If you’ve ever driven north on I-81 through Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, you’ve probably blown past the unassuming brown sign for Memorial Lake State Park without a second thought. Hershey’s chocolate-scented air is 20 minutes south. Harrisburg’s capitol dome glints 25 minutes west. And yet, here—tucked between Fort Indiantown Gap Military Reservation and a quilt of Amish farmland—sits 230 acres of water and woods that somehow feels like a secret the state forgot to advertise.
I’ve been coming here for fifteen years, and I still can’t decide if its anonymity is a tragedy or a gift. What I do know is that Memorial Lake is the rare state park where you can have an entire cove to yourself on a Saturday in July, where the bass hit like they’re offended you showed up, and where the silence is so complete on a weekday morning that the slap of a beaver tail sounds like a gunshot.
The Origin Story Nobody Tells
Most Pennsylvania state parks have dramatic founding myths—falls, glaciers, CCC camps with heroic murals. Memorial Lake’s story is quieter and, frankly, more poignant.
The lake was originally called Indiantown Gap Dam No. 3, built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1940 as a flood-control project on Indiantown Run. After World War II, the Commonwealth took it over and, in 1959, renamed it Memorial Lake in honor of Pennsylvania’s war dead. The dedication plaque near the boat launch is modest, almost shy, set low in a stone you could walk past a hundred times without noticing.
There’s no grand entrance arch, no bugle call at sunset. Just a simple bronze tablet and a lake that does its remembering in ripples instead of words.
First Impressions: The Drive In
Take Exit 85 off I-81. Turn left onto Fisher Avenue, wind past the National Guard training site (yes, you’ll hear occasional artillery if the wind is wrong), and suddenly the road dips. The trees close in. A flash of water appears between trunks, then vanishes. Another half-mile and you’re there: a small parking lot, a single rustic restroom building, and the lake spread out like someone pressed pause on the rest of the world.
There’s no gatehouse. No entrance fee. No welcome center with stuffed bears and overpriced firewood. Just an honor-system permit box for boating and the faint smell of wet leaves.
The Lake Itself: 230 Acres of Pure Personality
Memorial Lake is long, narrow, and crooked—like someone took a fat question mark and filled it with water. Maximum depth is around 28 feet near the dam, but most of it is 8–15 feet of classic Pennsylvania limestone clarity. On calm days you can see smallmouth bass suspended over the drop-offs like fighter squadrons.
Shoreline development is almost zero. One side is bounded by Fort Indiantown Gap’s restricted woods (think: no trespassing, live ordnance, the occasional Black Hawk buzzing overhead). The other side is state park land—hemlock, oak, and enough mountain laurel to make June look like a wedding exploded.
There are exactly three man-made intrusions visible from the water:
- The breast of the dam at the eastern end (grass-covered, walkable, perfect for picnics).
- A tiny island with one picnic table and rumors of a resident great horned owl.
- The boat launch ramp—concrete, steep, and unforgiving if you forget to put the plug in (ask me how I know).
Everything else is horizon-to-horizon green.
Fishing: Stupid Good and Getting Better
Let’s not bury the lede: Memorial Lake is a legitimate big-fish factory.
The Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission stocks it with fingerling muskies, and the holdover rate is absurd. Forty-inch fish are routine; 50-inchers aren’t shocking anymore. Smallmouth bass fishing is tournament-caliber—lots of 18–21 inch fish that fight like they read the anger-management pamphlets wrong. The crappie fishing is cyclical but when it’s on, you can fill a five-gallon bucket in an hour with slabs pushing 14 inches.
My personal best day: April 2023, 47 largemouth in four hours on a shaky head, all caught between the island and the dam. I quit at noon because my wrist literally cramped.
The park practices selective harvest religiously. You’ll see more catch-and-release stickers here than on a Colorado trout stream. The bass clubs that hold night tournaments weigh in at the ramp, snap photos, and slide every fish back into the water like they’re handling nitroglycerin.
Boating: Electric Motors Only, and That’s Perfect
Gas engines are banned. The loudest thing you’ll hear is a trolling motor or the slap of a kayak paddle. On holiday weekends the lake can get 30–40 boats, but because it’s so narrow, everyone spreads out and it never feels crowded. I’ve spent entire summer evenings drifting with a headlamp, casting topwaters for muskies while loons called back and forth like they were paid to set the mood.
Canoe and kayak rentals are available seasonally from a little concession near the beach—nothing fancy, just sit-on-tops and aluminum canoes for $10 an hour. Bring your own boat if you want. The ramp is free, and there’s no launch fee because, well, this is Pennsylvania, and we’re allergic to charging for common sense.
Hiking: More Than You Think
The average visitor to Memorial Lake parks in the beach lot, eats a sandwich, maybe rents a kayak, and leaves convinced they’ve “seen the park.” That’s like reading the back cover of a book and calling it literature. The real magic starts where the pavement ends.
The park has about 12 miles of official and semi-official trails, plus another 5–6 miles of old logging roads and deer paths that locals have been using for decades. None of it is overcrowded. On a peak Saturday in October I once hiked four hours and saw exactly two other humans and one very judgmental barred owl.
Lakeside Trail – 2.1 miles, officially easy (but with personality)
Don’t let the “easy” rating fool you; this trail flirts with greatness.
- Trailhead: Starts behind the last pavilion in the day-use area, marked by a small wooden sign that says simply “Trail” like it’s daring you to question it.
- Surface: Crushed limestone for the first half-mile, then packed dirt and pine needles. Wide enough for two strollers to pass comfortably.
- The boardwalk section: About 0.4 miles of elevated wooden planks that snake through a red maple swamp. In May the marsh marigolds turn the ground gold and the wood ducks flush in waves—ten, twenty at a time—like someone fired a starter pistol made of feathers. Bring a camera with a fast shutter or just enjoy the chaos.
- Best bench in the park: At the 1.1-mile mark there’s a single wooden bench facing west. On summer evenings the sun sets directly across the lake and turns the water into molten copper. I proposed to my wife on that bench in 2019. (She said yes. The bench gets partial credit.)
- Wildlife highlights: Painted turtles the size of hubcaps sunning on logs, ribbon snakes hunting frogs in the shallows, and—if you’re very lucky—a river otter doing barrel rolls right under the boardwalk.
- Loop option: You can cut back early on a 0.6-mile connector and make it a 1.4-mile lollipop if the kids are melting down.
Do this trail at dawn in early June. The mist hangs low, the wood thrushes are singing like they’re auditioning for heaven, and you’ll have the whole place to yourself.
Middle Ridge Trail – 4.8 miles, moderate going on “I felt that in my glutes tomorrow”
This is the one that separates the tourists from the slightly obsessed.
- Trailhead: Starts across the road from the park office, marked with a proper DCNR sign and a warning about steep grades. Heed it.
- The climb: The first 1.2 miles gain roughly 320 feet in a series of well-engineered switchbacks. You’ll curse the designer for making it pleasant instead of brutal, because pleasant means you keep going instead of turning around.
- Ridgetop payoff: At mile 1.8 you break out onto a sandstone outcrop the size of a living room. The view is a 180-degree panorama: Memorial Lake glittering below like a sapphire someone dropped in the forest, Indiantown Gap’s training areas stretching south, and on crystal days the ridge of Second Mountain floating blue in the distance. There’s a fire ring up here (leave-no-trace, people) and enough flat rock to spread out a picnic for six.
- Flora nerd section: The ridge is classic central-PA dry oak forest—chestnut oak, table mountain pine, huckleberry thickets that turn crimson in fall. In late April the pink lady’s slipper orchids put on a show that would make a botanist weep.
- The back side descent: The return leg drops you through a hemlock grotto so dark and cool it feels like stepping into a cathedral refrigerator. A tiny seasonal stream trickles over mossy boulders; in spring it’s lined with trillium and dutchman’s breeches.
- Total elevation gain: ~550 feet, but it feels honest rather than punishing.
Pro tip: Do this hike in October on a weekday after the first hard frost. The leaves peak, the bugs are gone, and the air smells like woodsmoke and regret for every weekend you wasted at the mall.
The “Secret” Peninsula Trail – ~1.2 miles round trip, easy but technically off-menu
Look, I’m trusting you. Don’t make me regret this.
- How to find it: Park in the beach lot. Walk to the far eastern end (toward the dam), past the last trash can. You’ll see a mowed grass path that looks like it’s just for park maintenance. Follow it 75 yards until you hit an obvious but unmarked footpath veering left into the woods.
- The walk: Ten minutes of flat, rooty singletrack through mountain laurel tunnels. You’ll cross two tiny seasonal streams on logs that have been there since the Clinton administration.
- The reveal: The trail spits you out onto a narrow, fern-covered peninsula that juts 200 yards into the lake. There’s a gravel beach the size of a basketball court, crystal-clear water dropping off to 15 feet immediately, and absolute privacy. On a busy holiday I once spent three hours here reading and saw exactly zero humans.
- Why it works: The peninsula is technically part of the park, but it’s cut off from the main trail system and there’s no signage. Fishermen know it, but they’re busy catching 20-inch smallmouth in the riprap and don’t talk much.
- Bonus feature: At the tip of the peninsula is a lone eastern red cedar that somehow survived the last ice age. Sit under it at sunset and watch the lake turn pink while bats come out to feed. It’s the kind of moment people write bad poetry about.
If you bring someone special here and they don’t kiss you, they might be a robot. Just saying.
Bonus Trails & Connector Routes Locals Actually Use
- Old Dam Road – 1.5 miles of gated gravel road along the north shore. Perfect for trail running or walking the dog off-leash when no one’s looking (don’t tell the ranger I said that).
- Powerline Cut – Steep, ugly, and fantastic for wildflowers in May. Climbs from the boat launch parking lot to the ridge in 0.6 miles of pure quad burn. The view at the top is almost as good as Middle Ridge and you’ll have it 100% to yourself.
- The Full Figure-Eight – Combine Lakeside, Middle Ridge, and the peninsula for a solid 8–9 mile day that hits every ecosystem the park has to offer. I’ve done it in under three hours when I’m feeling frisky, four when I stop to take too many photos.
Seasonal Highlights You’ll Kick Yourself For Missing
- May: Peak warbler migration + wild geranium carpets.
- Late June: Mountain laurel bloom turns the understory into a pink snowstorm.
- October: Obviously the fall color, but also the annual hawk watch from the ridge—hundreds of broad-wings kettling overhead like living tornadoes.
- January: After a fresh 6-inch snowfall, the Lakeside Trail is a cross-country ski track that makes you understand why Scandinavians seem so happy all the time.
Wildlife: Bring Binoculars or Regret It
Memorial Lake sits at the intersection of several flyways, and the birding is world-class if you know where to look.
Spring warbler fallout can be ridiculous—25 species in a morning if you hit the ridge trail at dawn. Ospreys nested on the cell tower across the lake in 2024 and raised two chicks that spent the summer dive-bombing for shad. Bald eagles are now year-round residents. I watched one snatch a 20-inch muskie off the surface in 2022 like it was ordering delivery.
Mammals? Deer are so tame they’ll eat granola bars from your hand if you’re unethical enough to try (don’t). Beavers have a lodge the size of a suburban ranch house near the inlet. Otters show up every few years and act like they own the place.
The Beach and Day-Use Area: Retro in the Best Way
The swimming area is old-school Pennsylvania: a roped-off rectangle of water, a patch of grass, one ancient bathhouse with outdoor showers that run ice-cold. Lifeguards only on summer weekends. No concessions beyond a vending machine that sometimes works.
There’s a pavilion built in 1962 that still smells like charcoal and wet dog in the best possible way. Reserve it for $50 and you can have reunions where Great-Aunt Linda still complains the potato salad is too salty and nobody cares because the kids are cannonballing off the dock.
Winter: The Season Nobody Talks About
When the lake ices over (which it usually does by mid-January), ice fishing shanties pop up like mushrooms. Northern pike move shallow and the bite can be stupid. I’ve pulled 36-inchers through 8 inches of ice while drinking gas-station coffee that tasted like redemption.
Cross-country skiing on the Lakeside Trail after a fresh snow is pure meditation. The only tracks are yours and the deer’s.
Where to Stay (Because One Day Isn’t Enough)
No campgrounds inside the park itself—intentionally. The state wanted to keep it a day-use preserve. But you’ve got options:
- Moonshine Cottage – An Airbnb 10 minutes away that looks like a Thomas Kinkade painting had a baby with a fly shop.
- Indiantown Gap National Guard Lodging – Clean, cheap rooms if you don’t mind the occasional reveille at 5 a.m.
- Jonestown KOA – 15 minutes west, full hookups, and they’ll loan you kayaks.
Or just do what the locals do: fish until dark, drive five minutes to the Fillin’ Station diner for scrapple and pie, then crash at the Microtel in Jonestown for $89.
The Problems (Because Nothing’s Perfect)
It wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t mention the warts.
- The parking lots are too small on holiday weekends. Arrive after 10 a.m. on Memorial Day and you’re circling like it’s Walmart on Black Friday.
- The artillery range. When they’re doing live-fire exercises with 155mm howitzers, it sounds like God clearing his throat. Check the Fort Indiantown Gap range schedule online if you’re noise-sensitive.
- No trash cans (carry-in, carry-out policy). You will judge the people who leave Yuengling cans in the fire ring. I give you permission.
Why It Matters
In an era when state parks are adding glamping yurts and zip-line courses to pay the bills, Memorial Lake is stubbornly, gloriously stuck in 1975. No gift shop. No entrance fee. No Wi-Fi. Just water, woods, and the quiet understanding that some places are sacred exactly because nobody turned them into a brand.
I brought my dad here the summer before he died. He was too weak to cast more than a few times, so we just sat on the dam and watched a pair of kingfishers rattle back and forth. He said, “This is what they mean when they say peace.” That was enough.
Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It
Next time you’re within an hour of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, do yourself a favor: skip the crowded hype of better-known parks. Get off the interstate. Turn left at the light with the sketchy gas station. Drive until the road narrows and your cell service drops to one bar.
Then sit on the water’s edge for ten minutes. Just ten. If a beaver doesn’t slap its tail, or an osprey doesn’t crash into the lake like a feathered missile, or you don’t feel the particular ache of being exactly where you’re supposed to be… well, I’ll be shocked.
Memorial Lake isn’t the prettiest park in Pennsylvania. It’s not the biggest, or the most famous, or the one with the best amenities.
It’s just the one that still feels like it belongs to all of us, before we figured out how to ruin things.
See you on the water. I’ll be the guy in the beat-up Alumacraft with the coffee-stained thermos and the stupid grin.
Just don’t take my secret peninsula.
