Cow Lake Campground Review

This is my favourite place to camp. We have been here 7 or 8 times. We have always camped in the treed area which gives quite a bit of privacy. The beach is great for the kids, there are two playgrounds, a volleyball area and a boat launch. We have always tented until this Canada Day, when we finally bought a camper and it's been enjoyable both ways. We do like to stay up a bit once the kids are in bed and it's nice that we don't have to shut it down at 10 or 11pm. This being said, I have never had trouble going to sleep because of others noise. Oh, and Canada day was great! First year celebrating it here and they did a great job. Fireworks, cake and activities for the kids!

We are camping over Aug Long weekend. We are in the open area. There are many RVs with their generators running and many families/kids up till late. We have a neighbour who was up till 4 am! The camp did make an effort to make sure that the generators were off by 10pm. That s good.
It would be nice if the tents and the RVs have separate areas.
The lake was good. Good water for swimming and playing in. The beach has some geese poop.
Seems to be good for people who are in groups and RVs. Not great for those who seek peace and quiet.

Great place for kids and likely warmest lake in Alberta

Good place to camp. Fairly large places to lay a tent or park an rv. Fishing is a different story. Horrible!!

This place is not for dogs. No place to olay on water. Plus staff are ignorant

An amazing moment. Clear sky, with a few clouds you can see through, dotting the sky. All of a sudden a bold rainbow shows up and then a bald eagle soars across the scene. Awe inspiring.

Very BAD I was charged $20 for leaving the site at 2 am when people were using generator and parting all night my 1 year old woke up never went to sleep again worse management ever, guy was very rude 0 family friendly ended up paying $40 and not even staying the full night wood is $10 so very expensive. Never ever going there again NOT recommended so many other friendly beautiful and peaceful places to visit

It's a fairly nice campground, but also kind of small. We were in site 99 which is a group site. We managed to fit a fifth wheel, bumper pull, and tent trailer in there with out much issue. However, the tenting area was beside us so there was a big empty open spot between us and the lake. This made the cold wind coming off of the lake very unpleasant. A couple more tree in the tenting area would certainly help control the wind. I could not imagine actually tenting in that area - it would be freezing!

Love the camp stalls, staff very friendly and helpful, THANKYOU

Can't give an actual rating on the location because we never got to stay there but just wanted to let people know about their cancellation policy. I was not informed of their policy when I booked on the phone and they do not list the information on the website:

Even if you cancel your reservation almost 2 weeks prior like I did (it was not a long weekend either) they will still keep a $10 administration fee per site booked. I can totally see keeping a deposit if you A) inform your customers prior and if B) the customer short notice cancels. In my situation I just found it to be kinda ridiculous, sure credit authorizations have some cost but I was nice and called in as early as possible. Now i'm out $20 bucks and they will still easily fill those spots.

No hook ups but it is very quiet, clean and affordable

Too crowded
If you like camping in a grassy parking lot, this is the place for you. No room between you and your neighbour. I could listen to every word out of my neighbours' mouths.
No soap in outhouses.
Won't be going back

I have been trying to book a site for 3 weeks now. Every time i call, no one answers and it then prompts me to leave a message. So i do, ( about 4 messages now) with my name, number and the dates im looking for and not once have i had a return call. We have camped here before but will now go elsewhere as they obviously do not want our patronage anymore. If you call and get through, good for you. Your lucky!!!

**UPDATE** So Management responded very quickly after my review. They were very apologetic and were able to get me into a fantastic spot. I don't have anything negative things to say about the campground. it was just the booking issue that i had problems with. We enjoy camping here and we are very happy everything work out. Thank you very much!

This is a great camp ground. There are large sites and the entire place is very well kept.

Campground is nice but the lake has zero fish in it. It was decimated in the 2019 winter. Hopefully they restocked it late 2020 but i doubt it. Other then that if fishing isnt important to you then nice cheap no service campground to get away too

the woman who ran the campground I believe her name was Deena was extremely rude to us our entire stay, not one kind interaction with her and for the reason will never return.

Nice treed sites, spacious and private. Good beach area with park for the kids. Out houses are cleaned daily. Showers are 4 min for $2, hot water but very dirty stalls.
No flush toilets on site.

Nice campground. Family friendly. We stayed in the overflow for $20 a night. It is $8 to dump.

This campground is unbelievably beautiful and amazing. The camp sites are very clean and you can bring your RV , trailer, 5th wheel, or tent they have sites that have electricity and sites without. The prices are very good too. You can also bring your motor boat , or canoe or kayak , as well as you can swim and go water skiing or tubing or wakeboarding . They have great fishing and the Pike are very nice size. There are hiking trails too. They also have showers available with great water pressure and temperature. They do have outhouses bit they are the cleanest with hardly any smell that I have ever used, as well as the staff cleans and pressure washes every morning and night. They have multiple playgrounds for the kids and also a sand volleyball court, they have sandy beaches and everyday there is an ice cream truck that comes, with the best I've cream ever... And pets are welcome. I highly recommend going here.. it's so much fun for the whole family and a great was to de-stress and relax and enjoy the time with friends and family, and make new friends

. Perfect for families if you're not picky about being out in the open, we camped on the open area of the park and my nine-year-old was in heaven... easy access to Beach, lots of sites that would be perfect for group camping for trailers 4-6 ... up to 30 foot trailers put in these spaces, only two showers that I noticed but worth the feeling afterwards laundry is small two washers two dryers one dryer doesn't work. You can't operate your generator before 9 but they can bring in there gas powered power washer in the bathrooms at 8 a.m. and truck Round in their maintenance Vehicles..... a little bit noisy..woke us up..but beach was great but I feel like it was more awesome because it was closed to day users... only Park guests ( during covid-19)... a quick drive to Rocky Mountain House if you need anything. All in all it was a great place and for the price please don't take this as a complaint, just a couple of grapes might be awesome

Decent for rv s not great for tenting. No toilets in the building with showers sinks and laundry, just outhouses directly beside the building, how do you guys not put a toilet in there? The main water source is an antique style ground water pump. This campground is in need of some serious upgrades.

We stayed in the overflow area that was tight with no services. Over all it was clean with very friendly staff and we'll maintained. The playground was great for our daughter and we were able to watch her from our camp site. $10 for a good cart of fire wood and $5 for sewer dump.

We love it here and the fishing is great as well as the staff.

Can't wait for the power sites. Maybe someday full service sites. These guys do a good job keeping the place clean. Nice get away for the family.

Great camping location. No hookups but bathroom and showers

This is a beautiful campground & we really enjoyed our stay here! Lots of amenities which include running showers (2$ for 4 mins, loonies only), volleyball court, two playgrounds, outhouses, sheltered area for cooking & a lake with beached area. Would highly recommend!

I enjoy this campground. Close to home for me. Decent sites. Good price. Good beach and parks for the kids. Only bummer is the super early check out time. 11am makes it so you only really get one day. Can't even stay for lunch.

Good: Overall, really nice campground. (4 / 5)
Bad: (-1) The bathrooms were definitely lacking.
Showers facility did the trick, but all drains and outhouse toilets smelt sooo bad. Didnt look like any chemical was used to control odors.. Almost unbearable odor. Considered lettin my kids go in the woods... If you arent bringing a trailer with your own bathroom, this may be a sore spot.
Otherwise, really nice sites, green space and beach. Beach would be even better if they cleaned up goose droppings every couple days.

First time at Cow Lake Campground. Although a beautiful area and staff friendly, we found the generator noise all around us and general high noise level until late at night, was too much. The rules state generators are to run for 2 hrs only, then off 1 hr and all generators are to be off at 10:00pm. Generators were running steady for several hrs during the day.
We stayed 2 nights and both nights the campers next to us had their generator running passed 11:00pm, not to mention the kids screaming and shouting until midnight. Had to tell some teenage kids to turn down their music late in the evening. How about some common courtesy, where are the parents? No enforcement of quiet time and we didn't see anyone checking at 10:00pm for generators to be shut down. It's left to the individual to either confront or make a complaint. Mixed review, not sure if we'll return.

Booked 2 nights this weekend for a 34 ft motorhome and boat, very nice bright treed sites! Room to park boats on some sites

Very nice camp ground, would have given 5 stars if there would be full service bathrooms

This is a beautiful campground, but hurry it fills up quick. The lake is not that cold there are boat docks and a fishing dock. And another dock me and my best friends jumped off into the water! I loved it. And it is an amazing place to bring kids

Nice Campground. Compare to Alberta Park, its price is way cheaper, but their amenities are not that bad. However, slow fresh water pump and Sanidump are not great.

Loved the clean beach and treed natural campsites, very clean laundry but very dirty showers and not so clean outhouses. Mixed feelings

I called for info within an hour of closing, got their recording, left my name and number and received a very pleasant call back within 15 minutes. The kind woman at the other end answered all my questions.

Besides no power this campgrounds awesome! My family and I enjoyed it!

Saw the sign so I took a right turn. Drove there and found out there is no hookups.
But it looks really nice. The lady at the gate
was very nice. If you have a generator your good to go.

Great place for tenting, we had a nice private site. Nice beach and a beautiful lake. Will definitely go again.

Went to Cow Lake early June for the first time. Friendly staff, excellent site, well run campground. We will definitely be back!

The lake is really nice. You can walk out quite a ways and it's a sandy bottom. Water is relatively warm by Alberta standards too. Campsite facilities are well maintained. Some of the camp sites are very close together, so avoid the corners!

So, do you like hearing your neighbours party loud with their music and loud voices until 4 a.m one night and then the next night 2 a.m., do you like adults and children constantly trotting through your campsite? Then you've found your campsite - I would only suggest this place if you are with a large group who just wants to party hard and crazy. Don't go for relaxation or a nice time with your family!!!!!!! It was the worst camping time I have EVER had. Only a giving one star cause I had to, this is a minus one star campground :(

Beautiful lake. Nice trails. Fun activities for the kids.

We were just there July 31 till today Aug 02. I'll start with the one thing that is positive for this campground: the lake is great with nice clear water, temp is good for swimming and playing in.
Now to the negatives: generators, noise, exhaust, people who party past quiet time posted, and lack of adequate water supply. That's the summary, following is the details for those who care to read.
What I found disappointing was the set up of the camp ground. The open sites are located on 2 big open fields. Most of the campers are RVs. There's no power hook ups, so most of them have generators. It's a hot weekend, so many of them had generators running for long time, it's noisy and smelled of exhaust.
We were hoping to be able to have a quiet camping weekend, instead it was noisy, smelly, the area full of trucks and RVs instead of nature.
I would recommend the campground to either put in power lines, or to segregate tents from RVs so that people in tents can have some peace and quiet.
I would recommend the campground set strict limit on the decibels that the generators could run at, instead of a vague "camp ground friendly" that is very subjective.
There is only 1 for the whole campground. When we needed to fill up, there were 3 RVs lined up in front of us, so the wait was long for everyone. To save time, I decided to try what seemed to "hand pump". After 20 pumps, no water came out. I asked the camp attendance about it and they said that it's not connect to a well! Please put a sign on something that doesn't work or just take it out.
I would recommend for additional water stations.
Another issue is noise. We had 2 groups of people beside us. The group to our right was up till 4 am the first night, not too loud but we can still hear them. So, I had to talk to them. The group to our left was laughing and drinking till late the second night, so my husband had to go talk to them at 11:30. The quiet hour posted is 11pm.
Please have camp attendance monitor and enforce quiet hours!

In summary, if you camp to enjoy quiet and nature, this place is not for you. Day use for the beach could be good option should you want to enjoy the lake.

Great camping. Nice hiking trail we could not go all they way along it as we had no idea as to were it went. A map would have been great. Site was not great but we did book late, last time we stayed here we had a nicer site, this one was a bit cramped i felt they were cramming camper in. Only reason for 3stars was no power,i would definitely come again the price is right

Small lake and smaller sites but quiet and friendly staff... You guys are great!!

This camp ground gives you two pages of rules to follow. Says its to be quite from 11pm-7am we stayed three nights, people where up partying really REALLY loud until at least 3am, people where walking in OUR campsite with flash lights, looking at our belongings and there were at least 2 generators running ALL night long. Comment above says they come around at ten to remind people to turn things down, or off NEVER saw anyone come around in the 3 days we were there. Why would you give rules and expectations if your not even going to make sure they are being followed?? Also there is no number to call after 11 to complain about noise from the drunk, fighting people!