Ridge Campground — Lake Wappapello State Park

Love this park, lakeside or ridge top. Only 4 spots without electricity, use that how you will. The lake side is dope for water views and stag gazing.

Despite terrible storms during my stay, it was a wonderful place. The hosts and staff seemed a bit eager to have someone visit, it was rather empty for the middle of the summer. Firewood is a bit overpriced but thats to be expected. The non-electric sites in the first loop have the best view of the lake but zero shade. The next loop had great sites but no view of the lake. The pamphlets from the park are poor quality copies and out dated… they show things like a store that is not on the site. The showers and laundry were great. The staff were friendly. A little buggy, but I think that has more to do with the weather and time of year. Couple raccoons tried to make a move, but my dog had something to say about that.

Overall, great park!

Nice State Park. Sites are fairly large and fairly well spaced out. Bathrooms aren’t great. We’re here on a Friday night and there are only five other people in the whole place.

We booked online, from the photos of site 48 at the Ridge Campground loop, there was plenty of space for our tent & to enjoy our weekend camping. We could not have been more WRONG! This site is TINY! Not even enough room for our tent, the fire pit is nearly touching the picnic table & a drainage line runs right through the site. The grass was SO tall, leaves & Brush everywhere. The site & fire pit were full of trash! I pulled countless bottle caps out of my dogs mouth, and had to clean up broken glass as well. We spoke with the host & moved one site over, to #49. This site was bigger & looked more appealing. We were still WRONG! The ticks, ants & mosquitoes were thick (I know were outside, and I understand - but the amount of ticks I picked off ourselves, our tent, our chairs, table etc was more than normal.) when breaking down our tent we found a nest of black ants, millions of them, all through our tarps.

The bathrooms in this loop are large, but they are much older. They were dirty - constant trash on the floors, including sanitary pad wrappers & bloody tissues. The soap dispenser was broken, and someone had busted the lid off to get to the soap inside. There were dead bugs all over the counter & the showers didn’t drain, they had standing water. When we drove through the Asher loop it was like a different campground! I couldn’t believe the difference and was quite upset. Just because Ridge is the older part of the park doesn’t mean it should be maintained any different. We will NOT return to the Ridge campground, but would love to stay at Asher one day.

Lake Wappapello SP is a refreshing little get away. We took a girls weekend in the fall and enjoyed the trails and fall foliage...which was mostly already on the ground. The lake, though to cold to enjoy , was beautiful. We followed a wandering trail around the edge which was interesting to attempt to follow due to the leaves on the ground. There are two campgrounds, one is closed for the season. The other had nice size sites with facilities. I like the separate “patio” with cooking and dining area. Needless to say it was quiet, off season leaves the area empty. There are a lot of things to see in the area and Lake Wappapello is a nice base to travel from or you can stay at the lake exclusively and enjoy water sports and hiking.

The family had a lot of fun! We kayaked around the lake and had a blast!

Awesome place to camp. Lots of wildlife to see. Nice beach, swimming area with great access to to boat ramp. However no full hookups at campsites only electric you must fill your water tank at the different hydrants scattered around the campground