Ferne Clyffe State Park

Was here for late April visit for 4 nights. That time of year is always iffy, and it rained. Sun was out for short periods. Too wet to explore the trails, but used this as a jumping off place to explore Southern Illinois, especially Shawnee National Forest areas, Paducah, Ky (Quilt Museum) and Land Between the Lakes area.

Nice site away from the main ring of camp sites. Very quiet until weekend, and more campers arrived.
Would definitely visit again, perhaps in fall...

We stopped here simply because we were passing through while on a long roadtrip and I was desperate for a hookup so I could use my heater for a night. I called ahead to ask about the protocol for showing up after hours and the ranger told me to pick any open spot and he’d catch up with us in the morning. It was mid March and there were only three RVs parked throughout a spacious campground. I don’t remember exactly but I think there’s around 60+ sites. All sites seemed level. The showers were closed since it was still off season but there were vault toilets. The ranger stopped by our van around 9/10am to collect payment. He offered a map of the park and recommended we check out the trails. We did one of the waterfall trails and it was really beautiful. I only wish we had been there during a better season to get the full effect of the park.

We attributed most of our negative experience to the total lack of visibility of the camphost. On the nice spring weekend that we stayed here, the campground was filled with locals, many of whom seemed to know each other, and who had lots of local friends. By Saturday afternoon the 2 vehicle per site rule was a joke, with three and sometimes four vehicles in each site. Campers parked near the "common" water spigots chose to turn them into their personal water lines with 100 foot hoses. There were dogs everywhere barking at each other constantly, kids were everywhere playing various games (and, weirdly, peeing on trees despite have a bathhouse right in the campground). Virtually every campsite had a campfire going continuously for both weekend days, making it very smoky. The camphost never bothered to check with us as to whether we were actually the people with the reservation for the site (there is no office to check in) and we heard from other campers that the hosts were letting some campers stay for free because of personal relationships. We were not impressed withe the management, obviously.

Apart from that issue, the sites are gravel and level-ish, and electricity worked fine, but the multiple loops and sites were too close together with no foliage in between even without the problem of excess vehicles. It was close to being like a private parking lot, not a state park. The bathhouses were fairly dated and grungy; my husband declined to use the shower. There are quite a few hikes in the park, but most of the trailheads are about 1-2 miles down a road from the campground, with no signage for the trails and no obvious way to get a trail map. The park felt safe and was convenient for our route, but we would not stay here again.

Great campground with several options for camping. They have electrical hookups, walk-in tent camping and backpacking sites. The showers are warm and all facilities were clean and well maintained. Nice little playground for the kids to congregate and make friends. Several amazing hikes that include waterfalls, boulders for climbing and creeks leave from campground and surrounding area.

The area drains pretty well but all the fire rings are at ground level. When we arrived it was raining so it took a day for them to dry out and be usable.