Cottonwood Campground — Bear Lake State Park

Attendants in pay booth are indifferent at best and honestly borderline rude, they've changed the parking policies despite what it says online and so told us our extra vehicle could park in day use but would have to be gone by 10:30 pm. The ridiculous thing is there are several extra spots around the campsite and these spots are not taken up at night, seems like a tactic to get more money for the county so they can ticket cars at the nearby rest stop, otherwise it's just pure stupidity. Used to be a cool campground but now between that, the abysmally maintained spaces and the filthy bathrooms you're better off avoiding it.

This is part of a Utah State park so you can only enter and exit via a reservation. A park ranger upon arrival will ask for your name and issue a parking pass (upto 2 cars, a $20 fee). The parking slot issued is an oversize one that accommodates 2 vehicles (we had 2 mini-vans in the slot). The bathrooms and showers are very nice, look to be very well kept and close to all the camping lots. The water level was very low so even having a lot right next to the water we were still 100 yards away from the shoreline. Each lot has a metal picnic table, fire pit, and space for two 12x12 tents (according to the website, our lot however we found it difficult to setup a 10x14 tent with the level ground available). The campground is setup so most of the lots are fairly spread-out but you will be fairly close to one other lot (the fire-pits were probably 15 feet to each-other). My biggest complaint was the ground between the camping lots and the parking lot was very rough. Lots of potholes from rock chucks and no paths to any campsite from the parking lot or bathroom so you are walking through brush to each site. If you get a lot next to the water the sunset is amazing to take in at night, some lots the view is covered by trees so you can’t get a direct view of the lake from your campsite. We stayed in lot #20 that had an unobstructed view of the lake.

The camping spot , restrooms, beach area were by far great but the some persons at the entrance are SUPER rude specially a older lady in the morning and older guy later in the day they are very disrespectful and they look at you with a weird grossed out look. We paid for two cars for our camping spot and they didn’t let one more car in even if we paid the fee. But other people next to us had 1 camping spot with a 2 car parking but had at least 4 cars in the other parking spots the next morning all the lady told them is you guys need to pay the extra cars (in a very nice way) and didn’t let us pay for ours the night before.

The campground is pretty minimal & although there are bathrooms and they are tidy and stocked, I doubt the toilets or anyting have actually been cleaned or disinfected as they were pretty dirty and definitely no extra cleanings due to covid. There are two showers in each bathroom but one was closed in the girls bathroom, so expect a line to take a shower. If you aren't camping right on the beach you are camping in an open area with tons of other people. The spots that are on the beach are convenient because you have lakefront camping, but people and children are constantly running through your campground to get to the beach. Definitely no privacy at this campground. The campground and especially the lakefront are so dirty. People leave their trash and things everywhere! Going for a walk was like going to the local dump, so sad. The water also has a lot of oil and gas in it, it doesn't seem like the local rental places do much to control polluting water. If all you're looking for is something on the water & you don't mind crowds then it's not bad.