Crystal Lake Campground

This is a reservation only campground but there were openings the whole 3 nights we stayed during the week. Cell service is minimal. If you don’t have reservations you use the yellow phone at the crystal lake visitor center at the enterance to the park to make one. The lake is non motor, but sandy bottom and very clear. We will return! There is another campground called Firefly not far from here that is also very nice and on the bike trail. Boulder Junction is a nice little town you can bike to…about 11 miles.

This campground is one of 3 campgrounds clustered together alongside the many lakes of the Northern Highlands - American Legion State Forest near Mantowish Waters. There is a State Park nearby as well as other state-run campgrounds in this large forested northeast corner of Wisconsin. Wisconsin DNR manages 863 campsites in the forest. There are tons of recreation opportunities in the area. The forest is mixed deciduous and conifer and the first hints of beautiful fall color were appearing in early October.

Crystal Lake, Musky (Muskellunge) Lake and Firefly Lake campgrounds are administered from the office at the entrance to Crystal Lake. Slightly more than half the available sites are reservable, the rest first-come, first-served. We arrived on a Thursday afternoon in October with no reservation looking to stay only one night. You go into the office and pre-select a campsite sight unseen. We were told that if we had trouble fitting into our site we could come back and get another site assigned.

Wisconsin parks are very expensive for non-residents. A dry camping site was $25 plus you have to buy an $11 daily vehicle permit. There is an annual pass available to non-residents for $38.

The campsites are set in thickly forested loops along the 3 lakes. We lucked out and snagged a waterfront site. It was a challenge to get our fifth wheel into the driveway which was perpendicular to the narrow loop road but we made it. The dry-camping sites are large, fairly level and hard-packed sand which ended up getting into everything. But being on the water meant setting up chairs in front of your site along the lake to enjoy the sunset, birds and the kayakers as they paddled the motor-free lake. Crystal Lake campground had one centrally located bathroom with flush toilets, showers and a water faucet with potable water. Vault toilets and hand pumps for water are scattered throughout the campground. There’s a 3 lane dump station at the exit.

The Wisconsin Parks website lists a 50’ max RV size for these campgrounds but I would view that with caution. The loop roads are fairly twisty and narrow. Our tall 5er hit a few branches on the way to our site. Some driveways have trees strategically placed to make backing in difficult. We might not have made it into the site if the campsite across had been occupied.

Since it was only one night we chose not to bother with the cell booster. We could get text messages but not make phone calls or get internet.