Pine Lake State Park

This state park surrounds pretty little Pine Lake just outside a Eldora Iowa. The campground is 6 miles south of US Hwy 20. It's on County Hwy S56 which skirts the western edge of the park. The lake has 2 sections, an upper and lower section connected by a channel.

The campground is on a slope above the upper lake with 124 campsites. Campsites are in several loops to the left and right of the entrance. Most sites are reservable but there are about 31 first-come, first-served sites. You can select an empty reservation site on a night by night basis. Most sites are electric only, some 50 amp and some 30 amp. There are some tent/dry camping sites as well as one full hookup site near the dump station. We paid $16 a night for an electric only site. Since the campground is set on a slope the sites tend to slope as well and many will require some amount of leveling. The sites are grassy, small and set close together with no underbrush for privacy however in the off season and during the week there's plenty of space for everyone. Large oaks and black walnut trees provide shade in the summer. There are 2 bathrooms with flush toilets, one bathroom has a separate shower area as well. There's a dump station at the entrance. Water faucets are scattered throughout the camping loops and are threaded if you need to fill tanks. There are no signs but I'd guess the water is shut off in the winter months. There's a vault toilet in the adjacent picnic and boat launch area. There's also a children's play area in the area above the boat launch.

The primary access to the water is from the boat launch immediately south of the campground. There's a maintained beach area at the lower lake accessible from the campground via a paved walking & bike trail that runs through much of the park. Most of the shoreline has been left natural and is not easily accessible. A boat launch is located at the extreme southern end of the lake by a spillway as well as the one next to the campground. At the north end of the lake, there's a golf course.

Nearby Eldora has several restaurants, 2 grocery stores and a couple of gas stations. It's the Hardin County seat so there's a large courthouse with a clock tower in the center of town.

Verizon service is a steady 3 bars. Speedtest shows 9.8 Mbps up and 4.9 down.