Mikesell-Potts Recreation Area

We stayed here after we got to another campground that did not have cell service. I wish we had known sooner! This place is beautiful with 8 electrical sites and over 100 other sites, many lake front. We stayed 2 nights at an electrical site for $15 and then moved to a lake side dry camping site for $10/night. We needed to refill out fresh water and called up to Lake Stop RV up the road, they told us we could fill at any site that was not occupied. When we offered to pay they told us it wasn't necessary.
There are two entrances to the park, in my opinion the better Lake spots are in the second entrance about 1/4 mile up the road from the first. Plenty to do at the lake, boating, Kayaking, hiking and walking trails. There is a day use Swim area as well.
We stayed in a 42ft 5th Wheel.

Exit 51 off I-90. Big rig friendly, Elec (8 sites) $15: large private, shaded, firepit/table, back-in, some require a bit of leveling. 1st come only, may get crowded on weekends or during rodeo week.

Primitive (30+ sites) lake side $10: some shaded tables,some pull-thru.

Primitive (30+ sites) $10: large private shaded, Barkey Draw, no lake view.

Vault restrooms only, no potable water no dump (water & dump may be available for a fee at the Lake Stop store - same exit), friendly conscientious hosts. Day use Swim beach & picnic area (free) on S end. Both boat ramps (free) are in quiet bays & good for paddling (kayak, boarding), good fishing (100+ft deep) but lake can get REAL rough real quick with storms coming from West over the Big Horn Mountains. It's an excellent base-camp to explore North Central WY in day-loops (Big Horn Mountains, Devils Tower-2hrs, Shell Falls, or Tensleep canyon). I have pics, and more info as it is my home area. bwiled.2 at gmail dotcom. All who wander are NOT lost..

http://www.johnsoncountywyoming.org/departments/mikesell-potts-recreation-area/

Lovely little campground right on lake de smet. $10 a night for dry camping and $15 for electric only. Verizon signal was great. T-Mobile had a tough time. There are a couple swim beaches that were really nicely maintained. It was so cool to swim in the lake on a hot day with snow covered mountains in view! Stayed here for 3 nights and would definitely be happy to stay here again!

It's quiet with lots of site options. Our kids loved being next to the lake and being able to swim. It was very windy at times, then again this is WY. Bathrooms are pit toilets. It was great cheap dry camping with excellent cell coverage. We got a lot of work done and the kids had a blast.

A good place, with a beautiful large lake, to call "home" while exploring Buffalo, WY and the Big Horn Mountains. We arrived on a Sunday afternoon and took 1 of the 8 electric sites (one site had a broken electrical post, so only 7 sites with electricity were available.)

Electric sites are $15 a night and dry camping $10 a night, self registration/pay, no reservations, first come-first served, maximum 14 day stay. A friendly host is on site and checks pay station and sites regularly. Sites are gravel/rock and most are far from level, including the electric sites, but getting level is doable. Electric sites are spacious, have small trees/bushes between sites so they feel more private and include a fire ring and concrete picnic table. The dry camping sites that do not have a lake view also have trees/bushes between sites for more privacy.

After setting up we discovered there is another dry camping area, with better lake views and more level sites, just down the road from the main entrance (turn right before going into the main entrance.)

No potable water or dump station but non-potable is available. Pit toilets are available, the one closest to the electric sites was very smelly, others weren't nearly as bad.

Nice swimming area and boat ramps. Could be noisy in the evenings, quiet time is 11 P.M. - 6 A.M., but we didn't have issues with noise after 11 P.M. Sunday through Wednesday wasn't very busy, Thursday things picked up & the weekend was extremely busy. By Saturday morning most spots were filled and lots of boat traffic.

In summary, an average reasonably priced campground with beautiful mountain and lake views from the highest points.

Very nice place to camp on a lake with great choice of sites some right on the lake. Pit toilets are clean but doors did not lock. Also no potable water or dump station. Some sites have electric. Many sites had covered picnic tables to shelter from rain.

This was a great little campground with sites right on the edge of the lake. It was windy during our visit, so we chose one of the sites off the lake with some protection from the wind.

There are 8 sites with electric, but no 50amp electric sites on the lake. The electric sites were $15 and the non electric sites were $10. The site quality was decent and spacious. Some of the lakeside sites did not look very level, but others were better. Pit toilets only.

It looked like the lake got a decent amount of boat traffic during nice weather.

All around great and inexpensive stop in a lovely area.

I'm sure during the hot summer months, this place is rocking, but mid-September was a great time to visit and was still plenty warm for water activities. As a previous reviewer mentioned, there is a less-obvious campground area accessed by a right turn before you go through the main gate. Be sure to check the whole area before choosing a site! Our site was level, but many, especially the electric sites, appeared to not be although everyone parked in them had managed to get situated just fine.

We enjoyed kayaking, biking, and walking while here, and it's a short drive into the sweet downtown of Buffalo for more activities/amenities. Powder River Apiaries is on the way into the campground with a sign out front advertising honey for sale. If you're in need, you can just go in the white door where there is a big selection of honey and a honor-system payment box. We saw lots of wildlife here including pronghorn, turkeys, deer, turtles, and monster lake trout. The winds picked up considerably during our last night, waking us with the noise. We pulled in three of our four slides to keep the overhead canvas from tearing.

This is probably the hardest review I'll write to date. We were originally were staying in the Big Horns National Forest over the 4th of July Holiday, but the traffic even while we dispersed camped, drove us out. So we headed here, on a Friday. With the 4th of July behind us, we though it would be a bit less rowdy even though maybe crowded. It was to a degree, but even though the quiet hours were stated at 11PM, and there were signs all over stating "NO FIREWORKS", There were plenty fireworks going off well after midnight. Generators on a handful of campers ran all night as well. Fortunately, as long as we kept out windows closed, we didn't hear too much. On Saturday night we observed a few campers (tent) that were acting a bit less than normal though if I would guess, drugs were involved. As it turned out, there was a major tragedy at one of the sites Friday night in which drugs were a factor.
We saw little patrol presence until Sunday morning, when the local Sheriffs department drove through in the morning several times and again after lunch. However, we never saw then after dark. I think most of us know, the morning is nott exactly when campers would like to see some sort of Sheriff or police presence.
The camp host's seemed to have their hands tied and can do nothing but advise campers to call a number whenever there is a problem. It would seem to me there are either political issues or budgetary issues when it comes to patrolling the park.
The sites themselves were overbooked in many cases, having two, sometimes three trailers to a site with several boats and vehicles parked all over. There are only 8 sites that have power, the rest of the sites a primitive. No water seemed available at the park that we could see. Fire rings and picnic tables are present at all sites and some sites have shelters. There is easy access to the water whether you are a boater or fisherman.
Several bathrooms are located through the park, though all are vault toilet type. But choose carefully because the larger more central bathroom smelled so bad, I couldn't use it. Others were less aromatic, but could use a good cleaning on a regular basis. I actually had to wash one of the walls as it was pretty disgusting.
There is road noise from the highway that you may hear depending on wind direction. The fact that quiet hours don't seem to be enforced, you may hear generators running all night.
However, the park seems to have changed by Sunday afternoon. Because this park seems to be used by locals on the weekends, the park seems to pretty much empty by Sunday afternoon. Another no-so enforced rule, we observed that people seem to vacate long after their checkout time of 2PM. So as I write this, it is now Monday and it is a different park altogether. If you decide to come hear, Monday throughFriday may be your best bet. But beware, we have seen a trend where locals come out early in the week and pre-place their campers in their favorite spots, and then not return until Friday, thus clogging up the park with essentially vacated campers.
If I could make one suggestion to CAMPENDIUM, add an option of "Maybe, see why below." as to whether you would stay here again or not. In this case, I would stay here as long as there were not any holidays, there were no bass tournaments or other exhibitions present, and it was Monday through Friday. Other than that, no I would not stay here.

This is an affordable boondocking location with a nice view! The lake is nice to enjoy! We are a large 37ft trailer and had lots of room. I did find non-potable water to flush your toilets by the vault toilets. There is a Lions building with a water spicket on it but it’s not labeled so wasn’t sure if we were allowed to use it or if it works. You can’t beat $10 a day!