Ski, ride and tube the Poconos from a Pocono Lake house
If you're skiing, riding or tubing in the Poconos and you want a house rather than a hotel room, Pocono Lake is the right postcode to search. Jack Frost and Big Boulder sit over near Lake Harmony, Camelback is further east in Tannersville, and Arrowhead Lake lands between them. Most of our winter guests ski two different mountains in a long weekend without ever repacking the car.
Five of our three-bedroom homes come up again and again for winter trips: Treehouse Escape, Broken Oar Cottage, Lakefront Retreat, LiWay Lakeside and Lake Hideaway. All five are in the gated Arrowhead Lake community, all five have heating, a fireplace, a full kitchen, Wi-Fi and a washer, and all five are a drive from the slopes rather than a walk. None of them is ski-in, ski-out, and nothing in this corner of the Poconos is. You get a house in the woods and a car ride to the lift instead, which is a trade most families make happily once they've priced a slopeside room for six.
The five three-bedroom houses, and who each one suits
Three bedrooms covers a surprising range here, because the lofts and bunk rooms do a lot of work. Capacity runs from six to nine across these five, and that spread is the first thing to sort out before you look at anything else.
Treehouse Escape sleeps nine across three levels, with two living rooms, two wood-burning fireplaces and a foosball table on the lower floor. It's the only one of the five that takes dogs. If you're two families splitting a weekend, start here.
Broken Oar Cottage sleeps seven and is the largest of the five by floor area, which you feel most at dinner: the dining area seats eight, and the driveway takes three cars. Two queens, a twin room and a loft with a workspace.
Lakefront Retreat sleeps seven in the smallest footprint, right on the water with a lakeside fire pit. One bathroom, which is the detail that decides it: fine for a family, tight for seven adults with boots and base layers on a ski morning.
LiWay Lakeside sleeps six. A king with an en-suite half bath upstairs, a queen, and a bunk room, on a wooded lot with a private dock.
Lake Hideaway sleeps six in a compact cabin, with a queen, a full, and a twin-and-trundle room. A five-minute walk from Beach #3, which matters less in February than the fact that it's close to the lodge end of the community.
Six people, three bedrooms: which way to go
For a group of six, the real question is bathrooms and what you do at eight in the evening when everyone's legs are finished. LiWay Lakeside has two bathrooms including the en-suite half off the king room. Lake Hideaway has a bathroom and a half and leans quieter: fast Wi-Fi, a sixty-inch smart TV, a fire pit out back with chairs.
If six is really six adults, I'd take LiWay Lakeside. If six is four adults and two kids, Lake Hideaway's twin-and-trundle room sorts the children out neatly and leaves the queen and the full for the grown-ups.
Getting to the mountains
Jack Frost and Big Boulder are the close pair, sister areas a few miles apart on the Lake Harmony side. Big Boulder has the gentler learning terrain and the bubly Tubing Park; Jack Frost runs a tubing hill with eight chutes, singles and doubles. Camelback, over in Tannersville, is the bigger day out: forty-six trails and more than forty tubing lanes, which is the one to pick if half your group skis and half wants to spend the afternoon sliding down a hill on an inner tube.
From Arrowhead Lake it's a short drive to Jack Frost and Big Boulder, and a longer one to Camelback. The community sits about fifteen minutes from I-380 and I-80, which is what makes the two-mountain weekend practical. Check each resort's own site for tubing sessions and lift hours before you commit to a day, because sessions sell out and conditions move the schedule.
Two more things worth knowing for a winter week. Split Rock Resort's indoor waterpark is right by Jack Frost, and Kalahari's indoor waterpark is the other direction, near Camelback. Both are the answer to a day when the wind is wrong and nobody wants to be on a chairlift.
What the house needs to do after dark
Winter trips live or die on what happens between four in the afternoon and bedtime. Every one of these five has a fireplace and heating, a fire pit outside, a stocked kitchen with pots, spices and the things you actually cook with, and a washer, which matters more than people expect when six pairs of socks come home wet.
Treehouse Escape burns real wood on two levels and has a wood stove as well, so the house warms up properly without touching the thermostat. Broken Oar Cottage runs central heat with an electric fireplace in the living room and a chef's kitchen behind it, granite counters, a dishwasher, a blender, enough dishes for everyone at once. Lakefront Retreat puts its fire pit down by the water, and in winter that's a clear-night proposition rather than an every-night one.
All five have dedicated parking off the road, which sounds dull until you've tried to unload four sets of skis in the dark.
The gated community, and what's actually open in winter
Arrowhead Lake is a private gated community, and every guest has to register before arrival and pay the association's temporary membership, gate card and administrative fees. These sit on top of the rental price, the association sets them, and they're lower off-season than in summer. We collect driver and vehicle details after you book and submit them for you. Leave it to the last three days and the association adds a late fee; leave it to the last day and they won't process it at all.
The community's famous pieces, the two lakes, four beaches, three heated outdoor pools and the rental shack, run from Memorial Day to Labor Day. They will not be open on a February weekend. What runs year round is the community lodge: three fireplaces, a library, a fitness room, a billiards room, a family game room with ping pong, pool and air hockey, and an events calendar. For a ski trip that's the useful bit, and it's where a group with mixed-age kids ends up on the evening nobody wants to cook.
Three things to sort before you book a winter weekend
Bring a car, and ideally one you trust on a snowy back road. Arrowhead Lake is deliberately out of the way, and the nearest groceries, Weis, Walmart, ALDI, CVS, Ahart, are all a drive. We stock enough soap, paper and bath tissue for two or three nights, so a longer stay means a shop.
Confirm the sleeping arrangements against your actual group, not your headline number. A loft twin at Treehouse Escape and a trundle at Lake Hideaway both count toward capacity, and they suit a ten-year-old better than a six-foot snowboarder.
Then confirm the rest with us directly: winter availability, nightly rate, minimum stay, the current community fee schedule and whether a given house takes dogs. Rates move with the season and the calendar, and the association's fees are its own.
Seeing the houses
We're the owners and the rental team, so you book direct with the people who look after the houses, and the answer to "is the loft warm enough for a January weekend" comes from someone who has slept in it. Beyond these five three-bedroom homes, we run larger houses across Arrowhead Lake for groups of ten and twelve, several of them with hot tubs and saunas, which is a different kind of ski evening altogether. Tell us your dates, your numbers and which mountain you're aiming at, and we'll tell you which house to take.