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Submission
One of the most beautiful lakes in the area. The waster is blue green and pretty clear. Several easy to moderate trails to hike in the park, both short 1-1.5 milers and string them together for a 9 mile stroll. The tower provide a wonderful view of the lake and park. Start at the lodge and hike to the tower and back for a fabulous morning workout.
Lake Murray offers some good and bad experiences. Our first day at the lake was met with exceptional service! We went kayaking, played mini golf, had snow cones, and enjoyed our fourth of July here. We had a lot of fun.
I do highly recommend that if you're using a non-flushing toilet that you check CAREFULLY for harvestman spiders... we weren't as careful and one of us ended up sitting on a nest!
However, we had called about a month before to set our horseback riding reservation for four people. We waited forty minutes past our reservation only to be told to maybe come back tomorrow. A party of 8 who had made reservations for the same time was told the same information, though they only had five horses on site. We came for a birthday and she was really looking forward to it, so it was sort of a let down. I would not recommend planning to ride horses here. Otherwise, we had a good experience.
Drove over 3 hours to go hiking and sleep in my car, I don't regret it so beautiful.
This time, we tried the other side of the dam. Deer Run. A lot more trees than the Catfish Cove side. The host was very helpful and friendly and there's a nice little convenience store right down the street that has everything you could possibly need. We were at site #54
Grounds were nice. We were there during the off season, but definitely want to go back during summer when all the amenities are open! Staff was super friendly.
