Chase Point Campground

(I originally wrote this review in July 2017, but updated it in June 2019 after staying here a second time.)

There are two campgrounds at Scenic State Park: Chase Point Campground, and Lodge Campground. The Lodge Campground and the upper half of Chase Point Campground is what a typical state park campground is like, and some spots have good privacy in a heavily-wooded area. The lower half of Chase Point is where RVers are likely to go. There are many pull-through electric sites, but the campground is pretty cramped when full, and with limited privacy at some sites.

Within Chase Point, sites 1-8 are lakefront sites, with greater privacy than most other sites. However, that's also the main road people drive into the campground on, and lots of people walk along that route. I enjoyed staying at Site #6 in particular, which had decent privacy but was just a few steps from the lake (which you get to by going down some steps to a boardwalk).

I definitely recommend doing the Chase Point hike. Beautiful trees and a decent view at the end. Closest gas is in Bigfork, about a 10-minute drive. Check the gas station's hours, because (as of July 2017) it's a pay-inside kind of establishment.

July 2017 cell service:
AT&T: 3 bars LTE, 57ms ping, 29mbps down, 4.38mbps up
Verizon: 2 bars LTE, 53ms ping, 2.98mbps down, 2.67mbps up
T-Mobile: 2 bars LTE, 94ms ping, 11mbps down, 4.5mbps up

I only re-did the AT&T test again in June 2019, and surprisingly I got significantly worse results: 6mbps down, 900kbps up.

The quality of the sites here varies. Some are well screened with brush and forest; some are narrow and open, particularly in the electric areas. There are two campgrounds: Chase Point and Lodge. Chase point is much larger than Lodge.

Both campgrounds front Coon Lake but no sites have direct waterfront. There is one toilet/shower building in Chase Point. A trailer dump station is available near the ranger station.

The park offers hiking and water sports. Most campers come to fish. The park was set aside to protect some of the last virgin forest in Minnesota.

If I could I would have given this campground 3.5 stars. The campground itself is very cramped and not well organized. I would suggest avoiding the non-electric loop altogether if you have a RV as the roads are very tight and curvy, and the sites better suited to tents (or pop-up campers). Even in the electric loop the roads are extremely narrow and the sites tight together for a state park.

Outside of the campground our experience here was great. We rode bikes on the nice wooded trails, hiked out to Chase Point, and kayaked around the beautiful and serene lake. Overall, while the area is pretty, I think there are better places to camp in Minnesota.

The campground sites are varied as to privacy at the Chase Point CG. Some of the pull-thrus seemed to be a little narrow from side-to-side. The sites that look out over the lake, sites #1-#8 likely fill up first. The views of the lake vary from each of these sites. Overall, I wouldn't want to camp here if it was full but during our stay it was fairly light.

The Lodge CG was closed for the season and may offer more privacy with only 2 sites having electric. There is an easy access Dump Station.

We did enjoy the short hike to Chase Point which is a peninsula in the middle of the lake.