We had a pretty incredible experience canoeing and camping in Mammoth Cave National Park (which you can read about here), and due to sleep deprivation, sun exposure, and not feeling ready for our trip to be over yet we decided to stick around the area another day. A quick search of nearby campgrounds on recreation.gov showed that we could definitely find an available site for the night, but we were feeling pretty particular about the conditions. There were two campgrounds we were interested in on the sprawling Nolin River Lake, Nolin State Park and Dog Creek State Park. Both were around 30 minutes from our location at Mammoth Cave National Park, and not too far from each other.
At our site on the Green River we were completely exposed to the morning sun, and by 9 am temperatures were soaring. Meteorologists were throwing around the term “heat dome” which was a new one to me. With the campgrounds being on the lake we hoped to find a site close to the water, which was quite optimistic for last minute on a Friday afternoon. At minimum we had to have some shade and a suitable place for the tent, but an electric site would be a luxury since we brought our queen sized air mattress and had devices to charge. We first headed to Nolin Lake State Park, and while it was a lovely campground the available sites were either lacking in shade or a level place for the tent. After driving the campground twice we decided to move on, hopeful that Dog Creek would have something better.
As we made our way to Dog Creek, campsites were booking up fast. It was after 3 pm at this point and our options were running out. I found a site there that appeared to be at least partially shaded (and had electricity) and grabbed it online, and we crossed our fingers that it wouldn’t be terrible. I made sure to double check that I fully completed the reservation – be sure to hit that final button to make the purchase – and received an email…learned that lesson about state park reservation systems the hard way last year on the way to Indian Lake. Tears were shed (mine) when I realized that the most perfect campsite on the water which I thought I had booked actually wasn’t booked, the campground was full, and we ended up at A.W. Marion State Park hoping the kids didn’t get a contact buzz from the loud smoky next door neighbors…sadly Indian Lake has since had a devastating tornado, but we hope to get there to camp someday.
Of course I am aware that we could have obnoxious campsite neighbors at any campground and this isn’t a problem specific to A.W. Marion, but this is 100% why I prefer backcountry camping. The loudest neighbors are the birds, there are no generators, music blasting that we didn’t want to listen to – maybe you’ve been there, too. We’ve had some pretty terrible campground experiences. Some good ones, too, but mostly terrible actually. Having a house nearly surrounded by farm fields, we laugh sometimes about tent camping at campgrounds since we’d have far more peace and solitude putting the tent up in the backyard. Regardless, there are benefits to camping when traveling over staying in a hotel so we took our chances yet again.
To our pleasant surprise, the site was lovely. It had a mixture of sun and shade, a perfectly level spot for the tent, neighbors on one side only, and a beautiful view of the lake despite being a hundred yards away from the water. Check in time wasn’t until 5 pm so we ran into town and picked up steak and sweet corn to cook over the fire. We could see the sunset through the pine trees over the lake. Neighbors were putting their paddle boards in the water just down the road and kids were swimming straight from their campsites. It was really quite a nice atmosphere. If you considered a visit you would want to note that although our site had electric hook up, the lakeside sites did not.
It was a very warm night and Samson was restless and had a hard time cooling down, but we had polite and pleasant neighbors and got a decent night’s sleep all things considered. In the morning we had some breakfast and packed up before it really heated up again. Dog Creek Campground is definitely on my must return list, and the primitive sites are 100% worth it.