Laurel Hill State Park in Somerset County, PA offers a great sledding hill area for a fun-filled winter day.
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Parking and Directions
The sledding hill is located in the Laurel Hill State Park Campground. If you enter the park from County Line Road, take the first left into the campground. If you enter the park from Trent Road, continue straight through the park on the main road. After you pass the lake and beach on your left, look for a right-hand turn into the campground.
Follow the signs for the sledding area to the parking area at the top of the hill.
The sledding area offers an on-site bathroom and playground.
There are also fire pits with grills from the campground that surround the hill so you can have a fire going and grill some food if you want. Although we didn’t visit in the evening, we learned the park lights up the sledding area until 9 pm for evening sledding.
The hill itself is nice and wide with a beautiful view. In comparison to Sugarloaf Sled Hill Ohiopyle State Park, the hill is not as steep, so it was the perfect hill for our younger kids (ages 3 and 1 at the time of our visit). But we witnessed older kids having just as much fun. My kids especially enjoyed bouncing back and forth between the sledding hill and the playground.
The Scenic Route
We took a scenic drive on the way to the sledding area with a few stops along the way.
First, we stopped at Barronvale Covered Bridge. You can learn more about the Barronvale Covered Bridge on PA Bucket List and Uncovering PA.
Next, we stopped to visit a very frozen Cole Run Falls in Forbes State Forest. You can learn more about Cole Run Falls from PA Bucket List and Uncovering PA. In the wintertime, you want to make sure you have a good off-road vehicle for roads that might not be maintained. The parking area and trailhead were located on the left side of Cole Run Road. We hiked a few yards with a small descent to view the falls.
When exploring frozen waterfalls, we always find it helpful to wear ice trekkers over our boots to reduce the risk of slipping.
Lastly, we stopped at King’s Covered Bridge. You can learn more about King’s Covered Bridge from PA Bucket List.
Tips
PA State Parks and Forests Passport– If you are tracking your visits to PA State Parks and Forests in your passport, you can receive a stamp at the Visitor Center near the entrance off of Trent Road. If the Visitor Center is closed, there might be some available outside or you can read this post to learn how to track down a missed stamp.
Kid’s Gloves – When it comes to playing outside in the snow with my kids, the warmth of their hands usually dictates the length of time we can stay outside. I tried several types of gloves that they just ripped off resulting in being outside for maybe 10 minutes. I can’t say enough positive things about ETS Cubbies. This is the only way I found to keep gloves to keep on my kids. I’m sure there are others, but once I found Cubbies, I looked no further. With Cubbies, our time outside went from 10 minutes to 1-2+ hours.
Snacks– At our last visit, we packed pepperoni rolls in addition to other snacks. They really come in handy. But now that I know about the firepits, I think next time it would be a lot of fun to pack some firewood and grill some hotdogs and have some s’mores.
We had such a fun family day exploring the Laurel Hill Sledding Area and additional sites in Somerset County.
If you visit the Laurel Hill Sledding Area, I want to hear about it. Leave me a comment or tag me on Instagram @adventureswkelly.
