We recently took a trip to Pammel State Park in near Winterset Iowa. We found the park very scenic and it almost felt like we were in a Southern State with the hills and heavily forested trees. It’s confusing why they call this a state park because it seems to be operated as a county park. The signs off HWY 92, direct you South into the park but it’s not until you get down that road that you’re notified of the low bridge ahead. If you’re like us, you’ll find yourself turning a fifth wheel trailer around at an intersection down the road.
To enter with an RV of any substantial size, you need to go around to the East side of the park off 169 and pick up P69. Even that turn off isn’t marked that well but we got there thanks to some help from one of the locals. After a long dusty drive down this road, we climbed a rather steep hill and landed inside the park.
The campground is broken up into two sections. The Northern side, where we stayed appears to be much older than the Southern side. The main differences between the two is the Northern one is surrounded by trees and the Southern side is out in the open but the sites look a bit easier to back into. We could only get about 2 bars on the network so I’m not sure a VPN connection would be practical here.
Based on the condition of many of the trees, a very strong storm visited this park within a few years prior. Further North of the campground was an old pavilion that looked like it was created in the 60’s (just a pure guess). On a few occasions a bunch of young kids would spend the day down there so it was getting used.
There was also an old nature center that we happened on to that looked like a very old school house. Next to it was what looked to be a brand new nature center but it wasn’t open yet.
As always, I am adding some photos to look over. Also be sure to check out the bridges of Madison County that I collected along the way. These will be posted in a different gallery.