Lac qui Parle State Park — Attraction in Montevideo

Watson, MN – Lac Qui Parle State Park – Upper campground What a beautiful park! In early July 2018 we stayed for 10 nights in the upper campground in site U9, which had FHU, 50 amp. The site was large, grassy, with fire ring/grill and picnic table and surrounded by corn fields and prairie with lots of wild flowers. We could see the water in some places. Nightly sunsets were spectacular. There is plenty of space between sites. It was a calm and relaxing place. The visitor center was very interesting and the staff was very friendly and helpful. The clerk forgot to take care of our tow vehicle permit but a ranger came by a few days later and took care of it for us. The hiking trails are mown trails through the prairie and woods and were nice to walk through, with the exception of the woodsy area, where the mosquitoes swarmed like crazy. That’s not unexpected given all the rain this area has had. Price was $33/night for FHU plus we paid the annual vehicle permit of $35. There is not much around to do there, Verizon cell was 4G 3-4 bars and OTA digital channels were slim but we very much enjoyed the calming atmosphere, watching the birds and 13 Lined Ground Squirrels. Our only complaint is the water: it has a bad alkaline smell and taste (even with double filters) and leaves a brown stain in the shower. Bring drinking/cooking...

So the upper campground was amazing and they did archery practice when we were there. That was all fun. The shower building was decent and the views are good.

The hikes up by upper campground aren't labeled very well and we weren't totally sure about them but we did see the largest cottonwood.

The lower campground was closed while we were there and no one manning the station there and things were a little over grown unfortunately it's due to lack of staffing I'm sure.

There is a beach but it's more large rocks and small amount of sand and then some pebble beach. It was fun still being there. Unfortunately someone had glass there and there was broken glass.

It is a very good point to stay to make it to other parks like Camden, Pipestone, split Creek, and big stone. All in short drive.

When we went there was bridge construction and we couldn't go east had to go all the way north and back around to...

Upper campground is almost too spaced out. Never even met any neighbors. No shade, either. The small trees will probably look nice in about 15 years. Lots of little striped gophers. They were pretty cute. The views of the lake were great, and the sunsets. Weather was windy and a little rainy. We drove through the lower campground. I would not want to camp there. The trees were not trimmed, so we scraped our small RV just driving through. We decided not to visit the map shelter. There were thousands of mosquitoes outside, and we didn't want to risk opening the door. We also never saw where to go for the cottonwood tree, even though we drove past the area several times. It wasn't well labeled. Found ticks on the path to the office, I imagine they were other places as well. Overall, it was OK. Just wish it had more trails or things to do. A playground would have...