Southwick Beach State Park

[1] Immediately to the south is the Lakeview Wildlife Management Area (3,461 acres (1,401 ha)), which extends the publicly accessible beach by several miles.

The park offers an extensive campground with tent and trailer sites, picnic facilities, playing fields and a playground.

[3] The hiking trails and boat routes are described at several websites,[4][5][6] and in guidebooks by William P. Ehling and by Susan Peterson Gateley.

[7][8] The park and wildlife management area lie within a rare, freshwater coastal barrier environment that consists of beaches, sand dunes, embayments and marshes.

Some tall wormwood plants grow amidst the beachgrass, as do cottonwood trees and sand dune willows.

In heavily used regions of the eastern Lake Ontario dunes, foot traffic has eliminated this plant community entirely.

It is very similar to the common American beachgrass native to the Atlantic coasts of North America, but blooms in July instead of September.

The most notable was Albert Ellis, who leased the beach from the Southwick family for about 15 years, and developed it as the "Coney Island" of Northern New York.

[16] In time, the beach boasted a roller coaster, bathhouses, a dance pavilion, merry go-round, and midway.

Bradford B. van Diver has described the eastern Lake Ontario dunes as "similar in many details to the south shore of Long Island, with drowned river mouths forming lagoons behind a smooth curving line of barrier bars.

Satellite photograph of Lake Ontario. The cities of Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, and Toronto are labeled.
The orange dot indicates the location of Southwick Beach State Park on this satellite image of Lake Ontario.
Photograph showing dozens of people along a beach who are swimming, sunbathing, and playing.
Sandy beach and bathers at Southwick Beach State Park in August.
Photograph of a wooden signpost and sign that reads "Lakeview Wildlife Management Area, Natural Beach Area".
Boundary sign for Lakeview Wildlife Management Area in August. The sign is on top of a sandy foredune that is immediately adjacent to the Lake Ontario shoreline. The beachgrass in the foreground is essential to stabilizing the sand in the dune. The trees near the sign are eastern cottonwood trees, which are the only dune-forming trees in the region. To the left of the sign are several tall wormwood plants.
Photograph from one shore of a large pond about a mile across. The sky has clouds that are also seen in reflections from the pond.
Lakeview Pond is separated from Lake Ontario by a long, narrow system of sand dunes that is 200 feet (61 m) wide and more than 2 miles (3.2 km) long. The aquatic plants in the foreground are mostly narrowleaf cattail . The Pond lies within the Lakeview Wildlife Management Area; this viewpoint is at the end of the second, wooden dune walkover reached by walking south along the beach from the park.