North Campground

Merrick State Park has two distinct campgrounds. This review is for the North Campground. Due to flooding, the South Campground (all non-electric, but terrific for tent camping) was closed, although it seemed to us it was just about ready to reopen.

This is a tough park to rate, so we'll go with Pros and Cons.

Pros:
- Great access to the Mississippi River from the boat launch.
- The outer sites in the loop were more private than inner loop sites, which were fairly open.
- Lots of wildlife. Deer, birds, and turtles. Lots of turtles.
- A strong park friends group with solid programs. If not for them, I'm not sure there'd be a park.
- Small park and campground, not a lot of traffic.
- Cheap and good quality firewood.

Cons:
- Noise. A racetrack about a half mile away runs on Friday nights. A two-track mainline freight train passes within 200 yards about every other hour. Horns blow. The camper shakes. We could cope with that. The killer was some kind of rock crushing operation just north of the park that ran well into the night.
- Due to flooding, kayak rentals were difficult.
- This park, being very old, had an small, old contact station that, interestingly, was staffed by the camp hosts. In general, they had the camp hosts do too many things. Only saw a Park Ranger once, and didn't see any other park employees (i.e. shower building cleaners).
- The hose at the fill station hadn't been change in years, and the thread was stripped. We had to fill from cans. That should never happen. No excuse.
- Not good for work camping.

There are a string of state parks in Wisconsin along the Mississippi River. All are better than one. Shame that our politicians in Madison care more about tax cuts than taking care of their state parks. This one could be so much better.