August 2021, 3 nights, weekday - weekend
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| Sunset over Lake Michigan at PJ Hoffmaster State Park. |
We hiked in this park July 2015, although this was our first time camping overnight. When I made our reservation, I did not realize alcohol is prohibited in the campground from April 1st through Labor Day. I thought it was odd that alcohol is allowed in the day use area, and not the campground (staff told us this during check-in).
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| Creek behind campsite 1 in PJ Hoffmaster State Park. |
Arrival and check-in
This was the quickest state park check-in we ever experienced. A staff member met us outside to write down our truck plate numbers on a piece of paper. He had me take this to the person inside who completed the check-in. She quickly found our reservation, gave me the rules, and provided our site papers. The only rule emphasized and highlighted was the rule about no alcohol.
Our neighbor was almost finished parking his trailer just as we got to our site. Many more campers arrived that evening. We were surprised to see so many people arrive on a Thursday. Before COVID, we often arrived before most of the weekend crowd, and always enjoyed a quiet first evening. This year, it seems more people have Fridays off than ever before.
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| Campsite 1 in PJ Hoffmaster State Park. My photo above taken from in front of restroom. Photo below is from DNR website taken from back of site. |
Campsite 1
This is a decent size campsite, and it is on the creek. The ground cover was a combination of grass and dirt, and it was level.
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| Walkway to creek behind campsite 1 in PJ Hoffmaster State Park. |
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| Center photo in this trio is campsite 1 in PJ Hoffmaster State Park from DNR reservation site. Top and bottom photos are mine showing pine trees are gone. |
This site was not as private as expected, because trees that showed in the online photos had been cut down. These apparently had been cut some time ago, because we did not see any stumps, and the area was overgrown. The growth helped create privacy; just not as much as we had expected from the bushy pine trees in the photos. We had also expected the bushy pine trees to create a sound buffer between our trailer and traffic on the road in.
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| Campsite 1 in PJ Hoffmaster State Park. Electrical box is on the edge of campsite 2. |
All in all, we liked this campsite. We could see a small glimpse of the creek when we sat in our chairs on the mat at the back of our site, and it was easy to walk back to the creek.
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| Looking toward swimming area from north where Little Black Creek comes out in PJ Hoffmaster State Park. |
