Beard's Bluff Campground

We received an email saying that our site was open and we can come early. We appreciated that as we were about three hours early. We were at site 18. There really isn’t an unsuitable site. They are well spaced out and each area gives you a lot of room. That being said, sites 6 - 9 (no shade) are right on the edge of the water where you’ll have the best view of the sunset right on your patio. Site #12 would be first on our list when we return. It a bit higher than the sites on the lake but still with a great view with much shade. There are alligator warnings but we didn’t see any. The dumps station is across the main road (55 mph) but less than a hundred yards from the entrance. So if you need to pull your small honey wagon over to it, it’s something to take into consideration. The hose at the dump station leaks horrible bad at the time of this writing. This campground is high on our list of places to return to. We paid $15/night with America the Beautiful Pass.

Nice quiet park with water and electricity. There is also a dump station across the highway. We saw an alligator almost every day we were here. A lot of people fishing here in this lake and the surrounding area. The sites are not very level, but we were able to get level with a little bit of work. We came to this spot to see the eclipse that took place on 4/8/24.

$5 day use $15 campsite fee 1/2 price with America the beautiful pass. 24 campsites from what I saw a good majority had water or electric hookups. A good mixture of tent and tv sites some on the top of the hill and some lower on the water. Playground and boat launch. Partially wooded. Really well established camoground. The camp host is on the left as soon as you come in. Sign says need reservation first so I would look into that.

Most sites have a beautiful lake view. The sunsets are stunning! Sites are level and, while close together, they feel well-spaced. We stayed in site 20 and had nice shade and a mostly unobstructed view of the lake. Mayflies are probably the most annoying thing here, but those were tolerable. There are alligators in the lake, so no swimming. We were able to see at least one bald eagle close up, which was awesome. Park hosts are super friendly, as are the park rangers. Bathroom was clean although the mayflies were all over the place. Overall, an excellent stay!

Met by super friendly gate attendant. We were able to drive around to select a site, then made reservations online. Great sunset views, quiet (there were only a few of us the week we were there) - but for the many logging trucks going across the dam. There is loop of sites by the entrance - those are at the top of the hill - the remaining sites are at the bottom, by the lake. Plenty of trash cans by the bathhouse and one at campground. I stuck my head in the bathhouse, and it was clean; probably because it doesn't get much use right now.

Site 7 is a pull thru that is very sloped (not our site). Not sure if that's noted on the site description. Saw a trailer there with tongue on ground and back bumper high in the air. There are some odd placements of pull throughs (or is that the road?) and pull alongside sites.

Dump station is down the road just a bit. Most difficult part is pulling back out as it is on a curve with poor line of sight ....and listening for those logging trucks.

We'd come back here.
ATT 2-3 bars LTE coverage

Big rig access. Saw deer every morning. Nice trail system. The CG was very clean and the camp host was very friendly. We walked about 4 miles of the trail along the lake. The first part immediately out of the campground to a small fishing pier and beyond to a lake overlook was nice, but I was appalled by the amount of by the amount of trash, mostly beer cans, strewn along the trail. I went back later in the day and collected a large trash bag of cans and bottles.

This was a wonderful little campground right on the lake. It had large sites with water and unmetered 15 or 30 amp electric. There is a mixture of pull-thru and other sites. There is a small playground, boat ramp, the bathrooms were clean, and the showers nice and hot. The attendant was very friendly. We were here in mid-November and we would have stayed longer if the weather had been better. This is our favorite campground so far and we will definitely be back for a visit.

We arrived on a Tuesday in early October and the campground was nearly full. We took site #24 which they call a "buddy" site. Two sites share a common space but each has its own water/electric hookups, table and fire ring. Most of the other sites are down the hill and next to the lake. You can fish from the shore or launch a boat from the ramp. There used to be a pier but it was damaged in a flood. Hopefully it will be rebuilt at some point. You can see it in the Google satellite view. Site #24, our site, is near the top of the hill away from the others and doesn't have direct access to the waters' edge but there is sort of a view of the lake through the trees.
The rate for most of the sites is $15 a night. There's one primitive site for $13 that's also off by itself with no water/electric and no view of the lake. There's a 50% discount for National Park Senior and Access card holders. The buddy site #24 is $21 and we were told the next day that it didn't qualify for the discount even though there was no mention of that at the self-pay station. They were very nice about it and didn't make us pay the extra for the first night but we didn't want to pay $21 so we checked out and moved down the road to Beard's Lake.
If you like privacy, the primitive and the buddy sites are off by themselves. Although, the buddy site would be less than private if you end up with a buddy. To be honest, I wasn't clear if your $21 paid for both sites of just one.
On the plus side, it's a short walk to a bathhouse that has two private bathrooms with hot showers. These showers don't get as much use as the ones down by the lakeside sites, and did I mention they're private? The lakeside showers are inside the men's and women's restrooms.
Down the hill, by the lakeside there are benches where you can watch the sunset over the lake and there's paved parking along the shore. There's a playground but it had some damage and was roped off when we were there. At the top of the hill, near the pay station is a bird-watching deck. Across the road from the campground entrance, is the dump station. We didn't try our phones at the lakeside but up on the hill at our site we had 2 bars of ATT and Verizon - enough to watch Netflix.
The campground and the dump station are open March 1st - October 31st. This is a really nice campground but maybe don't show up without reservations like we did if you have a preference to be near the water. We definitely would have stayed several days if sites had been available and it was easy to see why they weren’t.