Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Garden City, KS

This was our last stop in our Tour de Kansas. The landscape felt more like the west than the flatlands of Kansas we had come to love. We pulled in on a Thurs. The campground was almost empty. Buy Friday afternoon, it was pretty full. By Sunday afternoon, we had it to our self again. We got a pull through site with 30 and 50 amp. Only 1 shower house was open in early April. But, it was 4 individual rooms, not common area setup.

The lake was small but very pretty, easy to kayak, SUP and fish. There are a few short trails to hike. As other have mentioned, there are amazing sites within 20 miles. The Little Jerusalem SP is a must. In the area, we saw turkey, owl, lots of buzzards, geese, albino buffelo and more cows than i have seen in one place. On Saturday, the local car club drove their vintage cars to the park for a pop up car show. The people were very nice. Garden City is about 40 miles away and offers everything you could want, brewery, good food, shopping galore, etc.

There is not a lot to see on the flat western plains of Kansas and you would not see this state park either if you didn’t know it was there. This lake is like a sunken oasis of trees and water. The area itself was great! There’s even a few histoical sites to visit and it is close to Monument Rocks, which is what bought us to Kansas.

The campground, however, is just ok. Perhaps it would’ve been better if they had rain to green up the grass, but it was mostly brown in June when we camped there. They have a large selection of sites and on a Monday night in June, we had many choices available for tent camping. It appeared that most who camp here have an rv and those spaces looked about full. Thankfully, those are two different areas of the campground because they were packed into a parking lot style campground. The tent area probably would’ve looked packed in too since the sites are small, but with only a handful of tents, we had some space.

One thing that did limit our choice of sites was a LARGE herd of geese that covered all of the lakeside sites as well as the next row in. I didn’t want to set up in bird poop in the dry grass so the sites with a decent view were out. We did luck out and find site 2 of the Flatland area which was up above the water line so the geese couldn’t swim up and walk in. Site 2 had a great view of the lake and was set apart from the other sites along with site 1. Site 1 would’ve been the better site but it was occupied by a tent that appeared to have been abandoned. Site 2 was not level by any means, in fact it sloped quite a bit compared to the rest of the sites. There was no tent pads, which would’ve helped a lot for this site. We just set up so our heads would be at the high end and it worked. It was too nice of a view to let a bumpy sloping site stop us!

The campground has a host and everyone was quiet for the night. We slept pretty well, other than the high humidity of Kansas.

The bathhouse left a lot to be desired. A good cleaning to remove dead bugs would’ve went a long way. A fresh coat of paint would make it inviting. It looked like nobody had checked on its’ condition for many years. We were hoping to use the showers, but they were no cleaner and had an odd design with no doors or shower curtains. The lighting was very dim as well, making it all look a little too creepy for a shower there. A fresh coat of paint, brighter lighting, some shower curtains, and a good scrub down would make this facility SO much better! We also checked the other batthouse on the opposite side of the lake and it was the same way...only creepier because there was one lone rv camped near it.

Overall, I would not camp here again unless I read some reviews indicating the the bathhouse has been improved. It’s not a dealbreaker to not have a shower, but if this campground had been fuller, the geese all over the sites may have been. If you have an rv and pay for full hookups, you might like this campground. If you are tent camping, keep looking.

Before I do my review here, I want to point out that we own a small Toy Poodle and are very conscience of our dogs bio footprint in the environment and always pick up after he uses the bathroom. So here is our experience that really upset our family and my in-laws. I was walking my dog to the grass area and noticed my dog was wanting to go to the bathroom on the gravel. I pulled my dog quickly over to the grass area and picked up his waste to throw away. Little did I realize my dog had dropped a piece of poop before getting to the grass, I didn’t see it but the owner said he watched us and saw my dog poop in the gravel without me picking it up. I returned to my camper and 15 min later I receive a knock at my door and the owner tells me that I left my dogs poop and here it is. He slammed his shovel against the gravel on the ground, dropping a ping ball size poop on my front steps. I felt really bad that I didn’t see it and apologized but as soon as I did the owner tells me this is my first and only warning, if it happens again then we’ll be gone! We apologized a second time and the owner just stared at us angrily and walked away without acknowledging the apology or saying anything further. Me, my wife, my son and my mother and father in-law were jaw dropping shocked. We had stayed here several times before, made this our campground of choice in Dodge City when ever we visit and we’ve never had any issues. We pay good money to stay in their campground every year so a little bit of couth goes a long way in customer service. I was mortified that anyone who owns a campground would talk to someone and threaten to kick them out because of an honest and rather minor mistake. All he had to do was stop by and tell me he saw my dog poop in the road and to please double check your dog while walking him. What further put salt in the womb is when me and my wife went to the front desk to sign in from the night before and we confronted the owner that we didn’t know that our dog had pooped on the lot and again apologized. We then told him that all he had to do was be nice about it and he responded, “I was nice about it”. We argued politely for a minute that he was not nice and there’s no reason to talk to us like we’re little children. We finally gave up rationalizing with him and left. All over town and in front of their campground it’s advertised that their campground is for sale so maybe he’s having a very bad morning or there’s some added stress because their campground is for sale or maybe it’s the “I don’t care” attitude now but one thing is for sure, my family and my in-laws will never make this our weekend home for our mini vacations anymore. My advise is go to the brand new KOA campground right up the street where they don’t treat the customers like this, who actually care how they treat their customers. Plus it’s a heck of a lot nicer with concrete pads, new and very nice facilities. GunSmoke campground is very noisy because of the highway it sits right up against with very crowded campsites on the front half of the campground. They show pictures on the internet of the rear newer addition but not the crowed older section.