In general, the topography of the Lackawanna River watershed consists of long, steep-sided ridges with valleys in between. The headwaters of the river are in a group of glacial ponds and bogs in Susquehanna County and Wayne County, about north of Forest City. The river itself begins at Stillwater Lake, which was built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in 1960. For much of its length, the river flows through the Lackawanna Valley, which runs in a northeast-to-southwest direction. Many tributaries flow into the Lackawanna River from West Mountain, the Moosic Mountains, or the Pocono Plateau.