area, Pennsylvania carries 3 records on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about South Shore Recreation Area (Pennsylvania) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject South Shore Recreation Area has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear David McCormick, I’m a constituent in Pennsylvania. South Shore Recreation Area, Pennsylvania carries 3 records on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about South Shore Recreation Area (Pennsylvania) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject South Shore Recreation Area has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear John Fetterman, I’m a constituent in Pennsylvania. South Shore Recreation Area, Pennsylvania carries 3 records on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about South Shore Recreation Area (Pennsylvania) via campanac.com
How we know this · 4
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
“the agency's own site records list "CELL PHONE SERVICE" on 3 of 3 campsites here”