Pilot Knob State Park

It's a beautiful park. I camped up there this last weekend. The campground has a nice bathroom. 2 toilets and a urinal. It has 5 or 6 shower rooms that are individual units with locked doors. The water was hot. Too hot for me, but most would not complain about that. The trails are great. From the campground to the tower, it's only about a mile. We watched the sunrise and sunset up there. The staff was great. They answered all our questions and bathroom was clean. I will definitely be back.

Nice small park. Easy to get to. Good hiking trails. Pit toilets are good. Campground is decent.

This is a little tough to give a rating and I might have gone with a 3.5 if it was an option. The park itself is okay. Nice trail to the tower, which was neat. The lake just so, so. We didn't fish, so we can't attest to that. The campground isn't that big, which isn't an issue, but many spots are small and very sloped. The campground hosts were very helpful and friendly and went out of their way to assist if needed. Bathrooms were some of the cleanest I've seen this year! The friends of pilot knob organization were also a positive! They had concessions each day and hosted a movie with popcorn on Saturday night, so that was very cool!

One of my favorite Iowa state parks. Nice hiking trails, newer restrooms, and a tower to climb for wonderful views. The campground is nice, just enough slope to test the limits of your camper jacks :) We usually end up with some chigger bites on ankles. Also wish the DNR would do a quiet hours sweep. Listening to the neighbors talk till midnight is frustrating because there is no DNR presence. 9/3/24 edit: the campground is policed by a dictator by DNR or camp host, telling you what you can or cannot drink and telling you your campfire is going to start a forest fire because there is a tree branch 30ft above. However still no quiet hr sweep to tell the generator people to turn it off at 11pm. And I walked up to the tower at 10:30 and they don’t seem to care if people smoke dope up there. They had 16 open electric sites on a holiday weekend. They are driving people away.

Great place for walks and amazing view at the castle they have electric camping areas and non electric Great for kids and the dead man lake is amazing clean and free to visit for the day no need for state park pass, only pay if you camp they have RV dump stations and sites.