Great River Bluffs State Park — Hotel in La Crescent

This park is a must-stop when traveling thru “Bluff Country ” of SE MN. Located on top of river bluffs, it offers multiple breathtaking views of the surrounding area on both the bluff and river sides.

For the grand tour, start at the southern end in the campground and head to Orchard Overlook, then proceed north to the East Overlook and continue on to the South and North Overlook and finally, work your way up to King’s Bluff, past rare bluff-top prairie (please stay on trail to protect this fragile area) to take in spectacular views of Queens Bluff and the Mississippi River beyond.

The campground is decently sized offering well-spaced campsites with decent privacy. There are new tent pads on several sites, but note that most sites have some slope to them being on the bluffs and most larger trailers will not fit ( check each site during reservation for Max length). Also there are no elec sites here so plan accordingly and bring your solar power generators.

Cell service is ok in campground, better near park office. Facilities are older but in good shape and there are several vault toilets all throughout the park (picnic area, park office, cart in, etc).

In summer after heavy or prolonged rain, mosquitoes can be terrible, the heavy tree cover can hinder helping breezes to keep them at bay so bring shelters and sprays.

The picnic area is quite nice and large. The are several nice spots tucked into the forest so explore to find just the right...

Wow! What a gem! We paid online since there was no one there on a Sunday during Covid.

The entrance to the park was unassuming and we weren’t sure there was going to be much to see. We were wrong. We drove through and saw that there is a campsite in addition to a picnic area and several trails. The park was fairly busy despite it being late afternoon on a Sunday. The trails can be accessed in the winter with skis but no bikes are allowed.

We came here to see the fall colors and we were not disappointed. We came mid October, around the peak time for the colors. Due to limited time, we were only able to go one one trail: the King’s Bluff trail. It was about 1 mile long and the end of the trail was worth the hike. You can see the Mississippi River from this bluff. Just beautiful!

Wish we had more times to see the other trails! The drive down here was just...

We camped at site #23 with our 24 ft travel trailer. It was a tight fit but it fit. There are no hookups at any campsite but the park ranger said we could run our generator outside of quiet hours ofcourse. The site is surrounded by tall trees but is in full sun for about 4 hours at peak heat hours.

Trails are nice, easy and take you to multiple lookout points. They're easy to do with kids and dogs.

Their map shows a playground but none exists. We found a ton of morel mushrooms off trail and saw a lot of different birds.

There is no water ways in the park for fishing or anything. You'd have to drive down to small town called Pickwick or somewhere close to the Mississipi. There is a KwikTrip Gas Station just off the exit to the park that's close to go to if you need...