Merritt Reservoir State Recreation Area — Attraction in Nebraska

On arrival we were disappointed by the general look of the camping areas. Sandy, washboard roads, poor signage, wonky sites etc. We stayed in Cedar Bay Area. The best sites in our opinion were the ones just as you enter the area. They were mostly level and plenty big. The 50 AMP power was stable at our site. Water fill at the dump station near the Trading Post in the north side of the park. Only one water fill in each camp area. We drove thru all of the other camping areas and found quite a variety of situations. The park suits small RV or tents best. About half of the sites are first come first serve. You pay at the Iron Ranger in the loop. You must also pay for a daily pass or buy a year pass at the Trading Post. Gas is also available there. The one shower house in the entire park is located in Cedar Bay. It is a usable pay shower. Not too clean though. The outside of the showerhouse was really bad looking with spiderweb, bird nests, dirt etc. Sure needs a regular power wash. We saw a couple park insignia trucks drive thru and one sheriff patrol the 5 days there. It was pretty busy on the weekend but almost emptied during the week. There is no easy access to the shoreline except at the boat launch areas. No developed beach, no playgrounds, no nature center, no walking or biking trails. The surrounding Sandhills are lovely and the wildflowers were in full bloom the middle of August. Prepare for a somewhat primitive experience, look for the positives, run up to Valentine and walk The Cowboy Trail at the trestle bridge, explore the Niobrara River, drive over to Snake River Falls, and be sure to look up... The Milky Way is spectacular with...

This is a huge park and we actually did not visit all the areas, so my review is only for the campgrounds of Beed’s Landing, Boardman Creek and Cedar Bay. We stayed in Beed’s West. Our site was #K. We were very disappointed with this particular site. The trash dumpster and electrical transformers were right in our site. I’ve posted pictures. There also is no picnic table at this site. The rest of the sites in this area are nice and well spaced, but some had tables and others did not. Our area at Beeds West has a lovely lake view spot where we saw a fantastic Nebraska sunset. There are only vault toilets in the Beeds and Boardman campgrounds. The toilets were clean and all had toilet paper. No hand sanitizer was available in any of them. We saw only 1 water spigot in each campground area. There is a bathhouse with flush toilets and showers at Cedar Bay, however they were disgustingly filthy. The showers are pay showers. Cedar Bay is an easy mile walk from Beed’s, while Boardman was about 1 3/4 miles, mostly on 97 with a fair amount of traffic. We did not make it to the main campground as it is about 3.5 miles up 97. The dump station is near the main campground. All campground roads are dirt/gravel and so are the camp site pads. There is no WiFi, but phone service is excellent. We could get 4 TV channels with our antenna. All were PBS and very clear. We never saw a camp host or park ranger, so I have no...

Stayed at Cedar Bay campground for 2 nights and the weather was great. We don’t fish so pretty much stayed in the campground. Restroom was very clean and so were the showers ($1.75 for 5 minutes; change machine takes $1 and $5 bills). The lake is down a lot since we were here in 2018 but there were still a lot of boats around. Camping spots (electric) vary from level to pretty difficult to park. Some spots are somewhat isolated but most seem to be kind of close to one another. For parking there seems to be no limit to the amount of vehicles in a spot (our neighbor has a 30-foot pontoon boat and a 40-foot 5th wheel) and parking on the grass is widespread. Only one dump station for all of the campsites (at park entrance) and water is at a spigot for the campground. Our only complaint is the prevalence of sand burrs, they are EVERYWHERE! Would it hurt to put down some pre emergent around the...