Cagle Recreation Area

The Sam Houston National Forest Cagle Recreation Area has two camping loops both with full hookup campsites. In this video, I provide a walking tour of the Cagle Recreation Area within the Sam Houston National Forest in Texas. I show you campground amenities and the best campsites in the video. Cagle Recreation Area offers affordable RV camping with direct access to Lake Conroe. Verizon cellular service clocked in at 1.67 Mbps download speed and 0.05 Mbps upload speed. AT&T cellular service clocked in at 6.18 Mbps download speed and 0.16 Mbps upload speed. T-Mobile cellular service clocked in at 7.36 Mbps download speed and 0.65 Mbps upload speed.

Pros
Senior pass discount
Quick check-in (in fact, we were still backing into our site) by camp host who delivered vehicle pass
Asphalt parking pad surrounded by grass
Non moveable metal frame wooden picnic table on an oversized concrete slab
Metal fire ring with cooking grate
Lantern pole
Shady site #4
Spacious area between campsites
Quiet
Good night sky viewing as there are no street lights in park and shower/toilet facility had minimum lighting

Cons
Campers ignore basic rules/courtesy such as keeping dogs on leash and letting children run thru everyone’s campsites
Entrance gate unmanned (closed) 24/7 so lots of “drive-by” gawkers in the campground
Non campers consistently showered in the campground showers facility
Gates to campground not locked overnight
TP not available in women's restroom SWEETGUM most of the 2 nights of our stay
No security drive-throughs by park staff
Unlevel parking pad Site #4
No privacy from any other campers as there is absolutely no brush/vegetation between sites
No firewood for sale in park
Non-climate controlled shower/toilet building, but did have a box fan sitting on the floor running, but it was a sweatbox inside
Site picnic table at the rear of the site and it was anchored to the concrete pad
No WiFi
1 bar Verizon

Reserved 183 days prior to arrival.
PROS
Quiet even on Halloween weekend except for road noise from FM1375
Night sky friendly. NO STREET LIGHTS in Campground!
Two FHU Campgrounds. Sweet Gum with 19 sites and Sycamore with 28 sites.
Metal picnic table
Cooking grill on metal fire ring
Site level and asphault parking pad in good condition
Friendly camp host who came directly to site on our second day for our check-in
Not charged a fee to make my own on-line reservation
Campsite discount with America the Beautiful Pass
Great KROGER MARKETPLACE store along I45 in Willis
Laundromat in New Waverly

CONS
Campsite water hook-up sprayed water everywhere. Even tried using plumber Teflon tape that didn’t even reduce the large spray. Talked to camp host about it and he just laughed and agreed it was needing some repairs, but no one ever came by and it sprayed like that for 4 nights! We had quite a large puddle.
Security gates are NOT closed overnight
Extra high sided campfire ring
No privacy from any other campsites
Toilet/shower facility without temperature control
4 Camp Hosts for 47 campsites. Sweet Gum Loop #11 Camp Host site packed to the max with all kinds of stuff that isn’t seen at other Camp Host sites. Definitely hording homesteaders.
Only park amenity is boat ramp for Lake Conroe.
No swimming permitted.
Never saw any park rangers or park security driving through campground
Wildlife sightings of grey squirrels
No campfire wood for sale in park
Zero to 1 bar AT&T; most of the time zero bars
No park Wifi
No public phone to make emergency 9-1-1 phone call

The Cagle Recreation area in Sam Houston National Forest is a quiet oasis in the middle of huge pine trees. We stayed in site 14 in the Sugargum area. It was next to site 13 which was closed off as “emergency site” only. the camp host lives in site 11. There was no one at the entrance of the Cagle Rec area so we just proceeded to our site. Our name was on a paper on a post at the site and the camp host later met us to give us a parking permit for the truck. this site showed next to the road, but it was far enough away that we didnt even notice. Also, there isnt a lot of traffic on that road, so it was fine as far as road noise. We had a fire pit, and lamp post. the iron picnic table was on a concrete pad. One bar of AT&T and one bar of verizon. 23 OTA channels if you want to watch tv.

My wife and I camped in Site 9, which was fantastic. It was super easy to back our 22' travel trailer into the site, with a nice 45 degree angle from the loop road. The site was nice and level left/right and only slightly downhill towards the rear of the trailer. We had a fantastic view of forest and nature, with the lake visible through the trees. There were no immediate neighbors on either side of the site, making for a very spacious and private experience. The site had full hookups, along with a steel picnic table and fire ring. There was even a cute little coat hook pole near the fire. There is also a nice semi-paved trail immediately behind the site that wound it's way down to the lake, over to the boat dock, and back. Overall we had a great time on our shakedown trip for 2021 (despite the impending ice storm and accidentally locking ourselves out of the trailer on the very first night). Only negative of the weekend was the lack of cell service... not bad when you want to disconnect but not good when you lock yourself out of your trailer!

Cagle Recreation Area Campground consists of two loops, the Sweet Gum loop (sites 1-19) which is located away from the lake and the SYME loop (sites 20+) which is located close to the lake. Both loops are located among the pines in mowed grassy area. The sites are large and there is significant separation between the sites so even though there is no screening vegetation, you will not notice your neighbors. We stayed in the Sweet Gum loop and found it peaceful and relaxing. The SYME loop may be noisier because it is near the boat ramp area which sees quite a bit of day use. As a bonus though, a few of the sites in this loop have short paths down to the lake shore and some campers had beached their boats near their camp.

The campsites consist of asphalt pads for your RV, a gravel tent pad, and a concrete pad for the picnic table, in addition to a fire ring. Electricity was solid while we were there, though water pressure was fairly low. My one concern about the site was that the sewer connection was quite high (or my trailer was quite low). I did need to park far forward to get enough drop to empty my tanks. This seemed to be an issue on many sites, with the rear of the site being lower than the front. Side-to-side we had no issues being level. Mobile coverage is a bit more difficult the farther you get from the lake. So if connections are important, the SYME loop may be best.

One nice feature of the park we enjoyed was the loop trail that circled the campground. It is about 2.5 miles long and follows the lakeshore for a while and then winds back through the pine forest. It made for a lovely walk every day. There is another shorter loop trail down near the boat ramp as well. There are other trails in the nearby forest that you can drive to and then walk through the forest.

The nice thing about this campground is how convenient it is to get into the Houston suburbs. It's only about 30 minutes to The Woodlands if you need to get some shopping done and Conroe is even closer. So it makes a good base for visiting Houston.