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Prairie Flower Recreation Area is located on the 26,000-acre Saylorville Lake Project, which stretches more than 50 miles up the Des Moines River Valley.
The lake provides a wide variety of recreational activities, including boating, swimming, fishing, hiking and hunting.
Visitors enjoy Saylorville Lake for its excellent boating, sailing, water skiing, windsurfing and swimming opportunities. Anglers will find walleye, wiper, largemouth bass, catfish, crappie and northern pike.
The paved Neal Smith Trail winds 24 miles from Des Moines to Big Creek State Park and connects the campgrounds on the east side of the lake. It is designated as a National Recreation Trail and is used for biking, hiking, jogging, walking and in-line skating.
Prairie Flower is a large, open campground covering more than 60 acres. It offers 153 family sites and 10 group sites, all with electric hookups. Many of the family sites in the south end offer a pleasant view of the 6000-acre lake. The north end is made up of mostly group sites in a circle-the-wagon design. Amenities include flush toilets, showers, drinking water and a dump station. The campground also provides educational programs, group shelters, playgrounds and a swimming beach. Nearby amenities include a visitor center, hiking trail, volleyball courts and a disc golf course. Boat ramps and a fishing dock are also close by.
Iowa's prairie heritage is celebrated in more than 40 acres of prairie plantings throughout the campground. The wide variety of grass and flowers provides vivid colors from mid-summer to fall. Wildlife is abundant throughout the project. White-tailed deer, turkeys, waterfowl and other small game animals roam the lands around the lake.
From I-35, take exit 90 to Ankeny/Oralabor Road and go west for 4.8 miles. The road turns into Highway 415, continue and follow signs to the campground.
I visited my family here for dinner and was treated extremely disrespectfully by the host. I missed the "one way" sign and parked in the grass next to my in-laws truck. I don't camp much or really remember seeing a one way sign, but was wrong on both counts. The host came to the camp site, questioned my father-in-law and yelled across the campground at me (I was at the playground). He said I was a "disgrace" and "should be ashamed of myself". Maybe I should since I spent half of my adult life deployed to the Midddle East with the United States Army. Two thumbs down on customer service, two thumbs up on the facilities and scenery.
We had a fantastic stay at this campground. Clean bathrooms and showers, a great playground for the kids and a lot of space between camp sites. Beautiful space as well, lots of trees and birds.
It is a great campground but the water temperature in ladies showers in the A campground bathhouse is WAY too Hot and the handicap shower is out of order. We camped at A08 and the weeds were way overgrown! I saw the lawn maintenance coming with weedeaters so I moved everything out of their way..thinking that they were going to weedeat around our campsite but they disappeared and never came close! I had to shower outside our RV with shorts and a workout bra to get a cooler water temperature that I could tolerate! Won't be booking the A campground again.
This was our first stay at a COE campground. What a lovely surprise. This park, located on Saylorville Lake, has a lot of campsites. Most of these sites are large concrete pads and have a lot of space between your neighbors. Very quite and peacefull campground. It is conveniently located about 10 minutes west of Akeny, IA so you are close to any kind of shopping or restaurants you may need while staying here. Des Moines is also not too far away. There is a beach that had beautiful sunsets every night we were there. We camped at Prairie Flower Recreation Area COE in a Fifth Wheel. We stayed in site B63.
