High Cliff State Park

I am somewhat biased about High Cliff, because I also camp host here and coordinate and train the other camphosts each year too. My husband works in the maintenance dept full time. With all the budget cuts, the park operates on a very tight shoestring. It's neat, clean, well patrolled and has a lot of wonderful hiking trails, horse trails, natural scenery, limestone cliffs etc.

The campgrounds are all flat level sites with the exception of a few that are good for tenting. only 38 sites are electrified, due to a crazy state law passed about not being in competition with private parks. There are 112 campsites and 8 large group sites that can accommodate larger groups.

Drinking Water (city not well) is available at the dump station area, so be sure to fiil before you enter the campground. There are nice clean newly redone shower building and flush toilets... and also various pit toilets around the campground.

Very quiet, far from any highways or noise. Located on the NE corner shore of Lake Winnebago, the largest lake in Wisconsin.

I was drawn to this park by the good reviews on SingleTracks for off-road biking. Turns out the camping is great too. The campground has roughly 1/4 of the 112 sites with electric spread out in the south loop (between sites 53-112). The campground is perched on a heavily wooded cliff overlooking the lake and the remnants of High Cliff lime quarry and ruins of kilns. Lots of trails, some with elevation change. There is a fair amount to explore here so plan accordingly. My site was clean, level with nice spacing between adjoining sites. It was midweek and the place wasn't half full. The park office has some cool t-shirts for sale. In-state noon-electric sites start at $20. The dump station has only one island but was clean and working.

This state park on the shores of Lake Winnebago is a great place to camp. Great trail along the Niagara Escarpment (didn't know what that was before I looked it up), with awesome views of Lake Winnebago. There is a great place on the Red Bird Trail from which to catch the sunset...benches provided. I am disappointed that this state park does not have more electric sites. I had to move back my trip to find a time with a site needed. Interestingly, I looked up the park and found a state plan developed in 2013 that recommended increasing the number of electric sites, but here in 2019, they seem stuck in the past. C'mon, Wisconsin!!
We camped in site 57 which is across from the campground host. A little tight and hard for a longer TT (30 ft). Lots of space between the sites... Always great in my book.

Just spent one night but we will return. Lots of good hiking and paddling here! The campground is well spread out with vegetation between sites.

This park has many good sites, great hiking trails, and a fairly clean bathroom with showers. There are also pot toilets scattered around. The campground was very quiet on Sunday and Monday nights, but a neighboring camper told me it was very loud over the weekend.

Verizon cell service was one bar about 90% of the time and two bars on occasion. It was very slow.

Yes it rained, it happens. The sand/gravel mixture they have on the camp spaces sticks to your shoes and then messes up your RV. The check in station is about a mile from the actual campground and the trash is about a half mile from it, not handy.
The check in station has 4 people working, but cannot sign you up for camping? I had to stand outside (due to Covid?) and call the state camp reservation line to sign in! Very incompetent. Yes once the rain stopped it was a pretty wooded spot. Our site not very level.

The campsite is $25 plus a $7.75 processing fee, and then another $11 for a vehicle pass. I hate the add ons. Just make the price the actual price. The trails were okay but nothing special. Best trail is the butterfly pond.

As luck would have it I chose site 55 online when making a reservation. As soon as we drove up we could tell it was going to be trouble - impossible to level in any direction and probably a challenge for a trailer or tent as well. I'd avoid it at all costs. The very nice (and tall) young man at the office quickly moved us (only 1 remaining unreserved electric site) to site 77 and it like just about every other site (especially the primitive sites) was large, level, and well separated. If you've got great weather (it was) and quiet neighbors (we did) this is a very nice park. The views from the tower area of Lake Winnebago are terrific and the trails are fun as well for hiking & biking. The price is what it is plus the admin fee but we had a WI state park annual sticker which helps. Water is only available adjacent to where the dump station is, well away from the camping loops so be sure to fill up before going to your site. The T-Mobile LTE signal was below 2 Mbps but AT&T was about 9 DL and 1 UL.

We LOVED this park. We came Father's Day weekend, so it was busy - we saw only 1 or 2 sites empty. That being said, it wasn't horribly loud. We were fairly close to the playground so there were screaming kids until 9:30 at night, but as parents we could deal (if that's not your thing, I'd book further back in the grounds and you should be good!!).

Sites are FULLY shaded. Great for the heat but sucked for stargazing LOL. Sites are really big. Just watch where you book if you have a big camper - we watched a couple people get stuck because there are large trees in the middle of some driveways, plus the road in the grounds is very curvy so not ideal to try to back in a big trailer.

Everything was really clean. We were right next to the pit toilets and couldn't smell anything. We watched the staff come twice and empty trash in there. The shower building was also clean until someone clogged the family bathroom toilet on Saturday night, it still wasn't fixed when we left Sunday. The gendered restrooms/showers we fine though.

Great hiking in this park for sure. The beach is small but Lake Winnebago is beautiful and you can swim WAY out and it's still shallow so you're not crowded in there at all.

Sherwood is an adorable town. Definitely stop at Frog's for ice cream while you're there!

Beautiful trails, views and sights! We hiked the Red Bird and Lime Kiln trails.