Placid Lake State Park Campground

Very nicely keep campground. Beautiful spots, very clean bathrooms and showers. Friendly camp hosts. Would love to return someday. One night wasn't enough.

Its rare for a camp in MT to have flush toilets let alone shower rooms. For that alone I'm giving this camp 5 stars. Also, if you are a MT state resident and have paid the state parks fees with your vehicle license OR if you are an out of stater with the state parks pass you can use the showers even if you aren't camping here (I checked with the host about this as I plan to come back just for the showers). Well worth the drive back here if you're staying nearby. The showers are coin operated - 3 minutes for $1 and there is a change machine out front. Everything cleaned daily between 1pm and 2pm
The worst part about this camp is maybe the road to get here. Its 3 miles off the highway and the road is rough dirt. The posted speed limit is 35 (seems like the residents go 55) but there is no way an RV is traveling down the road that fast unless you want to rearrange the contents of your cabinets.
I wanted a sunny site for my solar so I made my reservations based on the google maps view of camp and chose site 23. I got a sunny site for sure but there are plenty of others - they cut down a lot of trees in the 2-12 loop and most of those sites have full or partial sun. 22-25 are also quite sunny. a few of the sites have a steep slope to them and could be a challenge to level - namely 13, 14, 17 and 19. Sites 1-11 are medium in size - there was a small group of vintage campers staying here and they were all in this range of sites. Old Shastas and Bells were a good fit along with their tow vehicles. Sites 13, 14, 17-26 were the smallest sites. It was a squeeze for me to fit all 28' of my rig in site 23 and it was one of the larger in this group. And 27-40 were the larger sites and were the most shady. Most of them had electric hookups as well. Some folks managed to shoehorn a 35' class A into site 29 and another family got a 30' 5th wheel into site 32 but they had to park their truck at a T so it didn't stick into the road. Site 27 is the only pull thru site and it was a good size but had a lot of trees that could interfere with pop outs. Sites 11 and 19 were sort of pull thru's or parallel parked sites. Sites 15 and 16 are ADA sites and have level concrete parking pads and a concrete path to the comfort station bathrooms - but the path is at least 150 yards each way.
A couple of the sites had nice shelters built over the picnic tables - I hope they plan to add a few more to the sunnier sites.
Aside from the comfort station bathrooms there are two pit toilets but they're placed closer to the center of camp so if you take one of the outer campsites you're going to have a bit of a walk. Unless you have site 26, then you're only about 4 steps from the toilet. Hope you like company if you take this site as everyone is going to be treking right through your site.
There are a couple of day use picnic areas and parking in the middle of sites 13-25 as well so there could be more traffic in the day.
The only sites with access to the lake are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 16 and 17. And there is no beach or anywhere to hang out. If you really want to have access to the lake you need to have a boat - there is a dock, ramp and ample parking for boats.
Firewood is available for purchase via a vending machine - $4 for a bundle. A bargain compared to the $6 most camps charge. I usually gather firewood on my own but due to the 4 days of constant rain prior to my stay everything in the area was soaked and the dry woods bundles were worth the cost!
Overall camp was great, I could have done with a little more privacy and just a sliver of beach access to the lake but the cleanliness of camp and friendly hosts made up for anything lacking.

Pay showers. But they have showers! Nice swimming area. Quiet and a nice breeze off the lake. Electricity on site was great with fresh water nearby.

We camped here for three days in late June, surrounded by a forest of pine trees and a quick walk to the lake. Our rate per night was $18.00 with our Non-Resident Montana State Parks Pass. Each campsite has a fire ring and table, vault toilets, water, and trash receptacles were dispersed throughout the campground. There is also a modern bath house with warm showers. The cost of a warm shower was 4 quarters for 3-minutes, and there was a money change machine at the bath house. The campground hosts were very kind and helpful. During our stay we received 4-bars of Verizon service without a booster. We would definitely stay here again to enjoy the peacefulness and beauty of this well managed campground.