Sakatah Lake State Park

This trail is very bumpy– my hands are numb from the vibration. The trail would be very nice if it were repaved .
Lynn

This park is perfect for campers but not the big rigs. Bicyclists will love the Sakatah trail which is a converted rail line with asphalt topping. Camp sites are roomy and pretty secluded from each other with huge rock separations in many cases preventing encroachment further into the site itself. Not many electrical outlets and reservations are hard to come by on the weekends. Scout out the sites and make sure you are close to the modern washrooms which are in great shape. The nearest town is Waterville for quick restocking of essentials. The lake — like many southern MN lakes –are filled with algae grown by overabundance of farm fertilizer and such. If you’re boating, camp here and take the boat to Lake Elysian. Large lake and not nearly as bad as Sakatah.

This was a nice state park and it was only about 2 hours South of the Twin Cities. The spot we reserved was spacious and fairly clean. (Gum and candy wrappers, a bottle cap and fishing swivel were laying about but it didn’t seem crazy unclean.) We pulled our camper back into the spot and there was a fire ring and picnic table and a space for a tent as well.
One of the reasons I picked this park (other than being able to get in on short notice…) was that it mentioned fishing on the DNR website. No mention of swimming — but I was willing to give up the pleasure of waddling about in a swimsuit and swatting bugs away from my naked legs so we could throw a line or two out and catch some fish. Sadly this lake is revolting. We smelled it before we got to the lake — and when we walked out to the fishing dock I was amazed at the color and the smell. The lake looked like it had been smeared with weird pottery glaze and it smelled like rotting uncooked corn. I took one look at the lake and wrinkled my nose like a 4 year old and proclaimed it to be «Gross!» My husband — who I thought would fish in anything — agreed that it was disgusting and that he would not put any of his tackle in that weird rotting yuck. It was so gross.
So that pretty much just left the walking and biking trails for amusement here at this park. My hubby biked the trails and said they were really flat and easy to bike. We took the dog out on the bike trail and some of the earthy non-​bike hiking paths — and it was quite pretty and fun to be pulled through the woods by a happy dog.
As for the restrooms — they had an outhouse near our camp site but the showers and modern toilets (flushing) were far enough away that walking would get you a nice sweat and possibly chewed alive by bugs before you got there. Not a fast walk if you are feeling urgent. So I would research the sites before going to make sure you get a spot that suits your needs.
Overall I enjoyed the weekend I spend here. I would not go near the lake — but if you are looking for some family biking trails that are pretty easy — this would be a good park to go to.