Lake Mineral Wells State Park — Attraction in Mineral Wells

As you know our dog goes with us to parks. It's a beautiful place. Just please be careful if you have pup with you. Lots of cactus at every location. We saw a bunch of huge boulders off the main area. We set up our lunch (salad and chips🤪if you wanna know) it was perfect. It was away from others. Great view. It was our 28th anniversary (4th anniversary if you go by date) so, of course had to be family outing. We tried to do some smaller trails but, Rowdys feet were issue. We went by bait, store, cleaning, boat dock area. They had a sandy area was awesome for short runs. Only about 300 feet of beach at the whole park. The Esquire trail is nice for walking ,but there's a fence on one side and cactus on the other side. Rowdy didn't like us not letting him off trail to sniff but, he got to find horse poo.....lol go figure. The store area had hooks and tackle in trees. There were abandoned tackle in and around water area. The store is beautiful outside but, with there were local artist work or other trinkets for out of towners. But, nothing you we couldn't live without. The staff at front gate was professional and very nice. If you come in off hour the pass is easy to find. Restrooms were dirty kinds shocking. Most parks were/are so clean. It's a beautiful place. The spill way is totally cool. I would love it in summer after a good rain. Can walk by it or drive. Was fun to drive around be very cautious this park had a HUGE NUMBER of little children. Some with supervision and some not. 20 mph to fast because, we all know how fost 5,6,7 or 8 yr. Olds are. Well kept roads, nice camp sites, great piers, boat docks well maintained. Vending machines for live bait and other things. Canoe rentals and more. Yes I do recomend just use caution if you have animal's. It is really a super awesome place. Staff is wonderful. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, breathtaking, spectacular, we picked up a year pass it was only $70.00 for whoever is in your car is covered. You can pay $90.00 for a year for two if you plan to go in different cars. Again, whoever is in either car is covered and it is $5.00 or more a person if you pay for day. We will be saving a HUGE amount of money with as much as we love going. This way we can go to any Texas state park and we plan to try to visit as many as we can. THERE ARE A LOT! We're all looking forward to seeing Texas and our history though our beautiful, spectacular State Parks. We hope to you...

It was beautiful. I will be going back here again. I am from Ft Worth , so I like the convenience of how close it is. Its only about a 1 hr drive. We rented a screened shelter because rain was in the forecast. It was also going to be 45 degrees overnight. We wanted the option of being able to get out of the rain if it got really bad, and have protection from the wind chill. The screen shelters have electricity and water. The water it great for washing dishes and handd, so you don't have to bring in so much water. We still used our own water for drinking and brushing teeth... The restrooms/ showers were immaculate!! So clean and looked new. No dirt or bugs....

There are about 14 screened shelters. The restrooms/showers are nearest to units 10, 11. The other shelters are more of a walk. Especially units 1-6. Be prepared to walk a bit from those units if ya gotta pee. And ya might end up driving yourself to the restroom to be faster.... But units 1-6 are the best for being right on the lakefront and/ or having a Lakeview!

The trailmaps provided are very useful. The day use side of the park is not as fun. Though the trails are much more spectacular!!! The ravine between the gigantic rocks (where you can repel) are worth the moderate effort to get to. Take the trail all the way to the waters edge to a fishing pier for a gorgeous view of the lake . This side if the lake definitely has better photo spots! But the picnic tables are nowhere near the lake. You cannot even see it. And the trees and brush grow thick around most tables. I didn't like that you couldn't see the lake, at least... But the best hiking trail starts from that area so it's a trade off.

There are picnic tables ( about 6) Right on the lake where the gift shop/supply store is. That is also where the sand beach for swimming is. The store has food, drinks, camping supplies, fishing supplies, hiking supplies, repelling supplies, souvenirs firewood and more.

We have a great time...

Update: Weekend of 4/12-14/24--We stayed in shelter 8 again and enjoyed it. This time we camped in the spring, instead of the fall. Definitely WAY more bugs, also scorpions were out. We probably prefer the fall, although the weather was amazing and everyone had a fabulous time! The bathrooms have received some up grades to the stalls. There are bars that help you to get on the toilet if needed. A park ranger comes by often and cleans them and they stayed tidy the whole weekend. We were able to see so many stars as the night sky was very clear! And we still had good night temps allowing us to make s'mores! We hope to be back in the Fall this year!

Update: Fall 2023: 2 years later and we're finally back. Stayed in shelter 8 this time. Not really anywhere to pitch a tent if you had a couple people not sleeping in the shelter that needed to. Such a lovely view of the lake. Great trails, lovely kitchen facility for our church campout. Clean bathrooms. Kids had a blast playing and rock parkouring!

We had a great weekend here with church, family and friends! Shelters are nice and useful. We had a great view of the lake in shelter 9! Some of the shelters are better to set up tents than others. We had a pretty rocky area. We used the awesome common area and it is a great facility. We hiked Penitentiary Hollow on the other side of the lake. It had a lot of rock climbers and that was interesting to watch! The kids (ages 2-11) had an awesome time! The water at the site can hook up to a standard hose which was useful... because we actually brought the "kitchen sink". We had a outdoor sink set up and it was so convenient for out two families! Great grilling area and a picnic table there too! Thanks for a clean, fun...