Doggie

A very clean, accommodating campsite. The rangers who maintain the area are incredibly kind and welcoming, and treated us so kindly even when we were buying wood at 8PM.

Firstly, the bathrooms were very clean and accessible, and I happened to see at least 3 of them around our campsite (the loop nearest to the lake). They have fresh spring water that is free to all campers available at these bathrooms. You can also dump your accumulated trash at a dumpster near the main ranger’s camp, rather than the bathrooms however.

On the way to Dogtown, there are cattle that sometimes occupy the road. You can’t smell them however. Your car may also become very dusty on the way here, due to primitive road conditions. There’s also a picnic area in the opposite direction from the campground when you arrive. The lake has two hiking trails, one being 1 mile long, and the other is 6. The lake itself is open to boats (more of the smaller variety) and is very clean. When fishing, we happened to get bites within 2 minutes of casting a pole (we fished at 10pm, no rain), so I’m assuming there is quite a lot of fish.

Sleeping in the campsite, there is not much noise at all except for a single train that may pass in the distance, but it’s not much at all. There’s a lot of stars and even a hint of the Milky Way in the sky. The weather is only slightly chilly (we went in August 1st) and was quite comfortable.

As for wildlife, although there are no bear boxes, we found that some wildlife (either squirrels, crows, or coyotes) came and stole our cornbread, at night mostly. There’s a lot of crows here in the morning and they caw to each other and hop around. So be aware of that I suppose. There’s also a lot of yellow flowers in the area that makes everything even nicer.

Accommodation: 10/10 Views: 9/10 Cleanliness: 10/10 Weather: 8/10 Safety: 11/10 Accessibility: 9.5/10