Lake Mary Ronan State Park Campground
PJ F.
Reviewed Aug. 29, 2022

Beautiful place, horrid experience !!!

It breaks my heart to give this CG a bad review. This is mostly directed towards the host & what unfolded here. I will start by giving credit where credit is due. The area is heavily wooded , beautiful & was for the most part quiet. The sites are well spaced but there are a few that have views into other spots in an awkward way. And some sites are very close to the restrooms so be wary of foot traffic going very near to your site. Speaking of the restrooms , they very smelly. We stepped into one to wash our hands after getting water & it smelled so bad . Later when I walked my dogs by the other restrooms, you could smell them from the paved path. We camp enough to know that this happens sometimes & isn’t always easy to stay on top of. We are lucky enough to have our camper’s restroom but just a heads up if you happen to rely on them . Is this why we gave 1 star? Absolutely not! The reason for the 1 star was an incident that transpired on grounds & how it was handled. Now let me just preface this by saying that we work really hard to find campgrounds that are quiet , with well spaced sites & fellow campers that at least appear to have respect for the rules, the surrounding nature & their fellow camper too. We had spent most of the day surrounded by serenity & peace , except for a few noisier families/kids. We understand families need to vacation too so after awhile it starts to become white noise. What ended up shattering our serenity was listening to motorcycles rip thru the park, continuously. After about the 6th time , one particular rider was revving up enough for his pipes to backfire. Now we have nothing against motorcycles. We ourselves are avid riders. But we know how to work a throttle/clutch, don’t speed where there are children & respect nature & quiet & the need for it . None of this was happening in this instance. My husband stepped out of our camper to ask the rider to slow down , which in turn would have made his riding style quieter. We were met with a young man who felt the need to be belligerent & he rode off. In the interim, my husband attempted to speak with the host about it. His response? “ Bikes make noise” & “ oh well “ . Wow. Up until now he had been tolerable. I’m kicking myself for never getting his name. About 30 minutes later, the young man returned with his bigger, biker dad. They pulled up to our sites, made sure to rev up their after -market exhaust pipes & proceeded to park & come into our site. I, a female , decided I would walk out to diffuse this because the last thing any of us needed was traveling 20 hours from home to get arrested or hurt. I was met with 2 angry men who insisted I get my chicken sht husband to come outside. I told them it wasn’t going to happen. They proceeded to call me & my husband cck s*ckers , a bevy of other names , kick our portable metal dog fence down & pull a knife on me. A KNIFE!!!! At this point my husband, who witnessed this, rushed out with his gun . He has a CCW & kept it out of few , so as to not brandish it. From there a lot of yelling & threats were made . Other campers came over to try & help. The bikers screamed at us to “ get out of their state “ & that out of state people ruin everything, but with a lot more threatening language! Eventually They got on their bikes & left once they realized my husband had a gun. But it wasn’t over ! Suddenly this large, tattooed , drunk man came onto our site & proceeded to get in my husbands face & scream & yell . Apparently he was the person who had the actual campsite that the bikers were visiting. He said that his friends did nothing wrong & repeated the sentiment about us being from out of state. Other campers had to physically remove him from our site. The whole time this was going on , our host did nothing. Absolutely nothing . We ended up calling 911 ourselves & filing a report. We were terrified & had to ask for a police escort to help us pack up & leave the area, out of fear there’d be retaliation. After everything, the host came back to our site & basically sounded like he didn’t understand what the problem was. Still ! This was infuriating! We hightailed it out of there & had to scramble to find a place to stay for the night seeing as how we’re 20 hours from home & all the other campgrounds were full ! We even asked for a refund & were not obliged. This was one of my dream vacations- to see Flathead & Glacier. This whole debacle has completely marred that & left us nervous, scared wrecks. We’re sad this happened. Otherwise, the campground has been perfectly pleasant.

Site9
Month of VisitSeptember