Deer Creek State Park — Attraction in Daniel

My family and I went jet skiing at Dear Creek back in August and we were pretty frustrated by quite a few things we observed. We arrived fairly early in the morning on a Saturday, and unfortunately the prices for parking were higher than we were told they would be. Not a big enough deal to deter us from having fun with our jet ski reservations. We get inside and a good portion of us have to use the restroom. There were very few bathrooms around, and the one we were able to find was absolutely disgusting. Toilet was smeared with everything and the toilet paper was running on the low end, so instead of making a seat cover and wasting what would probably run out within the next hour we had to hover. Lovely.

Signs were not clear as to were the jet ski station was, but we finally found it after walking around for half an hour. We got our life vests on and walked down to where the jet skis were. WOW. It was a steep decline with jagged rocks sticking up randomly, no steps and when you get to the, "beach" area, it was covered with rocks. Every step we took was a risk of sliding down the hill. The guys on duty ran through instructions very briefly, so I'm glad we had been jet skiing the week before at Bear Lake. The "slow" area was very large and took about 10 minutes to get out of before you could go full speed. When we finally got out we quickly realized how different the waters were at Deer Creek in comparison to Bear Lake. The narrow body of water creates far more waves making it so you are thrown about constantly. When you get going fast large waves would come up and drench you. No, there is nothing that can be done about this. It's a natural body of water. But apparently this happens more on busier days like a Saturday because of all the boats in the water. The jet ski model was much more narrow than the ones at Bear Lake and we (my son and I) almost fell off a dozen times. My sister saw and told us to go back and change ours out. When we got back he said he wouldn't change it out because they were all the same model (I hadn't even asked to change it out yet) and would do the same thing. He then proceeded to check the jet ski out to see if something else was wrong with it, he found nothing. He then offered for us to use a paddle boat to make up for the rest of our time, which was a nice gesture, but I was okay with just staying on land. The water was just too bumpy and I had never used a paddle boat before.

When my sister got back to land apparently the employee told her that he had offered me a different ski, which he definitely did not. I told my sister this after she asked me why I didn't come back out. She wasn't very happy with his dishonesty, but I told her that I was okay hanging out on shore.

Overall this is not the place to go jet skiing if you don't like the constant risk of being thrown or if you have a sportier model of your...

We recently spent 3 nights at the Great Horned Owl loop, sites 3 and 4. Check in at 3 PM, check out at 12 PM, quiet hours between 6 AM and 10 PM. Sites 3 and 4 are great! Each site has a metal picnic table and a firepit. The bathroom is fairly nice and has a few outlets. There are 4 separate showers (1 is ADA accessible) with warm water. Great views. The stars are gorgeous at night. There is an access point to the reservoir from Great Horned Owl. It's pretty steep and you can't bring dogs down to the "beach". The beach is pretty rocky and small so not necessarily the best place to hang out all day, but nice for fishing or paddleboarding. I've been here in the summer when it's 100 degrees and I've been in the fall when it's much cooler. Summer camping can be hot!! Generally it's a few degrees cooler than the surrounding cities, but there are not a ton of trees. I'd highly recommend a canopy. It's lovely in the fall, but too cool to swim in my opinion. You're supposed to have dogs on a leash at all times. That said, we had a family reunion here and booked most the sites and let the dogs off leash for most of the time and it was fine. I saw a few other campers do the same. Read the temperature of the campsite and have good pet etiquette, but it's pretty dog friendly. Overall, pretty nice camp. I'm giving 3 stars for 2 reasons. 1) 1 or 2 of the sites at least at Great Horned Owl are advertised as tent sites, but there is literally no room for a tent. They should be marketed for trailers/RVs. And 2) the price!! It's gotten a bit outrageous this past year. You get 1 car per site, after that it's 30$/day per extra vehicle. We wound up paying 180$ for 3 nights of camping (90 for the sites and 90 for extra vehicles). The increase in extra vehicles is new this year. If you are taking more than 1 vehicle, just book 2 campsites bc it's literally the same price. We also rented the wallsburg group pavillion...420$ for a pretty basic pavillion. That price is insane to me. Jordanelle has nicer group...

It's hard to rate harshly when a pandemic is interrupting routines. The Main and Island parts of the park were closed. This made everyone crowd into Rainbow Bay. All of the pavilions were taken there, so barbequing wasn't available. I'd brought logs in hopes of having a nice fire for lunch and dinner, but there were no fire pits/rings. It would have been hard to burn my wood in the barbeques anyway. Maybe I should have known that somehow before going, but I didn't. The price was $20 because it was a weekend. There's a firm "no refund" policy because "the system doesn't allow it". Since all the small pavilions were taken, we set up on the beach by the main pavilion, the one you have to reserve. I don't know if it WAS reserved, but no one seemed to have a problem with all the random people around it. The bathrooms there were well cared for. The swimming area was clean. One of the zip lines was used a bit. The beach was rocks and the water pretty muddy. Gusts of wind were so strong no one could put up a canopy without it being ripped down. Another guest said it's much quieter on weekdays and the beach by the smaller pavilions is less rocky. Around 6 o'clock people started clearing out. If the main pavilion had been reserved, it wasn't in use anymore, so I used one of the large barbeques (there are three) for my firewood. They were plenty big for my logs. We had to get the kids to bed but I wouldn't have minded staying until the park...