Plenty of wildlife and not very many people. A drive from the cities but not if your from cottage grove or Woodbury. It overlooks the st croix river.
My husband and I loved this state park. We camped for 1 night in the backpacking campground. Our site was perfect, clean, secluded, and we loved having all-you-can-cut wood. We even had the experience of seeing a lot of deer and wildlife. There are also many hiking trails and picnic table areas. The only drawback was the mile hike in to the campground. We had never done a hike-in campground so we definitely brought too much and the last 1/4 mile is very much up hill. We are definitely going back in the spring!
We hiked Afton 3 weekends in a row training for backpacking the Superior Hiking Trail. Our experience was great. The trails are well labeled and you can easily download the map from online. We wrote out mile by mile descriptions for anyone looking to do short hikes, day hikes, or need to train for a long hike or endurance. Click the link below for photos, trail descriptions, and difficulty levels.http://creekstopeaks.blogspot.com/2014/08/afton-state-park-minnesotawisconsin.html
Love this state park. Hiking can range from easy and flat to a moderate challenge with hills. Nice long bath along the river that is extra stunning with its gold colors in the fall.
We love Afton State Park with it's many hiking trails and backpacking campground. It's situated on the beautiful St. Croix river, and it's variety of hiking trails is wonderful. This past New Years Eve we did something different and rented a camper cabin there for two nights. It was cold out, but we played games and ate Nachos that we had brought in our crock pot. Later, we drove next door to Afton Alps, the ski area, and watched a really good fireworks display with some of their yummy cocoa. Then we returned to our cabin, took a brisk night time walk marveling at all the stars as the snow crunched underfoot. Then, we built a roaring fire and made s'mores and took pictures to be blown up for our wall. Then we went back into our warm cabin and rang in the New Year with the count down and some bubbly. It was the BEST New Years ever. New Years day was awesome too.
This is a great park to hike in. Miles of hiking trails in prairie and woods with vistas of the Mississippi. You can also do the orienteering course as well as geocaching. There is camping available, but you have to hike quite a ways to the tent sites. No car camping here.
I have Cross Country skiied and hiked and camped in the park. It is neat, well taken care of, and a great state park.
Park is very hilly. It has a beach and can be accessed by boat via ST Croix River or by road or horse back. It has miles of hiking: prairie, oak Savannah, and forest. Hike in campsites. Great summer and winter.
I came out here to do some hiking in the summer. It was my first time in this area for hiking. It had some nice rolling plains as well as a real nice hill down to the river and back up to where I parked. There weren't a lot of people here when I came. The best part of the 4.5 mile hike I went on was the area along the river. There were some nice cliffs one side of me and the river on the other. The best part were the cool breezes on a warm summer day. The one hill going down by the river was pertty tough terrain. I would advise good hiking boots with ankle support to make it down. Totally worth a return trip.
What a beautiful location! We made it our Autumn hike and the colors were amazing. The park is vast with many walking trails of a variety of difficulty to suit everybody. Some trails are paved, some grass, some gravel, some forest floor. We did about 6 of the 20 miles and found them well traveled and maintained. Of the parks along the St Croix river I found these trails to be more accessible to a variety of abilities than the other parks. While not all would be stroller friendly, none were dangerous for a nimble person to carry a young child. There were many trails that were very child friendly. We had six dogs with us and the paths were ample for our menagerie. There were limited areas that we found access to the river on the north half of the park (didn't walk the south half), so plan to carry enough water for the inland trails. Pack a picnic, a camera, and make at least a half day of it. Better yet, buy a MN state park sticker and make it a frequent quick escape from the city bustle.