Swim Beach, Blue Marsh Lake

🏊Swimming at Swim Beach, Blue Marsh Lake

Swimming is in open reservoir water off a maintained beach at the Dry Brooks Day Use Area; the Corps runs weekly water testing for bacteria and, seasonally, for cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) toxins, and has both closed and reopened the beach based on those results. No source found described sand vs. gravel composition or lifeguard presence at this specific beach.

📍How to get to this swimming hole

The swim beach is part of the Dry Brooks Day Use Area, reached via Palisades Dr. near Leesport, PA (USACE address 1268/1420 Palisades Dr., Leesport, PA 19533); the day-use area also has boat launches and a visitor center within walking distance of the beach. A separate informal dog beach across the lake is reached instead via the Lake Border Trail from trailheads near Tulpehocken Creek or Water Road.

Parking: Parking is at the Dry Brooks Day Use Area, which also serves the boat launches, visitor center and picnic shelters within walking distance of the swim beach; no other parking-lot details (size, cost) were found.

🥾The walk in

No real hike here. The water is a short walk from where you park. Drive-up official beach: visitors park in the Dry Brooks Day Use Area lot and walk directly to the swim beach, no trail required. No source gave an exact parking-to-beach walk time. (A separate, unofficial 'dog beach' across the lake is instead reached via the Lake Border Trail from trailheads near Tulpehocken Creek or Water Road, but that is not this swim spot.)

📜Backstory

Blue Marsh Lake was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1974 and 1979 under the 1962 Flood Control Act, flooding the former village of Blue Marsh in what was known as Pleasant Valley; some structures, including the Gruber Wagon Works, were relocated before the valley was inundated.