Best Equestrian Camping near Table Rock Lake

Ranger Review Big M Campground Table Rock Lake

As with most campgrounds this summer Big M was flooded. It didn’t detract from the beauty and fun this place has to offer. This is a Core run campground that sits nestled in the beautiful Ozarks/Arkansas border. It’s a little tricky getting there. Lot of curves and turns. A real nail biter! This campground has large grassy full hookup sites. The bath houses are clean and easy to get to. Anything you would want to do. Hiking, kayaking, swim beach, boating. Some of the best fishing around! Nice marina with a restaurant that you won’t leave hungry! Swim beach was flooded, but we used it anyway. Truest the gem of the Ozarks!

We booked 6 sites of horse camp for Labor Day weekend back in July. They had plenty of time to take care of sites. We got there and the grass was high on all sites. One of the guys with us brought a battery operated weed eater and started to weed eat our area when a park ranger stopped and said we weren’t allowed to weed eat only they are allowed to mow. We asked if they would mow sites and they said NO. The people right down from us on other horse site had to keep horses tied to trailer because weeds were that high you couldn’t get to horse post. One of had brought our RV with horses and were told we weren’t allowed to bring RV even though when we booked it online, it gave us the option to book RV with horses. We usually come to horse camp 5-6 times a year, but think this might be our last time going. Seems they are trying to close down horse camp.. we had reservations on Memorial Day and when we got there it was full of tent campers with NO HORSES but they were allowed to stay there. This place is turning into a joke. You pay $20 a night to get nothing but harassed by the park rangers!!

Steel Creek campground is a beautiful grass savanna orbited by 500 foot bluffs. From the campsites is a short hike through large beautiful hardwood trees. A glorious river of milky blue green waters flows at the base of the bluff around the camp's peninsula. East of Ponca this is the closest area to car/RV camp. This camp is also horse camp friendly. Many trails come through Steel Creek for backpackers, horse trails, and of course canoe/kayakers dock and launch from here. I call this base camp because there are so many trails and historic options in this upper area of the Buffalo. My one and only con is the tent camp area is open to all the other tent campers. In other words your camping side by side. Aside from that its definitely worth it!

No amenities other than composting toilets. There are a few tent sites along the road and there is plenty of grassy area near the creek for RVs/trailers. This is a horse camp with plenty of evidence, but it was only us and a couple of other tent campers.

The creek was obviously spring fed, crystal clear and had a gravelly bottom. There were plenty of places to get in the water...understanding that this is horse camp.

The place was well maintained and mowed and it was super peaceful and quiet. The main annoyance was some trash in fire pits along the creek.

If you consider this as a waypoint, two things:

1. There is about a mile of dusty, gravel road that is a little rough.

2. We had great T-Mobile 10 miles south, but it dropped to zero by the time we drove into camp.