bay city state recreation area

Bay City State Park seems to always be developing. They made a great effort to clean up the swimmers beach area. The beach and volleyball areas are as good as anywhere. The kids waterpark is always full during the summer. It has an awesome play scape for kids and grandkids. My wife and I live nearby and ride our mountain bikes through the park and trails twice a week. The campgrounds are always clean as a whistle. We go there when our kids come to town to camp with the grandkids. It's a great park.

The bike trails were great. We saw some great fall colors and wildlife. The camping however was a little less satisfying. The park is crammed full of sites. People have to be very close together. The sites are not even close to level. We camp in a tent and don't want to sleep on uneven ground...I get it won't be perfectly level but a little site maintenance would be appreciated. There must have been a lot of road construction going on around the park because we could hear trucks early in the morning. To top it off, the garbage dumpster was emptied at 4:30 AM!!! The updated restrooms and showers were nice.

They offer quite a few activities for families and the Splash Park is great for younger children, but the beach isn't a great place to swim unless you have a boat to get out past the first sandbar. There are also problems with E. Coli. after heavy rains, a sewage plant down river from the Bay has frequent "leaks" .

For what I was looking for it was great! A nice walk around the inland pond and down to the lake. It is a marshy wetland sort of place rather than a sandy beach. Great playground, however.

Drove up from Detroit Metro area for the day. The parking was free (probably due to time of year- weekend after Labor Day). I'm from CA where the beaches are amazing. Been to the Caribbean where the beaches are incredible. Set your expectations. This is a lake in MI. The "beach" is small and, yes, hard to get to. A bit of a walk down a gravel and sand trail. BUT on a warm Sept. day it was really great. Lots of picnic areas and plenty of play areas for the kids. The trails around the park and specifically around a lovely pond provided a great walk. Restrooms were adequate. I would definitely recommend. Not sure I would go there for the beach. But for a family picnic it's a great location. As you enter the park, Mussels snack stand looks like a good place to eat outside for a burger or coney. Don't miss Castaway's about a mile down the road for a great outdoor deck and river view. Again, set your expectations and you can't go wrong. We will definitely be back.

Its time something is done to this beach permanently to improve it. Spray park is great. Area is well kept up and pretty. However when you think of a state park you think of beach and in reality BC State Park doesn't cut it.

It's sad the way they have let this once beautiful beach, go. The bicycle trails are nice. The campground had nice well shaded lots with lots of mature trees.

This park use to be beautiful! You could see the water from the parking lot and it was a great sandy beach and large. Now you see weeds, the beach area is small, long walk around to it, can't just walk out to it anymore. I think the water playground is good, but it is because people have to haul everything so far to get to the beach area. Like I said it use to be all beach, very disappointed with how it is now. I don't care to go there, and if I camp there(which a group of us use to for years) it is a very short time and prefer to go to maintained state parks with nice beaches. There are a few state parks in Michigan that use to be maintained, that are now let go back to it's natural state. One state park two of our group ended up going to the hospital, for sand flea bites. I wish the beaches were maintained like before, and the muck removed. The Bay City State Park still has one of my sandals that was sucked off in the muck.

As others have pointed out the Splash and Play area of beach / park is one of this park's greatest asset and wished we had something this well thought out back at home. Very large area with many activities to keep all ages entertained for a long time. However, the beach and shore line brought my excellent score down to average as we were not impressed with this part of the park. I tried to walk barefoot along the shoreline but eventually gave up because of LOTS of small sea shells, dirty shoreline, fish remains and just plain murky looking water. Bottom line we would pay the $9.00 fee if we had children still young enough to enjoy the Splash and Play area and enjoy the view of the water from afar as the rest of the park was decent.

We did not camp here, but came to ride the rail trail on our bikes. This is a very nice state park with playground for kids, beach access, and sprinkler water for children. Very clean and large. Also had a building with information about the area and some stuffed animals.

Sites are decent. Seems awfully buggy at this park. Splash pad was great and appeared well maintained. Take your own lawn chairs. Beach area was nice but water was mucky at the edge. Lot of sand! Volleyball nets.

Entry to the park is &9.00 per car. Parking was adequate. Hike to the water was much longer than expected. Upon reaching the beach we found it to be nothing like the pictures or description. The sand had a lot of regular dirt in it and a lot of gunk at the shoreline, including dead fish. We expected the park would at least have made an attempt at cleanliness, but, we were wrong. Our first look at Lake Huron was a dissappointment as well with dirty brown/green water and lots of debris on the surface. Walking into the water was disgusting with muck we sank into halfway up our calves and choked with seaweed. We had to go out to a long ways to a sandbar to get out of that mess, but the debris laden water was still no fun and we retreated to our hotel for a swim in the pool.

Really liked the campground. Beautiful beach and well maintained campground. Cant wait until i get to visit again.

This is a great place to take my 4 year old. He loves the Splash Park and playground and I love bringing a chair and umbrella. There are chairs and picnic tables but not enough to go around so bring your own just in case. Awesome relaxation:)

This was a lady minute trip to see the fireworks and we got right in. The state parks were wonderful. The restrooms were always clean. The beach-not so much. Nice splash pad though. Lots of trees!!