Ohio’s Deer Creek State Park, located near the scenic town of Mt. Sterling, sits in the heart of the state’s agricultural region. It’s known as a vacation showplace and camper’s paradise as it’s surrounded by woodlands and meadows and has a scenic lake to add to the atmosphere.
The park is close to 2,500 acres in size, and is home to a golf course, cottages, a modern lodge, boating area, swimming beach, several hiking trails, and a campground for all types of outdoor enthusiasts.
The lodge features over 100 guest rooms overlooking the lake as well as outdoor and indoor swimming pools, a whirlpool, exercise room, and sauna. There’s also a restaurant meeting rooms, and tennis courts.
The park has 25 two-bedroom cottages if you’d rather stay indoors instead of sleeping under the stars. Other attractions include basketball and volleyball courts, two playgrounds, miniature golf, and horseshoe pits.
You can rent bikes if you’d like to ride around and explore the natural beauty of the park. In addition, there’s an overnight equestrian camp for lovers of horseback riding.
The lake is well known as an excellent fishing spot as it’s filled with largemouth bass, crappie, and catfish. The swimming beach is about 1,700 feet in size and there are grills and picnic tables available for a lakeside barbecue. There are seven hiking trails in total and a 350-acre golf course close to the lodge.
There’s a state wildlife area next to the park that allows hunting, and during the winter you can enjoy activities such as sledding, snowmobiling, ice skating, and ice fishing. There are plenty of other wonderful attractions in the region including A.W. Marion State Park, Stage’s Pond, Deer Creek Wildlife Area, the Sugarloaf Mountain Amphitheatre, and the Adena State Memorial and museum.
Campers will be thrilled with the diversity of wildlife in the park as you’ll be able to see chorus frogs, American toads, spring peepers, painted and box turtles, eastern garter snakes, black rat snakes, raccoons, red fox, woodchucks, rabbits, white-tailed deer, and deer mice. There are also plenty of interesting birds.
Deer Creek State Park opened in 1974 and it’s easy to see why it’s been so popular with visitors ever since.
