Pine Lake Campground

The Great Outdoors

Pine Lake State Park covers 585 acres of woods, the Iowa River, and two lakes set in the middle of miles of rolling farmlands. Within the park are five picnic areas, each of which has fireplaces, picnic tables, and restrooms. The park sports over ten miles of hiking trails where you can walk amongst 250-year-old white pines. Each of these trails has been marked to show specific points of interest you can find in the trail brochures found at each trailhead. For the very brave, you can take the 50-mile-long bike ride that runs between Pine Lake and George Wyth Memorial State Park. It's a long ride that uses several county highways until you reach Cedar Falls, where you will be on established bike paths.For the avid hiker looking for something a little different, there is the Wildcat Trail. This two-mile trail leads over a footbridge and along the riverbank until you come to Wildcat Cave. At the entrance to this small cave, you can see signatures on the walls that date as far back as the 19th century. The cave is also rumored to have once been used as a hideout of famous outlaw Jesse James, but there is nothing to prove it. It's still a nice hike while RV camping at Pine Lake Campground.

Exploring the Area

Just outside of Pine Lake State Park is the city of Eldora, a small town with a lot to offer while you are camping with an RV nearby. If you need to stock up on supplies for your rental RV, you'll find everything from convenience stores to fun and funky stores in the downtown area. No matter what supplies you might need, you should be able to find them here. Iowa is best known for its farms, something you can learn about in the Hardin County Farm Museum when you park your RV rental nearby. The exhibits cover farming and farm equipment up through the 1950s before the advent of "large scale, self-propelled" equipment.In nearby Des Moines, you can visit the Blank Park Zoo. The zoo covers 30 acres and is a great place for a family adventure when you're camping at Pine Lake Campground. Here you can feed a giraffe or watch rhinos at play. A portion of all entrance fees goes towards helping to save animals living in the wild. Inside the zoo are a number of endangered species such as the addax, Amur tiger, and eastern black rhino. You never know what babies you might see here, thanks to the cooperative breeding program.Waterloo, IA is home to the Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum, named for five brothers who served and died on the USS Juneau during WWII. The ship sank after being crippled by Japanese torpedoes. The museum honors Iowa's veterans of every war and conflict from the Spanish-American War through WWI and II, in Korea, Vietnam, and current conflicts. Countless displays include letters to and from the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, diaries detailing daily life, photographs, and more. You can even learn about Iowa's participation in the Civil War.If you don't mind a short drive (you can ride the 50-mile bike trail) to Cedar Rapids, you can check out several museums, including the National Czech & Slovak Museum and Library. The museum focuses on the Czech and Slovak life here in the U.S. and through many different exhibits, explores both the original families and their descendants through the ages. You can take a trip back to the 1800s in the Sleger Immigrant Home, a 1.5-story house in which five generations of the Sleger family lived starting from the 1890s and ending in 1984.Whether you bring your camper rental here for the beauty and tranquility of the park, to sample local cuisine, or for any one of dozens of different reasons, your journey starts with one of the RV rentals in Hardin County, IA.