Meacham Lake Campground — Hotel in Town of Duane

I live in Saranac Lake and was looking for a new summer camping place, but I will never go back here again. I have never dealt with such rude people in my life. I checked in yesterday, but my spouse needed to register her truck today (around 11am) so we stopped at the stop sign and pulled to the right. My spouse got in a long line of six people to get the parking permit for her truck. 3 people, including the camp patrol car went by us no issue. A small SUV went in the exit way and the staff started screaming bloody murder at the guy “Don’t you dare! Get back here now”. I mean screaming like maniacs. Then an older lady comes out and goes to me, who was pulled over to the right at the stop sign “Alright! You need to move! You’re blocking traffic” Yelling like a mother whose child did something terrible. I look at her baffled, as clearly we did the right thing by stopping at the stop sign AND pulling over so people can get by. She then goes “What do you need a day pass or something. You just stopped there you can’t just stop”. So I said my spouse is trying to register her car and why are you yelling at me when there’s a stop sign and people can get by. Then the other staff comes out and starts yelling about how I need to pull up. First of all, it’s not my fault people went in the exit when they can get around me. Secondly, there’s a stop sign and a line of people waiting! If they wanted me to pull up they could have just politely asked me to move forward instead of screaming like I was doing something wrong. Plus people could get by us, as several cars did. Then the lady goes “just pull up and write it down or something” so we do, but meanwhile 2 people had stopped while we were pulling up (and didn’t get yelled at by the way) so now we were even farther back in line. I’ve never been treated so rudely in my life. They either need a sign that says pull forward if we are busy or to politely ask people, or more staff so there’s not such s long line. Not to scream at people trying to do the...

I have camped at Meacham since I was a kid and I was a lifeguard there when I was in college. We have taken our children there on numerous occasions and have always loved the area. However, this time we were very disappointed with our experience. Our first night there, the people across the road from our campsite were up talking loudly, swearing and playing music until 1:30 am. The next morning, we let the staff know about the situation and fortunately the people on that site were reminded of the quiet hours (10:00 pm until 7:00 am.) When we inquired about how we should handle a similar situation, were it to happen again, we were told that we should ask noisy campers to be quiet and if they didn't comply we could we could let the staff at the booth know there was a problem. As long as it was before midnight someone would be able to help. If it was after midnight, no staff would be present to help take care of the problem. On our second night, people at a different campsite nearby were being loud and woke us up a bit after midnight. After waiting a while for them to quiet down, my husband and I walked to their site and politely asked the campers to lower their noise level as it was well after quite hours. Once we returned to our campsite the noise did not stop and we could hear them swearing and complaining about how we had asked them to please be quieter. We ended up listening to the noise, and threats until well after 2:00 am. When we spoke with the caretaker the next morning, he informed us that we could have knocked on his door at any hour and he would have taken care of the situation. Had we not been given the wrong information the previous day, we could have been spared a very uneasy and sleepless night. Meacham needs more patrolling, and a better informed staff before we camp there again. A year before this, we observed a man driving drunk in the campground. If you want to drink heavily, yell loudly and swear, do it at home, not at a...

More 4.5 everyone is friendly. Some Campsites are private. The flies on the beach and water are relentless. Every time I went to the beach and they were all hot days pretty great weather, I'm like where is everybody. At most there were maybe like 30 people. I realized that some of the sites are right in the water so that's where some of the people were located. Some of the people were over by the bath house Beach to launch off a boat and go in the water with floaties. But in the evenings it was like a ghost town. Even with the fly situation though is totally worth it. The water is a strange rust color red. I don't remember reading or seeing anything about that. I actually guard and she seems like it was unusual that I was even asking versus it was unusual that the water look like blood was seeping into it. She also answered that it might have been the sands on the floor of the lake, but the sand on the beach was normal colored. The other lifeguard said it might be because the mulch in the water makes it a different color. I wound up getting past it but at first was kind of grossed out by it. Nothing got stained or look like the water was just colored outside of the lake. Also I have a magnetic thing for my phone and when it fell on the ground I picked it up and there were all these metal tiny shavings from the soil attached to my device. I thought that was kind of interesting. It definitely gives a mountain type feel the view is amazing. The other thing is the bath house near the beach didn't have any lighting even though there were lights I couldn't figure out how to turn it on. It just had changing rooms and bathrooms no water to rinse your feet off or showers. That was over on the other side. It's definitely off the beaten path, beautiful. I went by myself for a weekend and I felt like I've been gone for at least 5 days. It was worth the four and a...