The second growth forests in and surrounding Worlds End State Park are partially a result of the efforts of the young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression.

Located in the Endless Mountains region of the dissected Allegheny Plateau, Worlds End has a continental climate and rocks and fossils from the Carboniferous period.

[4] The park offers year-round recreational opportunities, including environmental education, hiking, camping in tents and cabins, whitewater rafting, swimming, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, hunting, and fishing.

Archeological evidence found in the state from this time includes a range of pottery types and styles, burial mounds, pipes, bows and arrow, and ornaments.

[10] Worlds End State Park is in the West Branch Susquehanna River drainage basin, whose earliest recorded inhabitants were the Iroquoian-speaking Susquehannocks.

[11] To fill the void left by the demise of the Susquehannocks, the Iroquois encouraged displaced tribes from the east to settle in the West Branch watershed, including the Shawnee and Lenape (or Delaware).

[11] On November 5, 1768, the Province of Pennsylvania acquired the New Purchase from the Iroquois in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, including what is now Worlds End State Park.

[3][17] Prior to the arrival of William Penn and his Quaker colonists in 1682, it has been estimated that up to 90 percent of what is now Pennsylvania was covered with woods: over 31,000 square miles (80,000 km2) of white pine, eastern hemlock, and a mix of hardwoods.

[18] The forests near the three original counties, Philadelphia, Bucks, and Chester, were the first to be harvested, as the early settlers used the readily available timber to build homes, barns, and ships, and cleared the land for agriculture.

[18] Trees were used to furnish fuel to heat homes, tannin for the many tanneries that were spread throughout the state, and wood for construction, furniture, and barrel making.

The building, constructed with an "energy-efficient design and recycled materials", was part of a $1.1 million project that included the park's first flush toilets and sewage treatment plant.

[34] In 2003 a $2.7 million project added flush toilets and running water to all the park's wash-houses, renovated the cabins, and made major improvements in the day use area.

[37][38] On January 25, 2010, flooding caused by heavy rain and melt from 20 inches (510 mm) of snow "washed out a bridge" leading to the cabin area and destroyed 86 feet (26 m) of road there,[39] leaving the park looking like "the set of disaster movie".

The high mountains to the east of the sea gradually eroded, causing a buildup of sediment made up primarily of clay, sand and gravel.

Tremendous pressure on the sediment caused the formation of the rocks that are found today in the Loyalsock Creek drainage basin: sandstone, shale, conglomerates, coal, and limestone.

The youngest of these, which forms the highest points in the park, is the early Pennsylvanian Pottsville Formation, a gray conglomerate that may contain sandstone, siltstone, and shale, as well as anthracite coal.

The Loyalsock gorge rim and the upper part of its walls are the late Mississippian Mauch Chunk Formation, which is formed with grayish-red shale, siltstone, sandstone, and conglomerate.

The creek bed and base of the gorge walls are the late Devonian and early Mississippian Huntley Mountain Formation, which is made of relatively soft grayish-red shale and olive-gray sandstone.

[7] The Marcellus Formation, a shale rich in natural gas, lies thousands of feet below Worlds End State Park and much of Pennsylvania.

"[53] Natural gas pipeline construction upstream of the park spilled a "significant amount" of sediment and mud into Loyalsock Creek in September 2012.

Because Loyalsock Creek is in a sandstone, shale, conglomerates, coal, and limestone mountain region, it has a relatively low capacity to neutralize added acid.

[60] Common trees found in the state park and forest include black cherry, eastern hemlock, red maple, tulip poplar, yellow birch, and white ash.

[2] Worlds End State Park has an extensive forest cover of hemlock-filled valleys and hardwood tree-covered mountains, which makes it a habitat for "big woods" wildlife.

Loyalsock Creek is home to native brook trout and black bass which feed on a variety of insects including mosquitos, dragonflies, and gnats.

Birds of interest in the park include common mergansers along the creek and other riparian species such as belted kingfisher, as well as barred, great horned, and the scarce, elusive northern saw-whet owls.

Other avian species seen in the park and believed to nest there include tufted titmouse, brown creeper, red-breasted nuthatch, common raven, scarlet tanager, yellow-bellied sapsucker, and winter wren.

The common game species are ruffed grouse, eastern gray squirrels, turkey, white-tailed deer and bears; however, the hunting of groundhogs is prohibited.

[2] Edward Gertler, author of Keystone Canoeing, writes that Loyalsock Creek's "exciting whitewater, above Forksville, has long been a favorite of paddlers who are quick and tolerant enough to endure its fickle water levels and weather".

[2] Non-denominational Christian worship services, sponsored by the Pennsylvania Council of Churches, are held in a wooded chapel at the park on Sunday mornings during the summer.

During the Great Depression the Civilian Conservation Corps built a 7-foot (2.1 m) tall dam on Loyalsock Creek, which provides a 1 acre (0.40 ha) swimming area at Worlds End State Park.