Council Grounds State Park — Attraction in Town of Merrill

We just made our first trip to Council Grounds. Family of four with 12yo and 9yo kids.

This is a nice, quiet campground that offers mostly private wooded sites. There were very few "stinker" sites, especially for tents. Some were very uneven, which might pose a problem if you have a larger camper. But the staff seemed pretty knowledgeable, if you call ahead to ask.

The hiking trails are decent, but not overly challenging. There are canoes, kayaks, and paddle boards available for rent.

The beach is quite small and the designated swimming are is tiny, but the bottom is nice and sandy, you can go out past the markers and actually swim. It seems to be a popular spot for locals to pull up and splash around in. They weren't the most sophisticated crowd, if you know what I mean.

We didn't do any fishing, but there were a ton of people with poles out there, so it must be decent.

Yes, the bathrooms were a bit outdated/dingy. But you're camping, get over it. On the plus side, there are two separate flush toilet houses. That really surprised me in such a small campground.

If you happen to forget anything, there's a Walmart just a few minutes away. We also saw and awesome looking aquatic center with big slides just outside the campground, but didn't have time to go check it out.

While it's not on our "must see" list, we would definitely consider...

I did really like it. Very beautiful dense forestry. The river is nice; relatively large based on other river access points I've been to with a quaint picnic area near it. I'm not sure what the beach area(s) are, I didn't go to any swimming area at this particular location. Owl lovers, this one is for you I heard calls of several different types, a northern saw-whet was almost directly above us on a branch which I saw only after we were trying to find where it's adorable calls were coming from. This is the first state park campground I've camped at, I've done national forest camping before and private campground camping. I feel the state parks could do better with water access points of rivers, creeks and lakes at this point, but I haven't been to many state park locations yet, doesn't seem to have the type of ease of access the national...

Nice park and campground. Lots of hiking and biking trails. Decent swim Beach nice boat landing and fishing piers. Picnic tables shelters grills benches accommodate small and large groups. Campsites are level with a picnic table and fire ring fairly large so that at least two vehicles from today's modern family can fit there. Good put in and take out sites for kayaks canoes nice paddling on the lake above the dam and swifter water below the dam short or long trips are available. Nice Vistas all along The River. Many very shaded sites some 20% exposed to Sun. Lots of branches and good size logs laying in the woods for your campfire. Electric sites and non-electric sites. Monday through Friday non-electric sites are 15$ electric sites are 28$ Friday through Sunday non-electric sites are 20$ electric...