Riverview Campground — St. Croix State Park

This was a one night stop over on the way to Grand Portage and Isle Royale. It is a nicely maintained campground with lots of open space and nicely constructed rustic bath houses. Apparently, the bath houses are under renovation. The loop I was in had one of the new bathrooms and it was impressive….definitely an A rating. The site spacing is good but not a lot of landscaping for privacy. The mosquitoes were voracious! That has been my experience throughout MN. 

We also experienced the most intense and violent thunderstorm of my life. One lightning strike hit within 100 yards of our site. All of the campers were talking about it in the morning. My poor dog was a basket case and could not even eat her dinner. Their reservation system could not find St. Croix without the period.

We camped with our in laws and 3 kids this past weekend at St. Croix state Park, we were in the riverview campground on site 36 (no hook ups). Sites were pretty open but small. There were HOARDS OF MOSQUITOS. We used 40% deet spray and fogged our campsite 3x over the 3 days so we could reduce the bites. The paved walking trails were nice. The swimming beach is a couple mile drive but the water was nice and cool. There is a playground but we didn't use it. We fished right off the shore and were catching very small catfish and river chub faster than we could set our reels which was great for the kids! There is kayak and canoe rental on the weekend. The showers and bathrooms were very clean.

Our family went up and rented Guest House 1. The house was great! It had everything we needed in the kitchen, a grill out front, picnic tables, fire ring, plenty of sleeping for our extended family. However, the second we walked out the door, you had at least 5 ticks on you. If you spent any extended amount of time outside, there were 20+. It was terrible, as my sister was pregnant and didn't want to risk it and we had a 1, 2, and 4 year old. We spent a large part of the weekend searching each other like primates and picking bugs off. Since the weather wasn't the best, we didn't feel as bad missing out on being outside.

We DID have fun doing some of the activities like hunting for insects/animals in the pond with the ranger, hiking to the ranger tower, playing at the playground, and trying to catch butterflies with the ranger. That being said, we have had several conversations with others who have also said it was the worst tick experience they have ever had and will not choose to go back again.