Pose #3 Lake Carlos State Park

For the second part of our 2-day smoke-hazed State Park expedition we drove southwest 3 hours from McGregor to the Alexandria lakes district.  Have you ever heard of this park? I hadn't, which is a bit surprising considering that it is located in a popular resort district of the state and has been there since 1937. 

I picked it because the eponymous lake is supposedly deep and clear and "great for jumping into" according to the DNR staff picks. It's a nice park with great Camper Cabins, but as a swimming destination it was kind of a fail. Lake Carlos is  the largest and deepest lake in the Alexandria chain of lakes, as deep as 167 feet (which is a LOT). But not HERE, where the swimming beach is located. As I am finding is typically the case in Minnesota state parks, the beach is just a toddler play area close to a beautiful and well-developed picnic area, but is not intended for adults to swim in. This one is a narrow strip of sand sandwiched between two stands of cattails, 3-4 feet deep at the max, and completely hemmed in by impenetrable water weeds.  GRADE: C-. An easy sandy entry and the quality of the water earns it a passing grade, but such a disappointing beach on a beautiful lake. 

I had some fun anyway, since I had fortunately thrown a pair of swim goggles in with my swimsuit. Although they were just ordinary goggles of the type you wear to keep chlorine out of your eyes, they fit surprisingly well and I was able to use them like a snorkel mask to swim along the edge of the wall of water weeds and chase the schools of little bluegills hanging around by the weeds. The water in this lovely lake is clear as a bell, so that was actually a lot of fun. Not a great place for actually stretching out and swimming, however. 


Okay, HERE is where the swimming beach should have been located: next to the Lower Campground. Which is, incidentally, a very attractive campground for those of you with RVs. Or boats. Because that is what this beautiful strip of clear, sandy, weed-free beach is dedicated to. At this point I had an Aha! moment, realizing that when that reviewer said "a great lake to jump into" they meant FROM A BOAT. Because if you poke the average outdoorsy Minnesotan and say the word "lake" the default image that leaps into their mind is a motor boat. 


An artistically deformed tree to the side of the boat mooring area at the Lower Campground. If there hadn't been a hella wind blowing off the lake and stirring up whitecaps I might have changed into a swimsuit and jumped in right here. But it's always dangerous trying to swim around motorboats, and particularly dangerous when the water is rough, so no.


The Hidden Lake Group Camp is beautiful. It was vacant, so we drove up the hill from the picnic grounds to take a look at it. This scenic trail runs next to it, "through mature hardwood forest" in the words of the park map notes. 


A nice shot from the Hidden Lake Trail. Is that wild rice down there? Or just very spiky reeds? Well, for sure there is a good-sized painted turtle basking on a log, although you probably can't see it in this small-sized photo. Anyway, a nice little hike. It's actually a fairly long hike if you continue all the way around Hidden Lake, but after the first set of gratuitous ups and downs we gave up and headed back to the group campsite to admire the WPA buildings.


What do you think this historic building is? I guessed an old cookhouse, but I was wrong. It's a water tower, which is still in use to provide water to the group campsite and the picnic area below. Cool.

The truth about Camper Cabins (Minnesota State Park variety)

This is part of an ongoing series of posts documenting exploration of the Minnesota State Park system in the summer of 2021, but this one is not so much a review of a specific park as a report on Camper Cabins. This is a relatively new type of lodging that the DNR is apparently in the process of adding to existing state parks as they get the money. Unlike the other eccentric and unpredictable park lodging options, these are pretty much standardized. I'm posting this mostly for my own reference, but it might be of interest to others who are actively using the state parks this year. 

Camper Cabins are, in the words of the DNR, "rustic, one-room, 12 by 16 foot wooden cabins containing a table, benches, and wooden bunkbeds with mattresses. Most cabins have a screened porch, heat, and electricity. All cabins have a picnic table, fire ring, and grill for outdoor cooking." They DO NOT have indoor plumbing. They always have a pit toilet  (typically shared with a handful of other camper cabins) and are usually adjacent to a campground with flush toilets. This one is in Lake Carlos State Park and appears to be quite new. Due to the lack of bathroom and kitchen, it's not quite like staying in an actual cabin, but we found it surprisingly comfortable. The other major deficiency is the near complete absence of furniture, but if you know about that you can bring what you need. 

This is the main room, about equally divided between beds and living space. Besides the bunk beds, the furniture consists only of a pine table and two movable matching benches. There's an overhead ceiling fan light, a very bright light hanging over the table, and a ton of electric outlets. The mattresses (at least in this relatively new cabin) are surprisingly comfortable hunks of solid foam encased in a water-proof nylon shell. There are 4 or 5 hooks on the walls which is nice, but more hooks would have been very welcome since there is no place else to stash clothing.


I gather that a few of the older camper cabins do not have the screen porch, which is something to be aware of. This porch is GREAT, and literally doubles the living space. There's an overhead light and electrical outlets out here, so it is a fully functional second room. However, it has not one stick of furniture in it, not even a wooden bench! This strikes me as odd. I was not expecting a fully furnished 2-room suite, but a few benches or wooden chairs doesn't seem like too much to ask. A few camp chairs, a  folding table, and a small electric fan turn the porch into a living room. I'm especially glad we brought the table and big thermos of ice water. The other side of the porch got used for storage of the cooler, swim gear, and other stuff that didn't need to be in the main cabin all the time. 


This is the outside of the Eagle Aerie Camper Cabin, which turned out to be the best of the group of 4. It's close to the shared parking area but up on a slight rise, which gives it way more privacy, and it's well shaded. It's also quite close to the pit toilet, which I did not take a picture of. This probably varies with the age of the installation, but this particular outhouse was surprisingly odorless, airy, and clean. There were flush toilets over in the campground, but far enough away that we never used them. 


Probably the biggest variable in desirability of a particular cabin (and the hardest to deduce when making a reservation)  is the picnic table. Ours was great - totally shaded by a mature oak and located behind the cabin at the edge of the campground, making it totally secluded. We brought along a portable charcoal grill and a Coleman camp stove, which turned the picnic area into a decent outdoor kitchen. Of course, how well that works is totally dependent on the weather. If it had been rainy, our experience with this cabin would have been entirely different. 

WHAT TO BRING
These things are, IMHO, indispensable to get optimum use out of a camper cabin.

• Electric fans. The ceiling fan works pretty well, but nothing takes the edge off heat and humidity like a fan blowing directly onto your chair or bed. 9" box fans sit nicely on window sills. Next time we are also bringing a tall tower fan to put in the corner where it can oscillate over the entire room. 
• Large water thermos full of ice. ESSENTIAL. So glad we brought it
• Water bucket with a lid for fetching more water from campground spigots (we didn't have that, wished we did)
• Two full sets of sheets so each of you can have your own bed. I'm sure it's possible for two people to sleep on one of those claustrophobic bottom bunks, but we didn't want to try it.
• At least 4 pillows plus those striped foam camping cushions I made. If all the mattresses are as comfortable as the ones at Lake Carlos, this is overkill, but we have high bed comfort needs due to our creaky old carcasses.
• Folding chairs or camp chairs for porch furniture
• Small folding tables! We had two and could have used more. My 22" wide camp table just fit between the two bunkbeds to make a bedside table. We put the big thermos on the white table to make a water station on the screen porch, which was great. 
• Milk boxes are furniture too! We used them for suitcase racks. 
• Actual suitcase racks. Richard can't pick things up off the floor, so this is more than just a convenience for him. I have ordered a couple of small suitcase racks at his request and we'll take those next time
• Portable propane stove. Nobody wants to light a campfire just to have hot coffee in the morning. 
• Portable charcoal grill. Really, you can cook anything over that propane stove. And you can always use the awkward firepit-with-grill arrangement provided by the park for grilling, but a charcoal grill is so much easier
• Kitchen kit: 3 saucepans, serving spoon, spatula, hot pads, serving plate, salad bowl, knives, cutting board
• Grilling stuff: large fork, tongs, skewers for vegetables, s'mores kit
• Dining kit:  coffee mugs, silverware, full-size plates, small plates or bowls, water cups or water bottles