Hamlin Beach State Park

My daughter and I enjoyed our last day of vacation in New York by visiting Hamlin Beach. The shoreline is pristine. The grounds are very well kept up. The tall, mature trees looked so beautiful against the lake. We saw so many geese.

We camped at the campground in this park for 8 nights in August. We had a site in loop E, which is the smallest loop and doesn't allow pets. Our site (#205) was private enough and there's adequate distance between all the RV/tent sites (I guesstimate 30 feet). The site was nice enough when the weather was dry (picnic table was somewhat stained), however we had a few days with significant rainfall and that made the picnic table/fire pit area into a mud bath. We have a small travel trailer with an outdoor kitchen. We cook outside and sit outside to eat and it was no fun traipsing through the mud puddles. We had the area covered with canopies and tarps, but a lot of rainwater still got under it and made a muddy mess. At one point, I had to cover all the mud puddles with plastic table cloth. Then the word "mulch" was mentioned by a family member, and as I had discovered a big pile of mulch in a far corner of the park on one of my bike rides, we went out there one evening and loaded up bins of mulch to spread over the muddy areas on our site. That definitely helped and I didn't care if that wasn't allowed. I was not going to traipse around in the mud anymore and track it into our camper as well. My husband also ended up getting a severe case of poison ivy from a tree covered with this plant at the entrance to our site. He reported it to a lady at the visitors center, who apologized profusely. He has also reported it on the park's Facebook page. We're not sure if anything was done to remove it in the meantime, but if you reserve site #205 and you see a tree near the entrance covered with ivy, beware it's poison ivy. Other than those negatives, our stay was pleasant enough. We decided to stay here because the park is located on Lake Ontario and is within a short driving distance of the Empire State trail, of which we biked several sections. The beaches (5 areas) in the park are relatively small (it's not one continuous beach, they're interrupted by piers) and only two of them have lifeguarded designated swimming areas, which are small as well. During our stay, only one of the swimming areas had lifeguards on duty. You could go in the lake at the other beaches although it was technically not allowed, but people did anyway. We also found very mucky, brown water washing up on parts of every beach, but if you walked 20-30 feet further you would find clearer water. During two days of our stay at the park, they closed the beaches for swimming due to high E-coli concentrations. On another day, we were told swimming was not allowed due to "waves." We went to one of the unguarded beaches and went in the lake anyway. What's the point of going into a great lake if you aren't allowed to catch some waves? There's a 1 mile long paved multi-use trail that runs along the beach areas. At one end, you can take it into Devil's Nose, a tree-covered dune area of the park that juts out into the lake and has sandy trails. Some of the trails go close to the edge of cliffs down to the lake, and you can watch pretty sunsets from there. At the other end of the paved main trail, you can access the Yanty Creek marsh area. We walked through it one evening (it's a 1 mile or so loop) and it didn't leave us very impressed. At the main entrance, there's a sign with photos of 'interesting' things to see, but most of it was overgrown or just not that interesting. There's a boardwalk that takes you into the marsh area. Presumably you can observe turtles and other animals there. On two separate occasions in the evenings we observed a beaver in the lake, swimming close to the shore and exiting the lake in a small inlet. Not ever having seen a beaver in the wild, and it not being bothered by our presence, this was a cool experience. We also watched at least one really pretty sunset on the lake. The park has 5 separate areas near the lake with large parking lots. Area 3 has a bathhouse with changing rooms, showers and toilets, and this is also the lifeguard station. There are many picnic tables with charcoal grills near the paved trail(s) to use.

Went on a girls camping trip there was 5 of us. It was a beautiful weekend. Place is clean. People were very friendly. The beach is very clean n pretty

My first visit to HBSP was not a disappointment. It's a lovely park bordering the shores of Lake Ontario. There is a campground and boat launch, along with an accessible trail that runs the length of the park. There is also a nature trail. Really something for everyone. The fee for admission was $9.00 (however, the entry fee is included with your camping pass). The beaches are beautiful! The only gripe was the unusual amount of garbage left behind. It was sickening to see all the plastic waste! The poor park employees are left to clean the mess up, if it doesn't get swept away by Lake Ontario first. 😢

Very good place. A lot of space, big parking lots, picnic area, playground. We really enjoy an can wait to go again 😊