Mistletoe State Park Review
Mistletoe State Park is a great lakefront park & campground near Augusta, GA. We enjoyed our stay that included kayaking, hiking, and biking.
Mistletoe State Park Overview
Mistletoe State Park was founded in 1970. It is part of the Georgia State Park system and is located on Clarks Hill Lake. The lake is the main attraction and provides great access to fish, canoe, or kayak. At approximately 1,970 acres, this is a medium-sized state park.
Clarks Hill Lake, also known as Strom Thurmond Lake, is maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers. It’s a pretty large lake with 72,000 acres. According to Wikipedia, that makes it the third largest man-made lake East of the Mississippi River. The lake has multiple state parks and Corps of Engineers campgrounds located in Georgia and South Carolina.
Mistletoe State Park Video
Join us as we show you some of highlights of Mistletoe State Park including the hiking trails and campground.
Hiking at Mistletoe State Park
There are about 15 miles of hiking and biking shared trails at Mistletoe State Park.
Trails are wooded and are mostly easy to moderate.
One interesting trail, the Canyon Trail Loop, starts at the park office. This is a relatively short trail that showcases a canyon created by poor farming practices in the 1920’s. While it is a relatively small canyon, not like the Grand Canyon, it is still impressive to see the power that water can have in transforming a landscape.
Part of this trail is created with a rubbery material that may make it more accessible for people than a traditional dirt trail.
We definitely recommend taking this trail as one of the more interesting highlights of Mistletoe State Park.
Kayaking at Mistletoe State Park
We had a great time kayaking at Mistletoe State Park. We launched our kayaks right from the campsite. The water was pretty clear and there was plenty of shoreline to explore.
We did use a bit of caution as this is also a popular fishing lake with fast moving bass boats. If you don’t have kayaks, the park rents them.
Mistletoe State Park Boat Ramp
If you are brining a boat to Mistletoe, there is a nice boat ramp and parking area. However, they do not have a accessible kayak launch like we have highlighted at many other state parks.
Mistletoe State Park Beach
Clarks Hill Lake appears to be pretty clear. There is a nice beach area in the state park. Changing facilities are available along with a snack shop. One area of the beach building appeared available to rent for group gatherings.
In the beach area, you’ll find picnic tables, a volleyball court, and a playground.
Mistletoe State Park Camp Store
Mistletoe has a small camp store where you can check in for your site, buy a t-shirt, or get firewood for you campfire.
Mistletoe State Park Campground
The campground at Mistletoe State Park has 93 water & electric campsites. Campsites are a mix of pull-through and back-in sites. Each has a gravel drive, picnic table, and fire ring. Some sites provide 30 amp electric while some have 50. Many are located right on the shore with great lake views. The campground is open all year.
The campground area is wooded. You can get easy water access from some sites while others are a bit too high to make water entry easy.
While the scenery is beautiful, you’ll need to be careful in selecting a site. The parking area is often sloped and may be curved in a way that can be challenging for larger campers.
We had site 71 which was a nice site. One thing to note was that the drive was at a 90 degree angle to the road which made backing in to the site a bit challenging.
Water access was pretty good, though there was a big step down. We were able to launch our kayaks and keep them by the water during our stay.
We really enjoyed watching the sunset on the lake. The view from our site was fantastic.
Site 73 was next to us. It was a large pull through site with great lake access. However, the driveway for the site is sloped down and may prove challenging for some RVs.
One nice thing about Georgia state park campgrounds is that they often have a gray water drain area. Being able to dump gray water used for dishes and showers, the time you can spend enjoying the site rather than heading to the dump delivers a much better experience.
For images of the more sites, check out our Mistletoe State Park YouTube video where we show more of the campground.
There are several campground loops. Each has a bathhouse. The bathhouse in our loop was older but clean. One accessible parking spot and shower stall was available.
Each bathhouse also has a laundry area with washer and dryer.
Next to one of the bathhouses was a little library which had a few books that could be borrowed.
At the entrance to campground loops one & two, you’ll find the dump station. From campground area 3, the turn is too sharp for larger campers so you may have to go through the campground loops and enter the dump station on your way out.
In addition to RV camping sites, the campground also offers a group camping site and some backcountry camping options. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a picture of these sites.
Another way to stay at Mistletoe State Park is to rent a cabin. They have ten two-bedroom cabins available. Six of the cabins are modern looking while four are log-cabin style.
Mistletoe State Park Campground Other Information
Cellular reception on Verizon and AT&T was OK. It was sufficient for basic tasks like texting and voice calls. However, the connection isn’t strong enough to support streaming or video calls. We were able to find several over-the-air TV stations.
Road and other noise was minimal. During our stay, we didn’t hear a significant amount of highway, train, or airplane noise. However, we did hear some bass boats on the lake.
Mistletoe State Park Directions
Mistletoe State Park is located at 3725 Mistletoe Rd, Appling, GA 30802. It’s about 30 miles from Augusta.
GPS directions generally worked well to get to the park. Note that the last several miles will be on two-lane highway.
Attractions Near Mistletoe State Park
The lake is the big attraction in this area. There are multiple nearby state parks and COE campgrounds. We did a segment on nearby Elijah Craig State Park and the three mile hiking trail located there in our State Park News video for March 2024.
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Have you visited Mistletoe? What are your tips for a great visit? Do you have recommendations for additional things to do in the area? Leave a comment to share your experiences. Thanks.
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