Lake Louise State Park — Attraction in Stewartville

A Beautiful Park with Significant Issues -

What's Great: Lake Louise State Park is truly a beautiful place. The trails are well-maintained, and the swimming area is clean and refreshing. If you're looking to enjoy a quiet hike or a dip in the water, this park offers some great opportunities.

Major Concerns: Harassment from a Park Ranger: Our trip was completely soured by a park ranger who constantly harassed my family and me. She repeatedly approached our campsite in broad daylight saying we are too loud and distrubing the other camper but no complaints were made. This loud noise was from her own judgement and while speaking to us made many stereotypical remarks about our behavior comparing it to "rappers".

The online booking system doesn't ask for personal details like race or ethnicity for a reason—it’s designed to be inclusive. This ranger’s behavior was not only unprofessional but also made us feel targeted and unwelcome. I hope park management addresses this and trains their staff to be more welcoming to all visitors, regardless of their background.

Poorly Designed Group Campsites: The group campsites are a major problem. Online, our site was listed as accommodating 50 people, but it was crammed just a few yards away from another group site for 35 people. This made it impossible for either group to have a private or enjoyable experience. For a park that aims to be "quiet," it's absurd to have two large groups—and an RV section with over 100 people—all packed so closely together. The sites are far too small for the listed capacity. A more realistic capacity would be 20-25 people at most to allow for a comfortable, respectful distance between groups. The park seriously needs to revisit the layout and capacity of these sites.

Overall: While the natural beauty of Lake Louise is undeniable, the issues with the campsite layout and, most distressingly, the unprofessional and biased behavior of a park ranger, made our trip extremely frustrating. Until these problems are addressed, I would be hesitant to return or recommend this...

After reading reviews and everything, this state park needs to spread out more, Group camp, camp grounds and horse area is just right next to each other, Beaches and lakes are Dirty! Raccoons and stray CATs everywhere. No staff on campsite, there’s a On Lady that calls herself “The Host” trying to kick large group of camp out of the site. That she’ll find every way to just get rid of them.

Multiple campsites are way to close to each other, the first thing we got there their was this lady that calls herself “The Host” came and greeted up telling us about quiet hours and stuff. The first night we respect everyone around us, there was 4-5 of us staying us late catching up quietly talking, the NEXT morning the Host walked around our campsite and came up to us “Complaining” that we were to loud last night other people was complaining and she’s is unsure because she is “far out”. Later that day she came back and told us to quiet down because we’re to loud, and Yet it was BRIGHT DAY LIGHT. We just want our privacy and Fun. But she keeps on coming around bring stuff up to say.

Another Group camp came that day and one of them people told us that about 2-3 years ago they came and was in the same site as us and got kicked out the next morning. Due to no reason.

The next morning she walked around and ask the other Group camper to see if we were LOUD. But yet they told her that we weren’t at all.

But we Didn’t Care and Made it through. And didn’t get kick out of the park, I wouldn’t recommend Group Camps for a...

POOP SMELL! Here camping 2 nights on Labor Day weekend and its NOT hot, its lovely. Nice enough campground, spacious, but man! The horse POOP smell is HORRIBLE! I can't imagine how bad it is in the heat of summer.

The equestrian campground is full with horses and right next to and seemingly upwind of the regular campground. It was still super strong and unbearable even with half the camp burning campfires. We had to close up the camper to sleep even though it is in the 60s.

And maybe you don't mind horse POOP super stank, if so, this is the place for you. And if you are thinking it can't be THAT bad, just remind yourself I told you so.

And the other bad POOP smell is one of the flush toilets at the bathhouse. They have shower/toilet combos and the one closet to regular camping smelled like a bad sewer leak. I almost puked. Seriously.

The one place that doesn't smell like POOP? The privy in the regular campground. It was clean, well stocked, had hand sanitizer and no smells.

We had to leave camp anytime we didn't want to just hang out inside our camper. There are lots of nice non poopy trails and a swimming area and a lovely lake. But it sucks not being able to hang...