Best Tent Camping near Cable, WI

After a long hard hike on the NCT, we hiked into camp ready for a meal and a good sleep. We had spot #7 reserved, easily the most beautiful camp spot on the lake. A wonderful strip of sandy beach, heavily treed site, nice flat tent pads, a picnic table and fire pit.

Our hearts sank as we walked to the site only to encounter a big RV parked there and it appeared someone was set up for the weekend. We were baffled! I had my print out confirm and proof it was ours but there was no camp host or any kind of ranger on site. We were on our own.

So the people who took our site shows up. They tried to explain to us that there was a mistake in the reservation system and they had the site reserved too. I have no idea if it was a fabrication or not. But we were willing to share the camp site since we were only there for one night anyway.

We pitched our tent. Enjoyed the sunset over the lake and settled in for a nice sleep.

Pros: Large treed campsites Close vault Excellent potable water Beautiful serene lake Close to the NCT trailhead Vault cleaned daily Dumpsters and bear lockers Quiet camp sites No light pollution. Clear skies Minimal bugs in late august

Cons: No camp hosts No firewood for sale Gravel back roads far from town No contact with forest service for issues NCT stretch of trail through the campsite is not that great

I would camp there again but drive and not hike in.

The State Forest is very beautiful. There is a lake as well as the Flambeau River to explore. There are two campgrounds, Lake of the Pines which has 30 non-electric sites and Connor Lake which has 3 electric sites and 26 non-electric. All sites have a picnic table and a fire ring. There are no play grounds. There are only vault toilets at the campground. There is one shower at the ranger station which is about 4 miles away. There is no cell service at Connors Lake Campground. I could not even make an emergency call which was a concern for me. There are many signs that say to go to the ranger station, about 4 miles to make an emergency call. There is no weather safe shelter at the campground. There are 14 canoe camp areas and the park is beautiful. If you like to canoe this is a great park. We did a hike and cut our stay short since we like a bit more services and safety.

A great campground! There is a beach, playground, as well as drive-in and hike-in sites. The waterfalls are very cool, and they have nice signage and pamphlets to learn more about them. I recommend taking the time to read about the geology. I haven't stayed in a car camping sites, but we thought they looked very nice.

The hike-in sites are great, not too far to walk but you have privacy. One thing to note about the hike-in sites is that the trails aren't well marked. Once you're on the trail for a while, they start having regular signage, but the start of the trails themselves aren't marked. You park in an area behind the car camping sites, next to what I assume is a storage building or old house. There are two starts to the trail, the one I found best is down the service road maybe a couple hundred yards. There's also one on the other side of the lot, but it winds a bit, forks into another trail, and all in all seems a little more confusing. I'd recommend just talking to the campground host when you get there, they can explain everything. The walk is short enough (a mile and a half) that we hiked out and back a couple times when camping, either to access the beach or to fill up water. Another important note is that while it's in an area where hanging a bear bag is recommended, the woods aren't thinned enough to where there are strong branches low enough for a bag. It took quite a lot of looking to find a suitable spot for our bag. There's a fire ring and picnic table at each site, which was nice. The bathrooms outhouses, which was a nice surprise, as I was expecting an unenclosed vault toilet.

There's a separate trail to the beach from the sites as well, but I went back the main way anyway. The beach isn't anything special, but is nice enough. There's a nice, small playground near the beach as well.

Oh thank goodness, we camped out at Dalrymple Park and Campground in Bayfield, WI as supposed to our original reservation at a boring campground in Cornucopia, WI. Dalrymple was just minutes away from Bayfield, and boat rides away from the Apostle Islands and Madeline Island. There are 28 sites surrounded by canopies of trees and there are wooded fences along the sides next to Lake Superior. It was a perfect spot to settle in for camping. Some sites were drive-in and others were back-ins perfect for RVs under 30 feet. Camping is $25 a night for 2 vehicles or 1 RV for each site. There is a fire ring, picnic table, electric hook-up, and a stump to cut some firewood at each site. Bathrooms are vault toilets and are walking distance. There were plenty of FREE firewood piles near the entrance. Cell-signal was strong for Verizon. A few of the back-in sites were steep but spacious and the drive-in sites were a bit small. It is a family-friendly campground. Pets are welcome but must be on a leash. The mosquitoes were pretty active so bring your repellant or citronella to ward them off. The view was great, but the noise level at night was a damper. We had a rowdy camper who had no consideration or camping etiquette when it's past 10:00 pm. The campground itself was overall wonderful.

Bring bug spray (or better yet, the Canadian-made Original Bug Shirt Elite Edition) if you plan to camp in the spring/summer months!  These beautiful little islands are well-guarded by these blood sucking creatures, especially if the island in which you are camping has any inland ponds or lakes where they will breed/hatch (such as Sand Island).  While mosquitoes are typically crepuscular creatures, these don’t wear a watch…they are out all day every day. We stayed on Sand Island, York Island, and visited the beautiful historic lighthouse on Raspberry Island during a 4-day kayaking adventure.

The backcountry camping areas are nice, but not much to speak of other than a place to pitch your tent -- though the islands, views of Lake Superior, paddling/sailing/fishing options, and sunrises and sunsets are truly to die for!  Each camping area has a fire ring, bear boxes, a pit toilet, and some of the larger islands have picnic tables. Some islands have small docks, while others are anchor only if you are in a larger boat. All of the beaches can accommodate multiple kayaks if you are with a larger group.  Coin operated showers are available at the campground by the Little Sand Bay visitor’s center.

Even though you are only a few miles from the mainland, the small number of people/tourists make this place feel very remote and secluded. Safety Note: Bring a chart of the islands for navigation purposes, make sure your paddling skills match the weather conditions as the lake can go from sheer glass to 6 foot waves in an afternoon, and bring a marine radio.

There are camping areas on 19 of the 21 islands in the park. $15 per night plus a $10 registration fee. You can register for backcountry sites online.

I 100% agree with Legend Laura about the price of this campground. If it was simply about the location, this would get five plus stars because it's so beautiful! But if you're from out of state, the prices are even more expensive than she indicated previously, so they must have updated them.

The campsite itself is only $16 which is a bargain! But, if you are out of state like we are, there's also a $15 charge for that. And then, that doesn't include admission to the area, so you pay $11 and change for that. It ended up being about $50 total. That said, we paid it and fully enjoyed it but not sure we would do it again unless we had a Wisconsin sticker. At least to alleviate the $11 charge to get in.

All of that out of the way, the site itself is absolutely gorgeous. This park has lots of very mature trees and lots of very mature pine trees, making it very quiet. The spaces are quite distant from one another and we didn't hear our neighbors at all. We were at one of the walk-in campsites which I chose on purpose because it was literally on top of the river, we could sit by the river and wade our toes if we wanted to. It had a fire ring, a very short walk to the bathroom, and only a short distance to the car from the site. Maybe 100 ft plus about 30 stairs to get up to the parking level.

The walk-in sites also double as canoe campsites, so the river is something you can paddle if the water is sufficient to do so. There is a beautiful little picnic area near the bathrooms that sits on the river as well. Vault toilets seemed as clean as they could be, and they are a little fancier than your single vaults. They have stalls and toilet paper!

I highly recommend if you live in Wisconsin visiting this site as it wouldn't cost much at all. Out of towners, it's a bit more pricey.

We arrived at Lake of the Pines knowing sites were reservable. We didn't know they had to be reserved. There were no less than eleven signs at the entrance. You could purchase a vehicle pass required for entry but could not pay for camping. The instructions said to call a telephone number. With no cell service we were about to drive until we could call. Luckily a very pleasant maintenance women told us there was a dedicated phone for reservations at the forest headquarters a few miles away. We apparently missed that sign.

We took a chance and paid for an out-of-state annual vehicle pass for $38 as opposed to buying an $8 pass every day. We checked out the park and there were only two sites occupied. We chose one next to some campers on motorcycles because it had a partial view of the lake and drove to the headquarters. We called and asked for a specific site number. The person said she had no Lake of the Pines in her system. We figured out it was Flambeau/Lake of the Pines and confirmed that the adjacent site was occupied. We reserved the site and paid by card over the dedicated reservation phone. They said we would receive a confirmation email but...no cell service. Returning to the campground we found that the site we reserved was the one occupied. Apparently the motorcycle guys blew off the whole camping reservation and fee. We set up on another site and hoped no one reserved that one. All the site number signs said first come-first served? We corrected the site number at the phone at the forest headquarters the next day. First we tried the office which had hours posted but was closed, so we used the dedicated phone line.

After all this, we had a nice time paddling the milder sections of the Flambeau River. Shuttle prices for private canoes at local tavern/outfitters were reasonable. No one we saw other than DNR wore masks. Wisconsin DNR needs to get their act together. There is no reason to have a payment drop box for vehicle permits but not camping. Consolidate your check-in signs.