Grayson Lake State Park Campground

Grayson Lake State Park- East Kentucky. So, we had reservations for Carter Caves, but they canceled on me due to redoing the campground. I was fortunate to find a site at Grayson Lake for Wednesday & Thursday night. 

This is a very nice campground at a small state park roughly 10 miles from Carter Caves. Most of it is campground & golf course, with 2 trails.

 Grayson Lake has 71 sites with water& electric. There's a dump station. There's 2 playgrounds. 2 bathhouses. They are on the high side of state park clean. I didn't see any spider webs or bugs.

 The area was meticulously mowed & clean- no trash at the site or fire pit. The staff at check were friendly & helpful. 

We were at site 19 close to the bathhouse. A nice site, but that row had full sun. There were many nice sites, but many had a serious incline. Stay away from site 39 - that has a good view of the wastewater treatment plant!

Grayson Lake is part of a larger area managed by the US Army Corp of Engineers. There's a lot of boating & fishing. We had a good time & if in the area would stay again!

We stayed here in May 2023.  My family had two sites #3 & #5.  We had room to back my RV (37ft with 50 amp hookups) in with just enough room to park a medium SUV in front.  We ended up parking my boat and truck in the grass beside the campsite when we saw other people in the grass.  Campers were coming in and turning crossways of the the sites behind the site blacktop in the grass.  We didn't use the bathhouse. Water was available, but shared with another site. I used a 50 ft. hose with plenty of slack to reach.  Very walkable and bike friendly.  It has 2 playgrounds and plenty of grassy area for kids to play.  Some sites are shaded, while some of the inner circle ones were in the sun.  Only one dump station so we had to wait a while.  Coming into the campground, there is no signs that say campground.  It just looks like the turn in for the golf course and you may think you are lost until you get past the golf course entrance.  Some sites look very sloped so be prepared.  Both of my sites were pretty flat.  Will definitely return. No AT&T service at all and no WIFI.

This state park was easy to find and we followed our RV GPS and the multiple signage to the golf course and campground(CG) area. Check in was a breeze at the gate and we headed in to find back-in site 30 with electric(50/30 AMP) and water. We were in a small cul de sac that we had to go through a tight spot with trees to get to, but had no issues getting our 39’ 5th wheel through. Once in the cul de sac, it was wide open and we easily backed into the 48’ asphalt pad(per reservation info on site lengths that seemed accurate). As we have a F450, we had to disconnect to get out of the road but the CG had no issues with you parking on the grass. We noticed that multiple campers didn’t even park on the asphalt site pad and instead moved their rigs onto the grass using the pad like a driveway. There are no FHUs. The electric was placed towards the center of the pad and worked well. The water spigots for 30 and 31 were located together and were on our door side so I needed to run about 35’ of hose going under the rig to connect. Water pressure was pretty good at around 42 psi. We got 4 bars on Verizon and a handful of OTA channels, but no major networks. We had a clear shot to the southern sky, as did the other cul de sac sites, for satellite but did not use our dish. The main CG has more tree cover so satellite service could be iffy depending on your site selection. Not all sites in this park are level with some having steep slopes. As far as bigger rigs, being able to back past the asphalt pad is a plus. The longest site in the park seemed to be pull through 50, which was also spacious but with some slope. Our site was spacious out the back and utilities side with 31 being nearby. During the weekend we got foot traffic directly through our site versus using the cut grass path on the back of our site that leads to the water. Sadly it was a mix of kids and grownups. There was about 1/2 mix of RV and tent campers. The partiers were up near the bathhouse and playground but were respectful of quiet hours. We did enjoy walking our dogs around the CG and trails. On one hike, we went down the cut grass swath behind us to the trail along the water and went right. This steep little winding trail brought us right back up to our area of the CG about 150 yards away. That trail is not one of the park’s formal trails but at the end linked to the Heritage trail where it ends near our loop. So we went up by the gate where the formal trails, Lick Falls and Heritage start as they are better trails. The dump station sits where the road coming into and out of the CG intersect, so when we got in line to dump around 11:00 AM vehicles were trying to get around the dumpers. If you plan to depart or leave or come back into the CG on Sunday, plan accordingly. We really enjoyed our 3 day stay and plan to come back during the week to kayak and again play the golf course.

Negatives: This campground is pretty hilly. Many of the spots don't have a great space for a tent. The flattest spots are in the middle of the circle with an open field behind them (but then you won't have any privacy or tree coverage). Even the RV camping on the inside of the loop across from us had its front tires suspended about a foot in the air to make it level though. Considering the flat spots are very limited, I don't think its a great tent campground and geared more towards RVs. One side of the campground runs against a golf course. If you're tent camping over a weekend, be prepared to have golfers tee-ing off next to you beginning at 7am. On Monday morning, be prepared for them to start mowing at 7am. The opposite side of the campground sits against a tree-line and therefore has much better spots. Many of the picnic tables are in pretty rough shape. The ones that have been replaced were done with the metal style that is dipped in plastic and are much sturdier. Likewise, some of the firepits are in pretty bad shape. I'd recommend having a grill grate with you just in case if you cook over the fire like we do. The firewood that is sold at the campground is kept in a shed but it was very wet, there also aren't any options around for buying wood outside the park. The office is supposed to be open until 6pm but one night it was closed earlier and the camp host wasn't on premises all weekend so we were stuck resorting to finding and burning downfall to get dinner cooked. 

The positives: Its a good location and there are plenty of kayaking spots on Grayson Lake. Going to "The Grotto" aka Clifty Falls is a must (4.5 mile round trip). The same boat ramp has a decent place to get in and swim. Lick Falls Loop hike can be done from the campground and was nice (4.5 miles). We also kayaked the Southern portion of Grayson Lake in Laurel Gorge and that was much quieter than the Clifty Falls area. The campground bathrooms were clean. Most of the campsites were a decent size.