This trip took my family to Clifty Falls Indiana on our last camping trip of the year before school started. Clifty Falls Indiana is located in the town of Madison Indiana, Madison is a small town located in South East Indiana. Madison is known for its historic sites, wineries and of course Clifty Falls State park.
Clifty Falls State park is home to camping, hiking and the Clifty Inn along with much more. If you like to hike then Clifty falls is for you. In this review I will go over what the park has to offer in camping and entrainment.
Clifty Falls State Park Camping Review
Camp Ground:
The campground offers 59 primitive, 106 electric, and youth group camp sites. I hate to say this but they do not offer water or full hook up at this park. Water is supplied from a hose at the bath houses, the water is regularly tested and is marked as "safe to drink". The sewage tanks are located at the front of the park and has easy access to pull in and out on both sides of the tanks.
The camping ground also has some small play areas with slides and swings that are in good shape.
The roads are paved and in good shape, kids can ride bikes, skateboards, etc with no issues. The sites include a gravel pad at all electrical sites. Many of the sites are backed against woods but some are in the open. Sites in the open have very little shade with the sites backed against the woods having some.
The camp ground does have a theater with seating but they did not show any movies while we where there. They did have church service on Sunday morning which is always nice. They also have crafts or another activity almost every day for the kids.
The bath houses are nice, I would suggest the new bath house in the primitive section if you do not mind the trip. It looks brand new.
Check-in is an easy pull up window and since you already have a reservation it goes quickly. The guard at the front gate was very nice, in fact everyone was very nice. A lot of families were camping while we were there and everyone seemed nice. We ended up camping next to about 20 modern Amish. I don't know if this is a large Amish community but it was nice.
The Clifty Falls camp ground does not have a pool but a quick hike through a trail takes you to one. You can always drive like we did because we had a small guy with us and between the drinks and towels it makes better sense.
The pool cost $2 per person per day and is open to non-campers. This kind of caught us off guard, we thought campers swam free. In any case the $2 is well worth it. The Clifty Falls pool includes a beach style pool with two slides, a diving board and baby pool. My older son and friend spent most of the time on the large water park type slide that ends in 3 feet of water. My younger son liked the big pool in the shallow beach style part with a park supplied life jacket. I should also say that you can not bring in any floating devices for young swimmers. The life guards will supply you with a free life jacket. Okay, so the pool was awesome and well worth the $2 but the life guards are another story. They are all younger kids (17-19) and they seemed kind of snooty and irritated at all the kids. I should not say all but 2-3 were. Not mean but kind of snooty. I wrote this off to kids summer job. So over all you will want to visit the pool.
The Park:
The park also has a lot to offer. 1300 acres, miles of hiking ranging from moderate to rugged trails, private picnic areas, nature center and play areas. Besides the pool you will find a the nature center that is small but fun. You will find live snakes along with some other wildlife from around the park. They do have nature shows, we went to a snake show while there and the boys got to hold a black snake.
There are a lot of trails. One is rated easy but you do not see much. The others are rated moderate to rugged. You will have no trouble taking a 3 year old on the moderate as long as you are holding hands. I would leave the rugged to 7 yeas olds and above but we did take our 3 year old on a rugged because we made a wrong turn, he did well! I will say that you must be careful as you will be along some pretty big cliffs. Always keep children in front of you and make sure they are not running. Always hold the hand of any small children at all times!
Clifty Falls State park is known for hiking, the other stuff is an added bonus. I highly recommend visiting Clifty Falls Indiana State Park for your next camping trip. It is family oriented and you will not be bored. It is just a great park.
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