North-South Lake Campground

The Catskill Park is a mountainous region including 600,000 acres of public and private lands in Southeastern New York's Ulster, Greene, Delaware and Sullivan Counties. Evidence of the area's unique natural history can be seen in the impressive skyline formed by the ninety-eight peaks over 3,000 feet in elevation. Human activities such as logging, quarrying, tanning, trapping, and fishing have also shaped the Park's more recent history.  Outdoor activities include hunting, fishing, camping, horseback riding, snowmobiling, hiking, biking, wildlife viewing and exploring historic sites.

We spent a great weekend with the kids at the North/South Lake Campground. If you are a camp person, then this is the place you should go and stay for at least 2 nights.It includes almost everything a campsite should include and you and your kids will never get bored.

We canoed at the lake and we saw beautiful natural spots, the area is very protected by rangers going around the area, there are playground for the kids and picnic areas with fire spots so you can barbecue!

Very well preserved, very clean site and very clean toilet facilities.

We stayed here in Aug 2016 and paid $27/night plus a $9 reservation fee to Reserve America.

The campground is large with over 200 sites. They are divided into 6 loops. Site quality varies quite a bit. There are a limited number of sites with water views. The majority of sites are in wooded areas. Some sites are very large, some small. How level they are varies quite a bit also. The campground is dry camping with drinking water available in each loop. Limited hours for generators is allowed. Our site wasn't very clean. Lots of bits of littler on the ground, glitter craft paint on the picnic table, and egg shells in the fire pit. The bathhouse also wasn't ever cleaned well during our stay. The showers were gross. (Think soap scum and lots of hair on the walls.)

The North-South lake is sometimes referred to as two lakes, but it's really connected, there is just a more narrow spot in the middle. The park rents canoes, row boats, kayaks, and paddle boards. We rented single kayaks for $15 per "day" (a day meaning 9 am to 4 pm.) There is a boat launch available. All watercraft must be non-motorized on the lake. There are 2 roped off swimming areas with lifeguards. We didn't swim but could hear the lifeguards with bullhorns and it sounded like there are a lot of rules about swimming there.

While I was not thrilled about the cleanliness or the size of the campground, the rest of my family loved it. I think we had one of the best campsites with a view of the lake. The kids spent a lot of time by the lake. My daughter found a outcrop over the lake and spent time reading there. We could launch the rented kayaks from our site. The view was beautiful.

Sites I'd try for water views include 178, 171, 170, 167, 151 (large site that sat right on the water but looked like a parking lot from the back, a large rig could fit here,) 150, 148, and 147.

There are black bears int he area and the campground takes proper food storage seriously.

I had 3 bars of 3g on my Verizon phone in some areas of the park. It was not consistent everywhere.

Then this is the campsite for you.

If you are a family that likes the rangers to have some level of control/influence over aggressive loud campers then this is NOT the place for you. If you need the assistance of the police, there is no cell service (Verizon) so again this is not the place for you. If this had been our first camping experience we would never camp again. Check out Kenneth L. Wilson , a million times better.

Checking in and out was easy and the staff was friendly. We camped on loop 7. It was nice for six people (four adults and two kids), the site was well maintained and clean. Considering we camped on the first week of July it was full booked but still relatively quiet. Place was full of birds singing and calling day and night! And we saw a Black Bear every morning.