Parker Dam State Park

The campground is small & clean. We stayed in the dog section with our pup which is in the back loop of the campground. We were told we could only walk our dog in that section. We were walking to a trail head to do some hiking, when one of the camp hosts stopped us & said we couldn’t bring our dog into that section. It was the only way to get to that trailhead from the campground. There was no parking at the trailhead located off the path to the amphitheater, so we couldn’t drive to the trailhead. We felt trapped in the back section of the campground & not able to give our dog the exercise he needed unless we got in our vehicle & drove to a trailhead (which we can do from home). We will not be returning. We use our camp site as our base camp for hiking. We were restricted from enjoying the trails from the campground with our dog because there was no way to access those trails from the dog section.

My granddaughters and I spent 2 nights at site 92. Their T-Mobile phones got 1 bar if they found the right spot to stand. My Verizon Hotspot and Note 20 Ultra got nothing. Every now and then a random text would make it in but that's it. The pad for the camper was level side to side but sloped front to back. Nearly bottomed out my jack trying to get level. The rest of the site was not level at all and I had to use leveling blocks under the picnic table to make it usable. The site was against the woods and we only had to look at the back of the camper in site 94. Reasonably private. Site 94 is next to a tent site. Those folks spent the day looking at each other almost as though they were together.. only they weren't. No privacy for them at all. The nearest men's room toilets were clean but didn't flush right. I had to push the button multiple times to empty the bowl for the next guy. People were all friendly. Pretty scenery. Dump stations are adequate. 15 minutes to the nearest town.

Great little campsite. All the staff (campground hosts, rangers, and all other) were very friendly and helpful. This campground was one of the quietest places I've ever camped at. All the sites are nice sized. You're not crowding your neighbor. There is a marked off section that allows pets. If you have a pet, make sure you're reserving in the pet friendly side of the campground. Although they are not perfectly level, all the sites are paved. A nice touch at this campground is that your site number is not only carved into a post near your site it's painted on the asphalt at the front of your site! The park is bout half an hour away from Elk Country Visitor Center. About 20 minutes away from Clearfield or Dubois.

The only complaint I might have is our site was a little short for our little 20 foot trailer and truck. I would have liked the site to be a foot or two longer so that I didn't have to park in the grass after unhitching.

Trails around the park were well maintained and well marked. There's a nice lake with swimming area and boat launch. Both of these are public accessible and free.

My wife has informed me that her biggest complaint about this park is that it's too far away to visit regularly.