Molly Stark State Park Campground

We stayed in Aug 2016 for two nights.

Molly Stark State park is a small park. It is mostly the campground, a picnic pavilion, and a trail to a fire tower. We enjoyed our short stay here.

Sites 2 - 24 are wooded with good separation between them. There are also camping lean-tos scattered in this area which are named after trees (Cherry, Poplar, Maple...) Sites include a picnic table and fire pit. The updated modern bathhouse is on the hill in this area. The showers here are free. The dump station with fresh water fill is also near this bathhouse.

Sites 1 and 15 - 23 are on the edge of an open field. All sites in the whole campground are back in except site 16, which is a pull through with partial shade. The rest of these sites have full sun and no privacy from neighboring sites. The bathhouse in this area is much older. There are pay-showers here.

The office sells firewood, $6 for 10 pieces. Ice is for sale at the office. A small book exchange (take a book and leave a book) is located on the side of the office. Recycling is also available on site.

There was some distant road noise from State Rt 9 which diminishes to an occasional vehicle at night.

The mile hike up to the Mt Olga fire tower lookout was nice.

Amazing little state park with a great staff and easy access to the Harriman Reservoir. We booked site #12 in July of 2016. When the ranger that checked us in saw our 21' travel trailer he mentioned we might have a some difficulty backing into the site. He said if that was the case, just come back up to the station and he would move us to one of the larger sites at the front of the park.

With a couple of tries, and folded in mirrors, we were able to get into the site. The site was nice and level, with shade throughout the day. We hiked the Olga Trail up to the fire watch tower which was a nice 1-1/2 hour walk after dinner our first night. The majority of our time in the area was spent at the Harriman Reservoir, located just a few miles west of the park.

There is a single dump station by the central bathhouse, with separate spigots for potable and flush water. However, the campsite is small enough that we have not experienced a wait to fill or dump our tanks.

The bath house at this end of the park is at most a year or two old. Showers work great, and give you a reasonable amount of preset temperature water for each button press.

We stayed at this park a few months earlier in summer of 2016, and enjoyed it so much that we headed back up with a couple of friends for Labor Day Weekend. They stayed on site #21 and set up two tents. We booked the adjacent site #23 for our travel trailer. Both sites were level and had full sun throughout the day which was a welcome source of warmth on a crisp September morning, but might not be so welcome in the heat of the summer. The other issue with these two sites is that they are at the northern end of the park property and within earshot of Route 9. Road noise was pretty constant throughout the day, but quieted down at night with the exception of the occasional tractor trailer engine-braking down the hill leading up to the park.

The bath house at the northern end of the park is dated and appears to be original to the park's construction. Cold water is free, but you'll need to pack quarters if you want hot water. We opted to walk to the newer bath house in the center of the park that we had used on our previous stay.

We will definitely stay at this park again, but would likely chose a site at the southern end of the park with more shade, newer bath house, and away from the road noise.

There were no signs saying we were too big. A long haul up hill to find out there's very little turn around room an no sites for us.

Tent, trailer or rv. I gave this little park five stars for being good at what it does. There are wooded sites in the upper area and tent campers have nice shelters, the wooded sites are ample size for rvs and trailers too. Site six is really nice for its trees and little stream. Brand new bathhouse upper with free warm shower. Lower area is an open sunny field. Good for solar since there are no hookups in this park. Two hour generator time morning and night. Lower area has some road noise. And no turnaround so walk it before taking a big trailer down. Upper park road is a loop so easy in out. . Ranger couple have a house and garden near the entrance and are super nice. Fire tower hike, cute little town, grocery nearby, Reservoir nearby. Great place to hang out for a few days.

Molly Stark State Park, just outside of Wilmington, Vermont, was our first Vermont State Park. At only 148 acres, it is smallish. What I'd call a pocket park. But what it lacks in acreage, it makes up for in quality of sites and amenities.

Molly Stark has 23 tent/RV sites and 11 lean-to sites. Sites are all dry camping, no electric, no water, no sewer. The sites are all nicely spaced, many carved out of the forest with attention to privacy. There's also a relatively new (2 years old) bath house with 4 showers, a place to get fresh water and a convenient dump station for RV's.

One of the best parts of the park is the Mount Olga hiking loop trail with a spur trail leading up to a fire tower that gives one who climbs it a spectacular 360 degree view of the surrounding area. When we're back through Vermont, this park will definitely be on our list of places to park Miranda.

We were able to stream Netflix from our site.

True story. We stopped at Molly Stark state park in Vermont on the way home after vacationing in Maine. The sign coming into the park said no vacancy. When we got to the parking area I went up to the office counter and said, “We’re just stopping through. My husband is going to ride his bike for a bit and we’ll eat lunch, but we’re not staying.” The guy working said, “You still need to pay something.” I said, “Of course. No problem.” He said $4, I paid & started to walk away. The woman working said, “We have very nice clean bathrooms if you need them.” Which I thought was nice. My husband rode for about 45 minutes and then we walked to the bathhouse for him to take a quick shower. He says, “Do you have 50 cents? It’s 10 minutes for fifty cents.” While he’s showering I’m walking around with our dog. She poos and now my husband is walking towards me with a bag to pick it up because his 50 cent shower is finished. Before we can pick up after our dog the office worker comes towards me quickly and says, “Here’s a poo bag. Now you’ve at least gotten your 4 dollars worth.” I said, “Excuse me?” And he says, “You tried to get out of paying in the first place and now you’re using our showers. You said you were just eating lunch and your husband riding his bike.” My husband says, “I paid fifty cents for that shower. I didn’t steal it.” The guy says, “You said you were just stopping in.” I say, “Do you want more money?” And he says he wants another 4 bucks. I walk up to the counter to pay and say, “I try to assume the best of people. I want you to know that I wasn’t trying to get out of paying. I saw the no vacancy sign and didn’t want you to think we were trying to stay the night.” He said that he’s tired of people with the nicest stuff … a multi thousand dollar bike and a nice RV trying to get something for nothing.” I reminded him that he said admission was 4 dollars and his coworker offered the bathrooms. He said, “So you don’t think you got 8 dollars worth of time in the park?” I told him, no, that we’d been there for an hour and 20 minutes and he’d told me admission was $4, but if the extra money would make things right for him then he could have it. I just didn’t appreciate him thinking I was trying to talk my way out of paying park entry, and I didn’t appreciate him assuming I had a character flaw. He told me again that it was rich people who tried to get out of paying, he was jaded & to keep my 4 dollars. What an odd experience.

We stayed for a few nights in the upper loop, #4. The sites there are wooded and private, a mix of RV friendly sites with level gravel and lean-tos. All appeared to be equipped with picnic tables and fire pits as well.

The bathhouse on the upper loop was clean, showers were warm, and although they appeared coin-operated, they all worked without paying.

There’s a nice 2m loop trail right from the park that takes you up to a fire tower with fantastic views.

Finally, I’m unsure about the lower, open loop, but the upper loop really quieted down every night.