Best Equestrian Camping near Alden, MN

Recent Equestrian Reviews in Alden

62 Reviews of 6 Alden Campgrounds

• 

  Lee D.

  Legend

  

  Oct. 8, 2024

  Clear Lake State Park Campground

  Surprisingly quiet campground on a summer weekend

  We tend to stay at campgrounds during the off or shoulder season for a quieter experience so it was with some apprehension that we reserved this campground for a summer weekend so that we could meet friends for Paddlefest. We were happy to discover that despite being a full campground, it was quiet at almost all hours of the day and night. It was, however, an entirely different story on the lake itself, where boats gathered all day to party!

  There is little separation between the sites but there are trees located throughout, some of which provide shade to the site. The camper pads were a mix of dirt and gravel and mostly level. We were lucky to snag Site 34 (reserved about three months in advance) – it was on the end, making it a much larger site than the interior sites (all end sites in our section were larger) and we had plenty of shade trees, a welcome relief on a very hot weekend. 

  The paved roads leading to the sites are very narrow and would appear to be one-way but are not designated as such, resulting in some confusion. The site numbers are only listed on one side, even though most of the sites appeared to be pull-through. 

  The restrooms and showers were clean and had soap and (dated) air dryers. 

  Overall, we had a very pleasant two-night stay even though we were prepared for a different experience.

• R

  Roger

  Guide

  

  Sep. 16, 2024

  Pilot Knob State Park — Pilot Knob State Preserve

  Great place!

  Standard site without electric was only $10.00 a night which includes a nearby water spigot to fill your tank with. Put toilets and showers available. The friendly hosts made a point to come by to chat. Two fawns were born there, under one of the picnic tables and they were around all weekend. I’ll be back !

• R

  Roger

  Guide

  

  Sep. 14, 2024

  Pilot Knob State Park — Pilot Knob State Preserve

  Great site to camp - non electric sites are $10.00 -“and electric are $18.00

  Nice place to spend the weekend or a week! Came in late and a resident helped me find a great spot. When driving to my site two fawns were laying near the playground.

• J

  Janet K.

  Guide

  

  Aug. 15, 2024

  Clear Lake State Park Campground

  Nice but crowded campground

  Nice campground with grassy pull thru sites. But very close together. If full, you would have no privacy. Fortunately, it was 1/4 full, so no problem. Bathrooms clean, nice warm showers! Nice beach, lots to do. Would be a fun place if you don’t mind camping next to neighbors!

• 

  Vanessa B.

  Scout

  

  May. 27, 2024

  Kamp Dels

  Camp Dels

  Camp Dels Review

  Worth the read!

  Charges:

  They charged us half of what my cousin next to us got charged and we got the same thing but mine should have been more because I had 3 more adults. And it was 500$ for 3 nights. We should have just went and rented out a house. 

  On the last day we went up to get our bills fixed and it took 40 min for them to figure out the issue, wrote down the totals and said we'll charge the cards at 11 am when the other guy comes in. At 11am we went back up for our receipts and it took them another 20 min to figure it out. He wanted to send us away saying. I'll figure it out and email it to you. I said no that doesn't work for me I'll take it now. He said what would you like me to do. So I had to spell it out for him and said "I want you to take the full amount your charging me, subtract the deposit, then subtract the payment I made when I came on Friday, and now tell me what I owe today, run that amount on my card right now and give me the receipt and do the same for the other site we had too. It's not hard. However you have to do it in your computer you figure it out, I just want to go home. I'll wait" he said your right it's not hard. I said start over completely if you want I don't care. I just want my receipts. (They couldn't even figure out math and how simple it was. What are they going to do if there computers ever fail totally) it was painfully funny to endure both times I sat through Watching with my bill!

  Night time:

  So at night get ready to be harassed every 30 minutes to a hour by workers trying to bully you to bed every night if you choose to stay up past 11pm. And they pick out the 1 drunk guy in your group to try and cope with when the sober one is saying "hey I'm sober. I don't drink. Can you please answer and talk to me" but they are rude to you and refuse. They pick at the drunk guy. But that was every night. All 3 nights. 1st time they come it is 1guy. 2nd time 2guys. 3rd time 3guys come. 4th time 4guys. 5th time 4guys come. They start at 11pm telling people to turn off all music (even on the phone turned way down. Even watching a video outside. Even if your humming/singing together, lol he said no/off, now). Of course we complied though.

  At 12am they say time for bed and then start tying to reason with you about coming back for a time when it's going to be all over at. At 12:30/1am they will come back a 3rd time and start bullying again. And say put it out now and throw a fit when you don't completely comply. So they say "I'll be back in 15 min and we are done, fire goes out and you are all going to bed". So at 1:15 perfectly on time their gang comes to harass you adults to go to bed. He screams I'm not leaving until your fires out and your all in bed. I tell him to shhhhhh! And now the drunk guy who paid 500$ to be here gets his wood doused with water and is livid. And some of us drop off every time they come because they are so rude and don't want to deal with it but I'm sober and an adult and No one is going to put me to bed. All the adults there are waisted all day and not watching their kids. And now I know why. We talk to all our neighbors plus we are there with about 10 other scattered around sites and every neighbor couldn't believe what they were doing saying we weren't even loud. We had no music and a small fire with a few people. I kept walking 5 away to go pee and I couldn't hear our group any of the nights. And we weren't even all at 1 fire either.

  * And throughout every interaction the non-drinker asks respectively (me) where in your rules or on the website does it say adults have a bed time by 1am and you guys go around harassing repeatedly trying to cause problems starting at 11pm and bully them them to bed???? Maybe you should be more transparent or be more humble and kind with your discretion. No one is being loud and belligerent. But I was ignored. Because if it had sad that on line or had I been warned about the worker's behavior after 11pm we wouldn't have came. We ourselves had 2 spots. The guy we knew who invited us had like 8 spots with him and needless to say none of us and anyone we know will ever come to 

  Camp Hels. 

  The workers/people:

  Some shouldn't work with the public. But they are all family! All related just about! And they let you know it! Some of them also let you know that they aren't saposed to be working but that they are there working anyways! So I put money in for the batting cages. Nothing happened so i swiped the playing card again. A guy and lady walk out. I said excuse me. Im not sure im doing it right but i think it took my money. She yelled at me that "we are having problems, dont I see that, give us some time". So i waited. It looked like they were going to leave so i told the guy what happened to my card and he said sure we'll refund it. The last ones not working. (But they didnt put a sign on it) and he told the lady to deal with my refund. And she came and yelled at me again. I tried to explain myself but there's no talking to her. Pretty sure she was drunk. She said stay right here. Ill be back. I waited for 30 min for a refund at the batting cages. Come to find out no one works up there. She went to the office to get a refund. But I had to call the front desk to see if someone was even coming back. And he asked her while holding the phone "do you got people waiting on you up there? We'll get going there still waiting." When she got back she yelled "so who's waiting on me!" Like she didn't ask me to stay put like a dog. And was rude again. But I got a new card and 20 new mosquito bites.

  There was other little things that were observed and overhead from other guests like at the pool, concert, petting zoo and other places too. We couldn't mention them all. We are very social and people loved all the stuff to do but hated the way they were all treated. We talked to a few seasonal owners and they say they get treated the same and hate it. 

  The sites/cleanliness/activities:

  Lifeguards were nice. Business and all activities inside the campground ran smoothly and weren't awful at all. The kids enjoyed themselves using the amenities and activities. The bathrooms were ok and pretty clean. Some trash cans had overflowing garbage and a lot all over after events. I never saw anyone picking it up. But you could always see someone riding a golf cart being bossy. It was nice to see they gave their zoo animals long breaks from feeding and petting. Some of the birds looked like they had Veterinarian feather/skin illnesses. They call it a petting zoo but there's really no petting. 

  Recommendations:

  Don't ever go. Or camp next door or close or get a house then just pay for a day pass if you can.

  If CAMP DELS is reading this you should be more transparent on your site and train your family/workers to be more kind and just walk by reminding people to stay quit at night. Insted of being on a power trip demanding adults have a bed time, pretending you don't have discretion and choices yourselves on who and where you are actually creating the problem, bullying and then playing victim. Because the only thing your accomplishing every night is pissing people off. There is a better way. Weather your there or not trying to throw your authority around, people will go to bed. Example PD dont go into bars after 12am harassing people saying "times a coming guys! I'm going to close you down". You should only be keeping people from getting out of hand. Not causing it. Another fantastic idea is have an adult camping section where quiet time is 11pm and adults can go to bed when they choose! Instead of trying to take away people's freedom, especially on Memorial weekend! God bless and hope I never see any of you at Camp Dels ever again.

• 

  Mike R.

  Guide

  

  Aug. 13, 2023

  Sakatah Lake State Park Campground

  Decent campground. Very wooded, and showing a bit of age.

  Good campground location for the bike trail and for going to places like Mankato, and Faribault. No swimming beach, but that's good because the lake is nasty in late summer.

• 

  Becky M.

  Guide

  

  Jul. 3, 2023

  Clear Lake State Park Campground

  Great State Park

  This is our second time camping at the Clear Lake State Park. The park is clean, the shower house is nice. It’s hard to control the temperature in the showers, too hot for little kids to stand directly in the water. The playground was fun for the kids, nice beach access! Limited full hook up sites. I wish there were more full hook ups that you could reserve. Paved roads are great for bike riding. Great shaded spots. DNR cruises the park daily which is nice to see.

• V

  Victoria

  Scout

  

  Jun. 12, 2023

  Clear Lake State Park Campground

  Nice place

  Overall nice place to stay. We stay each year with family so there are about 4 of our campers all there together.distance between sites can be wide or narrow depending on which site you’re on.

  Pros: Clean/well maintained, easy short path through the trees to get to the beach, sturdy picnic tables all around, long “driveway” for campsite

  Cons: pads are gravel and not very level, pads are very narrow, beyond the trees on one side of the campground is a major road so you’ll hear cars passing by, not a lot of restroom/bathhouses

• 

  Becky M.

  Guide

  

  Jun. 10, 2023

  Clear Lake State Park Campground

  Very clean park!

  We spent 4 days here and the park is a busy place! Very clean!!!!! Dump station was easy access! We were right by the shower houses. Check in and out was simple. We made our reservations online. The park had paved roads, great for bike riding, playground was a hit! The sunset was gorgeous in the evenings at the beach! We will be back!

• 

  Tammie C.

  Guide

  

  Jun. 6, 2023

  Shellrock River Co Preserve

  You can't beat free

  Secluded free camping with port a potty, fire rings and a shelter. My AT&T service worked enough for a podcast but not streaming.

• 

  Lee D.

  Legend

  

  Mar. 25, 2023

  Pilot Knob State Park — Pilot Knob State Preserve

  Layout of campground would be challenging if full

  General: A mixture of tent (non-electric) and electric sites, mostly arranged in several rows. 

  Site Quality: Mixed. Not all sites are level, and most do not have delineated parking pads (there is a small pavement indent to show where to access the site). A fire pit and picnic table complete the site. Most of the sites are too close together for our liking, however, when we were there (a Monday at the end of August, the day before school started), we were only one of three sites occupied so for our stay it didn’t matter. 

  Bathhouse: Basic but clean. My biggest complaint is there were no hooks or shelves for toiletries by the sinks. The showers looked nice but we did not use them. 

  Activities: Horseback riding (there are trails for this), hiking, fishing. Although we did see several trailheads, I did not have a map so didn’t explore them. There is an observation tower, but it is a two-mile walk/drive from the campground (on paved roads; I didn’t try to find hiking trails to get there). 

  Misc: A shout-out to the great host, Pam, who greeted us as we arrived. The observation tower, entrance gates, and picnic shelter were all constructed by the CCC and were beautiful. It almost seemed like the campground was an afterthought as it is outside the entrance gates and nowhere near the tower. The layout of the campground would be challenging if all sites were occupied.

• 

  Lindsay T.

  Guide

  

  Nov. 22, 2022

  Sakatah Lake State Park Campground

  Great campground close to the Twin Cities

  This is a great campground within an hour's drive of the Twin Cities.  Nice hiking and sites well spaced out.  Beautiful in the fall!  Only negative to our site was a fairly steep incline to back our trailer up.  Made for more difficult but not impossible leveling, perfect site otherwise.

• 

  Tori K.

  Legend

  

  Oct. 25, 2022

  Sakatah Lake State Park Campground

  Not too far from twin cities

  Great place to camp and get away from the cities without a long drive. Firewood is available at the office and a fire ring is at each site as well as picnic table.

• 

  Vanessa H.

  Scout

  

  Sep. 11, 2022

  Clear Lake State Park Campground

  Great spot

  We love coming to Clear Lake! The campgrounds are always very well kept, bathrooms very clean! Easy access to the lake, and the town has so much to do during the summer months!

• 

  Milly T.

  Traveler

  

  Sep. 2, 2022

  Kamp Dels

  Fun for the whole family!

  We had a great trip there. The pool and food was outstanding. Only ding was for the actual campsite. Very small and tight and all over the campgrounds had a sewage smell that seemed to come and go.

  Overall we would go again but would chose a different spot within the campground probably closer to the pool and activities.

  Site 464 was super easy to back into.

  My kids loved the fishing pond and the rollerball was super fun!

• 

  Patty M.

  Guide

  

  Sep. 1, 2022

  Sakatah Lake State Park Campground

  Close to Twin Cities, Wooded sites

  Beautiful, small state park less than an hour south of Twin Cities. Sites are wooded and shady but some are close to neighboring sites. Not too many mosquitos or flies for August in Minnesota! Sakatah Singing Hills paved trail runs through the park.  It was pouring on Saturday so most of the other campers checked out and we had the campground mostly to ourselves. Super friendly and helpful staff, clean restrooms. Faribault is 15 minutes away so we went antique shopping at Keeper's Antiques downtown and had cocktails at 10,000 Drops Distillery for rainy day activities.

• 

  Eric T.

  Traveler

  

  Jul. 31, 2022

  Sakatah Lake State Park Campground

  Short Ride South of MInneapolis

  Great park if you’re not looking to drive too far to enjoy a bit of nature. Wonderful hiking paths and biking paths.

  Our site was nice a secluded and right next to the trail heads.

  Only downside, if you’re looking for complete quiet, this isn’t the park. It’s next to the highway and there are residents that live on the lake that can be noisy.

  Otherwise, wonderful park especially for families.

• B

  Brandon P.

  Scout

  

  Jun. 11, 2022

  Shellrock River Co Preserve

  It’s nice quiet to listen to old podcast. Have a fire. Not much more is needed

  It’s quiet, clean, and has some pretty views of the Iowa nite sky

• 

  Eric J.

  Scout

  

  May. 26, 2022

  Pilot Knob State Park — Pilot Knob State Preserve

  This place is a GEM

  Beautiful campground. Well maintained. Nice facilities. You can’t beat this place for the price. Nice hiking trails too.

• 

  anne K.

  Guide

  

  May. 4, 2022

  Sakatah Lake State Park Campground

  Beautiful place to tent

  Stayed here in April which was a little chilly but kept the bugs away (it’s a little swampy here). The trails seemed less travelers than other places but that may have been due to the early time of year. It’s serene and peaceful here with plenty of space between sites and clean latrines.

• 

  anne K.

  Guide

  

  May. 4, 2022

  Sakatah Lake State Park Campground

  Site #78

  The sight was slightly uneven but pretty private. We were here in mid April so the leaves were just starting to bud and the morning temps hovered in the upper 20s (F). This seemed like a lesser used park to me as the trails were not as worn out but this could be due to the early time of year we visited. I can see where the bugs would be bad later on as this is a very swampy area with lots of algae, ponds etc. A calm, serene place.

• 

  Jacob B.

  Scout

  

  Feb. 21, 2022

  Pilot Knob State Park — Pilot Knob State Preserve

  Enjoyable

  For $12/night on a 30AMP hookup, I really can't complain. This is my first of many stops in the new RV, needed a place to camp out before getting it serviced the next day. Enjoyable scenery, especially at sunset

• E

  Edward S.

  Guide

  

  Nov. 24, 2021

  Sakatah Lake State Park Campground

  Awesome trails and amenities adjacent to large lake.

  Surprisingly extensive trails both inside and adjacent to the state park.

• 

  Joe S.

  Guide

  

  Oct. 29, 2021

  Kamp Dels

  LOTS to do!!

  We had stayed here with our 37' 5th wheel. We reserved a spot right next to the pool area. It was a tight fit to back the camper it, but I was able to do it. They have cement pads for a patio area and a fire ring. The sites are close to each other, but far enough apart to be able to get slide outs and awnings out. There is SOOO much to do here. There is a petting zoo, mini golf, basketball hoops, lots of playgrounds and even a tram to help you get around the campground. The campground itself is huge! There is a store on site to buy supplies and/or food you might need. You are able to rent paddle boats, pontoons and other water based things. The lake was very green and gross when we rented a pontoon. The pontoons are very homemade!! They are old and have folding chairs to sit on. Overall, we had a GREAT time here. The kids absolutely LOVED all there is to do at the pool area. There is a splash pad, climbing tower and slides to go down. Would definitely recommend this place and we would definitely stay here again!

• 

  e M.

  Scout

  

  Oct. 13, 2021

  Sakatah Lake State Park Campground

  Simple

  Simple camping, picnic table, fire ring & grate. It is well maintained.

• 

  Meg W.

  Guide

  

  Oct. 3, 2021

  Sakatah Lake State Park Campground

  Large sites, fairly private

  Visited Sakatah Lake State Park to get some fall camping in. The drive from Minneapolis was an easy hour. The sites are generously sized, with the sites farther off the road being a bit larger. The sites are separated by a thickish bit of woods which provides more privacy. The sites are mostly gravel, and I bent a flimsy tent stake trying to pound it in the ground. The trails are not very long, but a nice walk. The Wapekute offers a semi-blocked view of Lake Sakatah, but also had a lot of stinging nettle and poison ivy very near the trail. The toilets were clean. Overall a really relaxing visit.

• A

  Aaron W.

  Scout

  

  Jul. 13, 2021

  Kamp Dels

  Great kid kamp site

  Super nice people, cool pool setup, trolly to get you around. Quiet at night too!

  Out site was super tight for a 27foot hitch, but worked out great