By:
Submission
Beautiful beach, annoying ranger who would scold people for bringing their dogs too close to the water and was very rude about it.
Awesome place to camp! Rangers are super friendly and the campground was clean. Awesome lake and trails nearby too!
Despite mixed reviews, we had a wonderful time here!
We took our 2 year old for 3 nights, 4 days over a long weekend mid-August. It wasn't busy, site was clean, the beach was close with a playground and walking trail, and the bugs were minimal.
It is a RUSTIC campground. No showers and volt toilets are standard for that.
Pros: playground, beach, trails, firewood on site, clean, campsites aren't too close together.
Cons: the water was brown from the pump ( probably 🤷🏼♀️ safe to drink but we didn't!), As mentioned, hours when there was a ranger was odd so firewood was hard to get at times we made sure to get it when we could. The sites are close to the road and atv trail so it was loud at times.
I would definitely go back personally. Animals DO NEED TO BE LEASHED at all times.
I strongly recommend you DO NOT stay at Pigeon Creek Campground if visiting this park. I booked a weekend at the Pigeon Creek campsite and ended up leaving Saturday morning after such a bad experience. One of the two potable water stations was broken, and the water that came out of the other station was brown, foul smelling, and poor tasting. Unfortunately, because there is no water at the station, I filled my bottles in the dark and did not discover the discoloration until the next morning when I had already drank it. I should have examined it closer when my dog avoided drinking it. I chose to stay at the Pigeon Creek campsite because of the convenient trail connecting the campground to the rest of the hiking trails. Unfortunately, I did not get to see the rest of the state park grounds. The pigeon creek trail was extremely poorly marked, which resulted in me getting lost for nearly an hour. When I finally got back on the correct trail, I continued to have difficulty following the path due to total lack of trail maintenance. It was difficult to distinguish the trail from the rough terrain at various spots. As a experienced hiker, the poor signage, poor trail maintenance, and overwhelming amount of bugs resulted in the worst experience I've ever had while hiking. When I finally got to the end of the Pigeon Creek Trail, where I was looking forward to connecting to the rest of the park trails, the connection was gated off. I understand that sometimes trails need to be closed down, but I am ASTOUNDED that there was no indication at the campground or where the trail began, that it was closed. So, after two hours of an incredibly miserable hike, I had to turn around and do it all again to get back to camp. Lastly, because of such horribly overgrown and unmanaged trails, I pulled 32 ticks off my dog that evening from only one hike and one night at my campsite. The rest of the park may have great trails, but I will not be returning to find out.
We had a great experience camping here. We arrived late on Friday around 7pm just in time to buy firewood. Then Saturday we were able to get wood til 4pm. The ranger gave us lots of maps and helpful suggestions for where to check out certain trails and for things to do around Black River Falls. There weren't many people camping and we didn't get any bug bites at all, barely saw any mosquitoes despite our campsite having standing water. We brought our own drinking water because we heard it's brown so we didn't bother. The pit toilets are gross but that's usually how it is, the seats and stuff were clean though. And if you want nicer toilets and showers Castle Mound Campground has them but that site was way more full. The location is great to branch out and do things in Black River Falls, up by Lake Arbutus, Levis/Trow and others. You can see tons of stars by the beach near the campground on clear nights.
