Atsion Lake, Shamong

This review is for the Campground. Spent two nights at the Family campground, with my dogs and two kids. I enjoyed it. Pros: the facilities for a tent Campground are very good. You do have to keep pressing the shower buttons, but the water warms up nice and hot after a minute. Potable drinking water is availble, just lift the handle and theres a sewage dunp station along with a dumpster for trash. Each site has a fire ring and a picnic table. Dog friendly sites are on one side of the camp, and non dog site on the other. Easy access to the lake for canoes. The farmer at the entrance to the road sells firewood inexpensively at $5 for a good amount. Self service, drive up and on the left. Just stop on in and drop your cash. ****you NEED to bring your own firewood, there is very little dead wood at this site*** Rangers check your sites too. Cons: Dog sites are very close to Atsion Road, so download the map from NJs website for the Campground and make sure you view that. We got site 27 and while it was close to the bathrooms, I could hear the cars all night long, and even more so during "rush hour". Other dogs will bark and the Morning Bark News is usually around 4am, just a heads up (when all the dogs need to go to the bathroom and be walked). Weekends fill up fast! RVs are allowed here, and group sites can get rowdy. Family of like 15 were partying until 2am. Bathrooms go a few days without being cleaned but it's a camp ground, what do you want? At least it's flush toilets! Wear water shoes when showering. Electrical outlet in the men's room is busted. Manage garbage and spray accordingly. Flies do swarm on all food, including dog food within 24 hours. Lots of wood spiders, just a heads up, and the wildlife is very active at night, if that's a problem for you. Shinning my headlamp into the forest revealed many sparkling glittering spider eyes, like glistening sand. The long legs also swarm the tents. It's the woods, what do you expect? Ticks as well, spray, spray spray. Overall a good trip. We will be back. Loved it. Saw a bobcat, which is very rare with an estimated 240 population in NJ at this time. They are not dangerous, and a fence lizard.

I came here for hiking once about 2.5 years ago. This lake is beautiful. It has a recreation area with huge parking lot and a nice beach, and of course hiking trails. Then one day, on March 4, 2022 after I hiked in Batsto Village area, I planned to come here to watch sunset, only turned out that the gate to the recreation area was locked. So I drove to another side of the road, Atsion Road but found out that there were camping cabins all alongside with locked access. No way to access to the lake. So I guess it’s only open during warm seasons. But anyways, I found a roadside spot on Route 206 to watch sun setting down from another side of the lake, which was breathtaking! Check out my pictures and videos for it.