Lake Dennison Recreation Area Campground

This campground is pretty and offers many private site options. We didn't use the bathrooms so can't speak on that. But overall it's a clean campground.

There are two loops. The loop closer to the entrance has a lot of private sites. Although if you have one closer to the main road, it is quite noisy with road sounds. But many of the sites in the middle are more quiet. The sites by the lake are really pretty, but there's not much privacy. All of the sites are good size and the fire pits are placed well.

The other loop farther away from the entrance has a lot more lakeside sites. But there's very little privacy. The sites with higher numbers by the lake are all on top of each other with little to no trees or shrubs between sites, and you can't really decipher where one site ends and the next begins. We would not stay on that loop if we visited again. Unless it was site 101 which seemed more private for that loop.

Sites 1 through 5 on the first loop are pretty quiet and peaceful. We stayed at site 4 and we think that it was one of the best sites in the campground. We didn't have neighbors on either side of us. We only had neighbors across from us. The site was spacious , peaceful and pretty. There was a little trail from our site that went down to a marsh. That was absolutely beautiful.

We will definitely stay here again.

After scouting this campground in December, I was able to score a last minute reservation of a waterfront site in July. As a caveat, waterfront in this instance was more of a water view as the lake was on the other side of the campground road and a large open area with trees. Campsites are$17/night (no hookups, dump station available) with a significant surcharge for out-of-state campers leading to a$54/night charge, which is no bargain when you consider nearby private campgrounds are closer to$40 with full hookups.

There are two loops to the campground. The North loop(sites 101-150) offers more waterfront sites where one can easily launch a canoe or kayak directly from the site; note, however, that the sites in the teens are on a rise above the water, although I did see some campers had pulled their boats up along the shore even below those sites. The North loop also has a small beach; for the East loop, you’ll either need to walk to the day use are, which features a larger beach, or drive around to it. There is no swimming apart from the two beach areas. There are numerous spots along the lakefront where you can fish, catching panfish close to shore. Bass, trout(stocked in spring), chain pickerel are larger species.

Bathrooms in the north loop are old and in desperate need of renovation, enough that I would think twice about a site here if I were not self-contained. East loop bathrooms have better flooring and facilities. I preferred the largest bath house, near the waterfront. Flush toilets. Water available from faucet. Showers are available and free, but only 1/bath house. Only a couple of the bathhouses have dishwashing sinks.

I was in site 59, with a nice view of the lake. I endured a major downpour and 12-hr rain storm(I’m not sure how much rain we got, but nearby relatives had 4” rain in the same time, so that puts it in perspective) and the next morning site 58 was underwater with a brook running through it. I didn’t explore the north loop after the storm, but this site in the east loop bore the brunt of the storm.

Cell phone coverage was nearly nonexistent. We could get maybe 1 bar on Verizon, sometimes 3G, sometimes not even that. Texts took their time going through. Leaving the campground, I had better luck getting 4G if I headed to Winchendon rather than to south to Baldwinville. Download maps for offline use if you expect to explore the area (such as Tully Lake, Doanes Falls).

There are ice cream and burger/hot dog restaurants a few miles in either direction(Lickity Splitz, Lee’s Hot Dog). Winchendon had a Family Dollar. Both towns have Dunkin’ and gas stations.