By:
Submission
Four miles north of Bloomfield or fifteen miles south of Ottumwa on Highway 63, take 180th street west, go six miles to the town of Drakesville, continue west on 180th five miles, 180th turns into Eagle Blvd. Go one mile on Eagle Blvd and the entrance to the park is on the left.
Beautiful park. Well maintained campground right on the lake. A nice trail to hike around the lake is easy to walk. There are also cabins available to rent if you don't have a tent or camper. During the summer their prairie restoration fields are great to see see all of the beautiful wild flowers blooming. Good modern shower house with hot water.
Really enjoyed the place. Cabins are neat and meet your basic needs. Bring all your own stuff, sheets, pots pans etc. Kiosk at beach open in summer season from Thursday through Sunday. Cabins at the water edge don't get verizon signal, but do at the beach and uphill from the cabins. Fishing is good, caught a few large mouth bass.
First, if you are here for fishing I can't say anything about that. I went here for hiking. I gave it a 4 stars because it only has 1 loop to walk/hike on. So the posted 6.6 mile hike around the lake turned to about 7 miles if you include the road areas. If you want to take the hike around I would highly suggest pants and waterproof shoes or ones you are okay with getting wet...i did go in spring so there's more water than other times of the year. The pants come in handy when you walk past random plants that have small spikes on them. There were a handful of times when I had to climb over fallen trees. It had a nice ascent to flat ratio. 10/10 would do again.
Lake Wapello you use to not be able to swim in and they've done A LOT of clean up since then! Honestly it is a cool little spot with fishing, shade, swimming access. I believe there's also a trail somewhere, there's a little cabin that is like the "boss." Along the road there's a few select spots that have picnic tables where you can sit and just enjoy nature/eat with family alone/look out at anything. I will get more pictures. I also believe there's a little outlet you can use to blow up tubes, water slides, loungers ect. A few vending machines, on site restrooms. Definitely worth going. We will be back tomorrow aka Sunday.
