CAMPGROUND REVIEW - Chute Pond - Oconto County Park, Wisconsin

We spent a couple days over at Chute Pond County Park Campground. It is part of the Oconto County Park system in Northeast Wisconsin. 

Chute Pond is located over on the northwestern side of our County, just south of the town of Mountain on Highway 32 / 64. It is usually jam-packed full all summer and we can never get in here. 

But in late April, there's absolutely no problem getting in as a first come first serve visitor. 

The campground is spaced out in four different loops for daily campers and a fifth distant loop down on the far Southeastern end for seasonal campers.  One loop is specifically available for people with ATV / UTV recreational vehicles.

Our site has 30 amp service, not sure if the others are 30 or 50 in other newer parts of the campground.

Potable water is available at the the bathroom/shower house, but not at the dump station. The campsites do not have water hookups. So be sure to fill ahead of time, or wait in line at the bathrooms for other campers to fill during busy times.

There are various bathroom facilities scattered about, some are pit toilets, some are flush, and a nice shower house near the central area by the playground.

Cell phone signal is very good, and television antenna programs fade away some during the day but come back in the evening.

There is a little general store in the field house that has some signage of things that they sell. It was not open this early in the year. I'm sure more information can be found online. Nearby is a picnic area and a small beach as well.

Incidentally, this water reservoir here that has been dammed up is the Oconto River. It flows 50 miles down towards our house, through our little town and out into the bay waters of Green Bay. So cool that it's the very same river. If we popped a canoe in here, we could float our way home!

As for the park itself, like I said, it is older and set up for smaller RVs. Some of the sites that are big rig friendly are in the loop nearest the state highway 32. It's not like an interstate, but it is heavier traffic during the day. The smaller sites that are nestled further back into the woods are much quieter. 

The river is beautiful and the water is up with higher levels because of the recent rains. With the Oconto River being controlled by various dams up and down it's complete path, the fluctuation of the water is always a guess. Right now it's up and maybe next week it's down.

Here's more information on the County website as well as a link on how to make reservations:

https://parks.ocontocountywi.gov/parks/camping/chute_pond_county_park/

Previously, we had camped here in our larger motorhome in 2020. Here's my blog post link from that visit:

http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com/2020/09/campground-review-chute-pond-oconto.html?m=1

The Oconto County Park system has recently installed credit card kiosks for their park fees instead of envelopes and a pay post at their North Bayshore campground. We stayed there the other night and we could also just pay for our site via the website from our cell phones when we pulled into a campsite at North Bayshore.

So when we got to Chute Pond, the other campground on the County website, we thought we could do the same.  

We were the only ones in the park of course... And had our choice of 100 campsites.  We selected site number 82 and got ourselves all set up. I opened up my cell phone to go to the website to pay for the campsite. Oh boy, it was only set up for reservations 2 days out for this campground --- not for first come first serve to be able to pay for it!  I called up the gal at the County office and asked her if I could just pay over the phone. She said no, we have to walk all the way over to the field house because they still have the old fashioned pay post and envelopes there. This is until the new credit card kiosk is operational. That is located over at the boat landing next to the field house. Either way, we were all set up on the site and now we had to get all the way over to the field house to pay at the post. It's quite a walk..... 

Sure wish they had put up a temporary pay post somewhere within the campground until the credit card situation is operational like their other campground. Oh well. 

It was a nice walk around through the woods and over by the dam. This cute little damn backs up the river to make what is called Chute Pond. It is pretty popular in the summer and has quite a bit of recreational boating, fishing, kayaking etc. 

This is the view of the dam from one of the campsites in the campground. It's quite impressive, but also a little noisy. 

This little dam has a walkway across the top that leads to some hiking trails... and a special little place called "Slippery Rock" that all of the locals know about.

Here is a video about "Slippery Rock" that I filmed 2 years ago:

On our walk back to our campsite, we examined these two huge pieces of equipment are Pond Skimmers. They are used to skim off the lily pad and seaweed growth that happens out on the pond. Because of the damn backing things up, the water becomes more still or stagnant at times, and the plant life overtakes the pond. Because of the high amount of recreational use, as well as the cabins around the rest of the pond, they have opted to skim the stuff off to keep their residents of the area happy.

The park is beautiful with full grown mature trees and winding little twisty dirt roads to many of the campsites. The two newer areas are more gravel roads and easier to access. There are no blacktop sites, it is a little more rustic than most RV parks. But there is electric available at most of the sites. One loop down near the water and one other campsite near the dam do not have electrical hookups. 

The bathroom/shower building is very nice and neatly kept every time we've been there. 

The price is $30 a night from Thursday through Sunday. Monday through Wednesday it is a special of only $20 a night. No vehicle permits are required. It's a pretty good bargain considered it's an electric site. Like I said, it's a very popular park in the summer and you do need to make reservations. 

The site we chose, number 82, is up at the end of a loop at the top of the hill, in the farthest northern loop of the campground. There are big areas of exposed rock as this is a glacial region. The town nearby is named Mountain and has a lot of exposed rock and ledges in that area all the way through down to Chute Pond.

We got all set up on our site even though the day was looking a little cloudy in the afternoon. Steve expanded out our awning. Then he read the book on different ways that we can tilt it a little bit rather than having it straight perpendicular out at 90°. It's our first time having a power awning, so we want to make sure we do this right. 

We put out our slides and got ourselves settled in and made some lunch. I had ordered some cute little black ottomans for the living area, but they hadn't come yet. So we took one of our larger stuffed ottomans from in the house for the week end. When we turn around the driver and passenger seat from the cockpit area they become lounge seats in the living room. Ottomans will make them even more comfortable.  The ones I ordered can also be used for storage for things like shoes or dog leashes or other things we don't wany laying about. 

The love seat in our motor home is also a comfy spot to settle in to watch TV. It could also benefit by having ottomans in front of it. It is a "Fold and Tumble" loveseat by Flexsteel. We are thinking about swapping it out with a Wall Hugging Lazy Boy loveseat recliner in the future. I also have a creative idea about a cocktail table instead of that wooden computer slide one in the pic below. It's temporary for now.

Binney says the loveseat suits her just fine!! 

After fixing a nice dinner, we settled in our comfy cockpit chairs to enjoy a little TV for the evening. It was drizzling a little bit so we decided to not do a campfire. 

Our new to us Winnebago View has some pretty impressive theater lighting. It is all LED and has a low power consumption for when we are boondocking. There are strips of lights up above the cabinetry as well as along the walls and submerged along the backsplash in the kitchen. As my Grandma Kafehl would say "kind of ritzy".

I really like all of the counter space and drawers of the kitchen in this rig. The TV is in front of one of the cabinets overhead. It can be unlatched and turned towards the front seats to view movies or snapped back into place during travel. For a small 25-ft rig, this is a pretty big kitchen. Beyond the refrigerator is a tall pantry with four different pull-out box drawers. We are finding things to be pretty comfortable, coming from a 38 ft rig down to a 25 ft one. 

We fell asleep early in our cozy comfy bed. Even though it got cold and damp and wet outside, we were just fine. Besides the furnace, we also have an electric mattress pad heater. We snuggled in for the night and it was so comfortable.

Early in the morning, little Binney decided she needed to get outside. It was about 35° out. I slid into my moccasins and Steve's winter jacket. I opened the door to let out the dog ... I descended the steps and looked up to see there were three deer right in our campsite! They looked at me in disbelief and bounded it off in three separate directions. Binney didn't even see them because she was concentrating on coming down the steps behind me. 

It was a sweet surprise for the morning.

Steve was still dozing so I started up the coffee in the cute little percolator from Steve's mom and dad. I whipped up a blueberry muffin mix and popped it in the convection oven. I don't really care for convection baking, I would much rather have a propane oven. We might make a swap out later, but for now, it's good enough. 

It sure was a pretty good way to start the morning. Seeing some wildlife, perking some wonderful coffee, and having a little snack.

The sun was coming out and it was going to be a beautiful day! The temperatures weren't going to get much above 50, but we didn't care. The sun was out and we would be able to enjoy the woods and sit in our lawn chairs and do our thing. 

The morning sun was shining in through the skylight and bathed the inside of the rig in bright sunlight. This was much better than the cloudy rainy drizzly day before. 

We walked around the empty campground. It was kind of nice being the only ones here. Binney had so many things to sniff. It takes her a lot longer to go for a walk when there are interesting things to examine. It's almost like taking a toddler for a walk. 

We kicked back on our recliner lawn chairs underneath the awning and enjoyed the view. The trees are just starting to bud out and get a few teeny tiny leaves. We listened to the birds singing in all the different directions. Every now and then some geese would fly overhead, heading back to the north. We had a few cranes, saw a couple eagles, and there were even some noisy crows giving some other birds a tough time.

We really didn't need to do anything or go anywhere. Just kicking back and enjoying the quiet woods was all that we were looking for on this camping trip. We don't do a lot of tourist things, we don't see a lot of attractions or do any shopping or restaurant eating. This is our kind of camping. 

Steve gathered up some firewood from surrounding campsites, because there wasn't anyone around to purchase the wood for sale at the locked rack up at the field house.  But he found enough here and there to get a campfire going for the evening. 

We have been thinking about grilling some burgers, but I decided to cook inside. I had done up some sliced pork tenderloin in the slow cooker portion of my Instapot. I had it going all afternoon. Then I added some frozen vegetables on top and simmered up a pot of rice on the side. We had a wonderful warm meal while sitting out by the campfire. 

Watching the flickering flames of the first campfire of the season. What can get better than that?

One more camper pulled in after dinner, to a site a few spaces down from us. We were the only 2 campers in the entire campground! 

We woke up Saturday morning to the sounds of pitter patter pitter patter rain on the roof. Looking outside, it was just a drizzly wet day and the weather forecast said it was going to continue for the rest of the weekend.

At least our weather report was not as dire as what's going on just north of us. My sister and brothers up north are facing up to TWO FEET OF SNOW!!! 

(OUR CAMPGROUND IS JUST ON THE EDGE 

OF THAT LOWESTS DARKER TURQUOISE BAND 

OF SNOW / RAIN WINTER MIX)

My oldest brother Steve, also known as Butch, was travelling on his way down from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He was heading to Green Bay to catch a flight out to Phoenix. Smart! Avoiding the snow storm, lol! 

Because he was driving right past our campground, he stopped into visit us and check out our new to us rig. 

We had a nice visit. He is actually on his way to fly out to Arizona and help his girlfriend drive her motorhome back to Ohio. She has been wintering over near Benson, AZ with her sisters.  He said he would avoid the snowstorm in the UP by flying down to see her, and take turns driving the rig back home.  How nice is that?

After he left to catch his flight, we decided to pack it up and head back home. The weather reports didn't look good for us at home either. We could have stayed at the campground as late as 3:00 p.m. check out time if we wanted to. Or just paid for another night and stayed till sunday. But instead, we rolled things up pulled in the slide and headed on home.

Steve had an order finally come in at the auto parts store for the rest of the supplies he needs to do some service maintenance on the motorhome. Also our neighbor have been collecting our boxes from Amazon and Home Depot that have been delivered to our house. The Ottomans as well as some other things had come in and we could head home and check out our new purchases.

After an uneventful ride home, the rig is parked back in our driveway and getting ready for our next round of camping! 

What a (wet & rainy) View! 

CAMPGROUND REVIEW - Chute Pond Oconto County Park near Mountain, Wisconsin

We looked at the calendar, and we looked at the weather report, and it was time to load up and sneak out of town. The weather was looking great up in the high 70s and evenings in the 50s.

We decided that we would try out the other Oconto County Campground, because they are running their midweek special. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights are half price camping. We retired folks have to watch our camping budget, you know!

Chute Pond is located over on the western side of our County, just south of the town of Mountain on Highway 32 / 64. It is usually jam-packed full all summer and we can never get in here. But I looked on the reservation map and found out that we could get in Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on a variety of the campsites available. But looking ahead to this weekend, almost everything is reserved in he 100 campsite campground.

The campground is spaced out in four different loops for daily campers and a fifth distant loop down on the far Southwestern end for seasonal campers.  One loop is specifically available for people with ATV / UTV recreational vehicles.

We tossed our groceries and our dogs into the motor home and away we went. We came over early on Monday morning to secure a site and get set up.

This is an older campground, and many of the sites are not, I repeat not, big rig friendly. There really are a select few, I would say under 10, that our motorhome could even fit on or even access into the loop.

We really didn't want to be in the loop nearest to the road, but it had the most level campsites and had the easiest access for a 40-foot motorhome. We chose site 50 which abuts right up to the river and is beautiful and scenic. See the yellow arrow?

As you can see on this larger expanded view, the campsites in the other loops are located away from the road and heavier wooded. But there are also steeper, unlevel, and more suited for small campers, pop-ups, and tents.

Here is a link to their website:

Chute Pond Campground, Oconto County, Wisconsin

We self registered at the field house, and made doubly sure that our site was not reserved by anyone else for any of the midweek days that we wanted to be here. There appears to not be any staff on duty during the weekdays . The park staff kindly puts a complete report of the week's reservations right by the self-pay station. That way newcomers can be sure that is nobody else coming to take the site if you are doing first come first serve at the self-pay station.

Of course, being half price, we were only paying $15 a night for an electric site as opposed to the regular rate of $30.

Our site has 30 amp service, not sure if the others are 30 or 50 in other parts of the campground.

Potable water is available at the dump station, the campsites do not have water hookups.

There are various bathroom facilities scattered about, some are pit toilets, some are flush, and a nice shower house near the central area by the playground.

Cell phone signal is very good, and television antenna programs fade away some during the day but come back in the evening.

There is a little general store in the field house that has some signage of things that they sell. It was not open during the week. I am not sure of their hours, but I'm sure more information can be found online. Nearby is a picnic area and a small beach as well.

Incidentally, this water reservoir here that has been dammed up is the Oconto River. It flows 50 miles down towards our house, through our little town and out into the bay waters of Green Bay. So cool that it's the very same river. If we popped in here, we could float our way home!

As for the park itself, like I said, it is older and set up for smaller RVs. I really don't care for the road noise being parked so near the highway. Thank goodness for dual pane windows because we didn't hear any noise at night. Because our rig is angled towards the river, we really are sitting on the opposite side facing the water so it's okay with us. But it's not my first choice of a campsite location

The river is beautiful and the water is up with higher levels because of the recent rains. With the Oconto River being controlled by various dams up and down it's complete path, the fluctuation of the water is always a guess. Right now it's up and maybe next week it's down.

Like I said, we are located right by the water. There's a little access area to go stand down by the edge if you want to toss in a fishing line or wade around among the rocks, catch some minnows, or just splash around a bit. The current here is pretty slow and it's quite relaxed.

Up the road a ways is a cute little foot bridge that looks like it's been damaged and not repaired yet. Recently there had been some straight-line winds and tornadoes that have gone through the area. There's a lot of evidence of high wind damage and downed trees throughout this entire section of the county. This little foot bridge leads over to some hiking trails into the more rapid moving water called "Slippery Rock". More on that later!

We walked around and enjoyed the beautiful views up and down the river. The trees here are just starting to turn with slight tinges of yellows and gold and maybe a little orange every now and then. For the middle of September, this seems a little soon for our area. Fall is on its way----

When we stopped at the field house to pay for our campsite and self-register, this cheery little fellow was waiting for a photo opportunity:

Of course, being tourists, we had to oblige!

We walked around the grounds, and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. We think this tree happens to be chock-full of delicious bugs. The work of woodpeckers feasting on them is quite evident.

Speaking of feasting, we were relaxing in our chairs and it was suddenly five o clock. This little guy has an alarm clock built into his tummy. He is trying to communicate with Steve to let him know that it's time to fill that doggie dish!!

Steve went in to get the dog dishes and he sure kept a watchful eye on the progress. He was listening through the screen door as he heard his dog food and treat put into his dish. This is very confusing for him because he is used to being right under foot while Steve fills the dish. What's up with that?

Well well well, look at that! Steve brought their dishes outside so they could dine "al fresco"

This was a new one for them, they had never done that before. It really puzzled them. Why would their doggie dishes and food come outside? It's always fun to keep them guessing...

While they ate their delicious dog food, Steve was working on our own dinner. He popped a couple big thick burgers on the grill while I got things ready inside. Food always tastes better when you cook it outside.

It may just be burgers, but we feast like kings. Added to the meal are fresh garden tomatoes and some cucumber salad.

We had a relaxing evening. We didn't bother to start a campfire, we just wanted to relax, kick back, and enjoy the pretty lights inside of our motorhome now that all of the LED lights are in place and functioning. See my last blog if you're wondering what I'm talking about.

~~~~~~~~~~

I'm pleased to report that we had a very quiet night. With the dual paned windows  we really didn't hear any noises at all from the highway and we were entirely comfortable all night long. We actually slept in this morning till well after 7 AM. That's quite unusual for us. Even the dogs let us sleep in. How nice was that?

We started out the morning with a bowl of instant oatmeal and some fresh fruit. Sometimes Steve cooks up a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast. But this morning it just felt good to eat lite.

While I straightened up a little bit, Steve was working on a couple tasks around the motorhome. He changed the fuse for the 12 volt cigarette lighter near the driver's area. He also tightened up an electrical outlet on the side of the bed which has access from the engine compartment.

We always have maintenance tasks to do of one type or another on the rig. Each time we use it, it seems like there's a little something to tweak or fix or take care of. I found a little power adapter that needed some gluing of a label, and sorted out and organized a couple of the cabinets.

We decided to take a little ride around in the Saturn. We popped the dogs in with us and went to wander around. About 10 miles from the park is the Mountain Fire Lookout Tower. I had been there many years ago, but not recently. We are very close to the cottage that we helped build for my dad when he was still alive. My brother now owns the cottage and we come up to this area often. We just never camped at Chute Pond before.

The tower was built back in the 1930s by the CCC. That's the Civilian Conservation Corps and was used for spotting fires in the Lakewood District.

For a small donation, folks like us are welcome to climb all the way to the top. It's 135 steps!

I opted to stay down on the ground with the dogs. It was quite a windy day and I didn't feel like going up that high. Remember, I don't like heights? But spry young lithe athletic Steveio went all the way up to the top!!!!

(He is snorting incredulously at my last sentence....lol)

As we drove around the countryside, we see that the colors are changing, especially among the hardwoods. We really haven't had a hard freeze yet, but we are starting to see red leaves.

The sumac is always the first to turn. This grove of sumac trees are just ablaze with color. I absolutely love the look of this and it's an indication that my favorite season is finally here

We drove back into the campground and decided to go over near the dam by the Field House. Here's the backed-up waters of the Oconto River, known as Chute Pond. There are little cottages scattered around here and there, even some on the islands. Plus the campground, of course. Nearby is all USDA National Forest Land from the Nicolet National Forest.

This little dam has a walkway across the top that leads to some hiking trails... and a special little place called "Slippery Rock" that all of the locals know about.

Here is a little video clip I made of the water by the dam and where we started walking back through the trails in the park.

The woods were just beautiful and quiet. The water has a rich brown color from the tamarack trees, the tannen is what discolors the water, and almost gives it a rootbeer appearance.

The dogs really enjoy having time to sniff here there and everywhere. We have them on long flexi leashes that allow them to randomly stop and pause and smell things. But if anybody were to come down the trail, we can quickly recoil them back into our sides. They really enjoyed the opportunity to get out and sniff sniff sniff.

Little shy Binney, who would never leave our side, or cower in fear when we first got her....  now will sniff and stretch out her leash to get every opportunity to find a new scent to explore. She's the one further away in this picture!

We worked our way back to what is known as "Slippery Rock". We could hear some shouts of delight from three young ladies who were having an absolute blast there.

But the little gnats were bothering them, and buzzing around their heads. We lent them our bug spray to give them a little relief from the pesky critters. In return, they agreed to show how this natural water slide worked and demonstrate it for my video:

They were sure having a lot of fun.

We left them to their antics, and headed on back with the dogs. It was getting close to supper time, so we decided to get the grill out again.

Steve did up some marvellous tenderloin steaks that he had been marinating overnight. Our daughter Erin gave us some green beans that we steamed up, we had a little leftover cucumber salad and a delicious sliced baked potato in tin foil from on the grill. My oh my, we sure eat good when we go camping.

I'm going to finish up this blog here and I will do another one in another day or two. I think we're staying here until Thursday because there's nobody else needing this campsite until then.


It's nice to take a break from all of our projects at home, but we do have a couple interesting ones coming up.

I'm also pleased to say we did "Bat Duty" the other night to double-check ... by sitting out in our chairs at dusk ... waiting to see if there are any more bats leaving our attic.

I think I'm pretty sure that there are no more bats up there. Now we can move ahead with our new insulation, and not be distressed by the thought of bats leaving their excretment all over. We are having new insulation blown into the north portion of the attic in a few weeks.  The bats need to be GONE!