Hook Lake Campground

Free camping in Ohio’s newest state park - check out Hook Lake Campground, Jesse Owens State Park in Ohio. This is a primitive camping, boondocking, and dry camping area with numbered sites that are available on a first come, first-served basis. Free camping at the Hook Lake Campground is limited to 14 days. There are multiple vault toilets and a trash dumpsters at the campground. Registration is required at the on-site kiosk. There is no Verizon or AT&T cellular service at this location. This campground is former AEP Recreation Land. Grid coordinates are as follows: 39.7279, -81.7079 Our campsite video tour is uploaded here on Campendium for your immediate reference.

This area is gorgeous!! The campground itself is beautiful as well. 2 large lakes for fishing, kids loved that. I took my 2 boys & our 2 dogs. There were bugs, but it’s camping in the woods so we were prepared for that! There were lined trash cans at each site (awesome) and plenty of clean portapotties.

As a woman traveling alone, with my kids, this is the first time I’ve ever been a little nervous at a campground. There were many cars driving through with ppl that weren’t doing the “friendly camper wave” and appeared to be addicts of some kind. Also, at least 3 different campsites were verbally fighting, enough to make my young teens nervous to fish without me there. By 7:30am the campers next to us were loudly telling each other to “shut the F up” & they loved saying the F word alllll day long. I personally never experienced this before at a campground. I would NOT come back here alone again, only in a group and honestly I’d probably go to a pay site.

While heading south I came across the AEP ReCreation Land. In addition to 6 free campgrounds (4 - AEP, 2 at Jesse Ownes), it also has hunting, hiking, The Wilds and MTB trails. This part of Ohio is much more southern than midwestern so it is very disorienting. The rollercoaster backroads will thrill the kids as well as Big Muskie. I explored the camping areas - each has its own personality and layout. What they have in common is that they are very nicely maintained with a lined waste can for nearly every campsite, and very clean. There is an assortment of characters at each campground, from hermits in sagging mossy tents to tarp covered hunters cabin campers. There are serious outdoorsmen here due to hunting season but I'm sure warmer weather brings out recreational 'comfort campers' like myself. I ended up at Hook Lake as it was the most developed of all the campgrounds, right off of Hwy 83, with a large open camping area around the lake plus many sites in the wooded loop above the lake. The sites aren't numbered so wherever there is picnic table and a fire ring is available. Registration is nothing more than signing the form at the bulletin board in each campground, though I noticed several people had printed out the registration form online (link provided in the description area above). Campsites are basic, some more suited for car and truck camping, but others good enough for a medium-sized rig. All had vault toilets, but water is hit or miss. The antique spigots appeared to be in working order at only some of the campgrounds, so bring water to be on the safe side. Considering this is an old strip mining region might be a good reason to bring water. Nearly all these campgrounds had loop roads for easy turn arounds but scout ahead if you can't see as some roads end up being a one way out to narrow or gravel roads. I posted additional photos for this and some of the other campgrounds in the area so I hope they help. With a booster and AT&T Spark I had a fairly good signal while camped near the entrance. But with the wet weather is tended to drop out a good bit. Few of the other campgrounds are as open as Hook Lake, so as other reviewers have noted, there isn't much of a signal. If in a pinch, the visitor center at The Wilds has pretty robust WiFi.

Beautiful quiet spot by the lake. Neighbors are within shouting distance but not right up on you. Not that there were that many in November, but there were a few hearty souls out and some boy scouts. Perfect fall camping for us.

Site was mildly sloped but plenty of room for our small camper and the car. Tent would be no problem. Other sites had more room for larger vehicles. Cell service out by the fire, but not in the camper.

Camped here July 2017
This is an AEP property (American Electric Power) and the campsites are very clean.
Fire ring, table and trash cans. There is pumped well water for drinking and a fishing pond for kids only. However there are 100's of fishing spots all over the place and canoeing, not motors.
This camp ground is very quiet. It's 9 miles outside McConnellsville, OH. Cell service was shakey but great camping for sure. Will be back very soon.