All to ourselves! Winter Camping at Shades State Park (Indiana) | e104

In this episode, we finally make it out of Illinois and into Indiana to check out Shades State Park in December!

WHERE WE STAYED🛻⛺ & PLAYED:🐟🛶🚴‍♀️🥾

Shades State Park

I grew up in NW Indiana and we camped several times in the summer at Turkey Run State Park in Indiana. The main difference between the two parks is that Turkey Run has electric sites and Shades has primitive sites. That also means that Turkey Run tends to be more populated than Shades.

We stayed at Shades State Park for 2 nights and we were able to do all of the hiking there in one day. If you’re going to stay more than 2 nights, I would HIGHLY recommend hiking on some of the Turkey Run trails – there are a lot more and I would say more challenging than the ones here at Shades.

That being said, we fully enjoyed our time at Shades – there was one person who also camped over the weekend and they were several sites down.

We ended up not booking any sites until we drove in. That does limit you to certain sites but we found a nice one pointing south (but it was on the main road). There was another section that you could use if booked prior to 24 hours.

Climbing ladders are part of the fun at Shades State Park trails!

A lot of the fun trails are following a stream bed, so be prepared to get your feet wet and muddy. Some of these trails may be closed throughout the year since they can become impassable after heavy rain.

Prospect Point Overlook during the Winter

WHERE WE ATE: 🍽️🥩🍹🍺🍽️

From our refrigerator this time!