Acorn Campground

We arrived for Memorial Day weekend and found it very difficult to maneuver the small roads to campsites. We were at site 47. Many sites throughout campground had more than 2 allotted vehicles, very noisy and the bathrooms were disgusting. Ours had 20+ tiny frogs alive and dead in the shower area. Heard the lake has leeches. The only positive was the sites are far apart and mostly level. That does not outweigh the negative.

I've been coming here for 50 years. All of the sites work great for tenters and many are suitable for RVs, though most require some leveling. Not really big rig friendly, but our 25' trailer is fine. No hookups, but lots of water spigots, trash cans, and flush toilets with free showers. There is a dump station. There are two launch ramps for boats, one right in the campground. It's a great lake for waterskiing or fishing. All sites are reservation only, but you can reserve on the day of your stay.

Lake was understandably low due to drought, but that's not why I went. I wanted to get away and didn't want any hookups. Low cost, reduced with America the Beautiful pass, was also a deciding factor. There is a dump station that can handle 2 rigs at the same time. Half of the campground was closed due to being off season. Even with roughly a dozen others camping, there was plenty of room for all. I arrived Sunday afternoon after the weekend crowd left and left on Thursday ahead of their arrival. I noticed lots of sites were reserved for the weekend.

No one was at the entrance station but the ranger did make a couple of tours through the campground and checked on my reservation. I had a printed copy of my reservation that I put in the drivers window which they looked at. They must have been OK with that as they didn't bother me.

Some sites have shade trees, others like mine didn't. Site 15 has a nice view of the lake, though it would be better if the lake were fuller. Plenty of room to get my 28' Class C into the park. Lots of longer sites than mine but lots of them aren't level. Be ready to level your rig unless you get one of the few level ones. It's hard to tell if a site is level or not on the reservation site.

I hiked both ways from my campsite around the lake along the waters edge. Take good shoes as there are some rough spots. I was able to hike to the main launch ramp, partly via the paved road as the bank got to steep, and past to a gravel trail that when taking the right fork takes you back to the campground.

The next day I went the other way over to the Oak Knoll Campground, which is closed. I hiked up the slope to the group camp area where the American flag fly's. Taking the road back to the main camping area I came across another dirt trail. I don't know where it goes as I only hiked 1.25 miles up it before turning around. My last day I took the gravel trail I came back on from my 1st hike and went down the other fork. Roughly 3 miles later I found myself at the dam(s). The water was low enough to expose the original dam. If you have a mountain bike, bring it as the trails, except along the lake edge, were clearly used by others.

If you are a photographer, don't forget your camera as there are lots of opportunities to capture interesting images either of jagged rocks sticking out of the ground, thanks to the low water, or wonderful oak trees.

I loved it here. I'm not a fan of crowds, though, and I can see this place getting really crowded during peak season, but I was here just before the President's Day holiday weekend, and it was very peaceful. A lot of the sites are spaced pretty well, all have the standard table, fire pit. I didn't use the restrooms or showers. One note: I heard that there had been thefts in recent months, stuff left outside, including fishing gear. As soon as I heard this, I kept an eye on some people there who were definitely not camping there. Luckily I was next to a very nice neighbor, and we kept an eye on each others' stuff.

I hiked my dogs for miles, but barely covered the lake. It's huge. Icing on the cake was that I caught fish (smallmouth)! I was in #78 and on the first day that was the protected side...the side with #100 was taking the brunt of a COLD wind. When I was there all sites below #65 were closed for the season.

Another nice perk was checkout was 2pm...lots of time to be lazy on the day you leave.

Update: I've camped here several times since 2/20. One warning...a ton of sites on the west side (1 - 30) of Acorn are so unlevel that it's impossible to get your rig leveled. I think site 30 and even 32, there were to Class A rigs that didn't even bother trying to level...it would have been too dangerous. I'd guess they were on a 15 degree slope! Insane. Bring tons of leveling blocks, you'll probably need them.