Here is my little review of Six Mile Lake.
This is the entrance to Six Mile Lake. It’s on a dead end road, right off highway 400, north of Barrie ~30 minutes. (No.., you can’t hear the highway from the campsites). You enter the grounds, head past the main office, then the park store, then the main washrooms, then into the forest!
After the main bath rooms, you drive down a paved road, right by the water. There are some nice private, walk-down sites that are RIGHT at the water. The other trailer sites are pretty open, and probably noisy (traffic) as the sites are RIGHT by the road. Then you start getting into the more private sites, and the main road ends at the beginning of the maple loop. I’ll get into the best sites at the end of the review Lets talk beaches! There are 3 beaches at the campground. The day use beach, beach 1, beach 2. However, I wouldn’t really call them beaches. All they did was take 30-40 dumpload trucks of sand, and made their own beach on the lake. However, if your looking for a spot to sit in the sand, it works! The fenced off water portions are pretty small, and shallow. I guess it’s only really good to dip yourself in, to cool off. They do rent canoes, and paddle boats, which is a great feature! Here are some beach pictures
I would say the majority of the campsites are fairly private. If the ontario parks website says they are private, you can be assured they are private. There also seems to be alot of WIDE, and open to the road campsites, and I would avoid those (the ontario parks website will classify those as poor i think). There is 1-2 main trails to take, which I would suggest taking, as it brings you to a nice lake, and a view ponds to view, etc, etc. Other then the 1 main trail, this isn’t a spot to do ALOT of hiking, as there just isn’t many trails. The bathrooms throughout the site are all outhouse style bathrooms. The main bathroom, with running water for showers, and flush toilets, is at the entrance of the park. Don’t book a site near a bathroom, as they stink! The campsite also has docks, that you can fish off of, or rent a space for your boat.
As far as campsites go, again, when the website says they are private, they are private! Here’s an example of what MOST campsites look like.
Here’s an example of a not so private site. The grounds have many of these as well.
And an example of a fairly private site.
I biked throughout the whole park, and noted a few key sites that you should book if your going to the park:
- Site 165: Really private walk-in side. You have to hike up a small hill, and when your at the top, you have 100% privacy.
- Site 171: Really nice site, long drive-way, lots of space. Also lots of spots in the forest, 10-15 feet behind the site to put your tent. Lots of privacy
- Site 182: Nice driveway, lots of privacy
- Site 184: Not a bad site, not amazing
- Site 106: Lots of privacy, big site, lots of shade, and your kinda baracaded between large rocks which block neighbors view
- Site 88: Lots of sun, and lots of shade. Fairly private. Kind of uneven of a site. You can see the beaver house from it, and beavers swimming by the water
- Site 80: Very private. Very good view. Your up on a cliff so you see the swamp from above. Also multiple levels. You can walk down, closer to the water where the picnic table is
- Site 79: Decent site. Kinda uneven. Behind the site, after walking over rocks, is a pond
- Site 50: Really nice site, good privacy. Right on the lake. Problem is lots of traffic from main camp road
- Site 8: Electronic site. 100% privacy. Long driveway
- Site 30, 31: Walk-down site. Camping right on the water. Not 100% sure of the privacy BETWEEN the 2 sites
- Site 140: Average site, decent privacy, lots of shade. Good thing about this site, is that you are RIGHT beside the pond, and RIGHT beside a beaver house. You can hear the beavers slapping their tale, and sometimes swimming around. There’s an island you can walk-out on
Conclusion:
Very nice, private campground. I don’t like the outhouse style toilets, but you can go to the main toilets if you want. Alot of the sites are completely surrounded by forest, and ponds, which is a plus!
Any questions AT ALL just email me at: email@natemeyer.ca
Thanks for the review…..it was helpful!
Thanks so much for this review! I found it so helpful being as I had never been to this park before and really like private-type sites. Your thorough description of the park and in particular the sites run-down was AWESOME! Booked #171 based on your opinion and heading there soon. Thanks again!
No Problem! Thanks for the comments. Site 171 is a cool site! Have fun!
Thanks for the positive review. All the reviews I had found were all trashing the park as small, noisy and “urban”. We booked a site last minute (very few left in any p.p. this time of year). Hope we enjoy it as much as you did!!!
Thanks for the comment!
I wouldn’t say the park is small. And I wouldn’t say it’s noisy ither. I’ve never been to this park when it is booked full tho. The park is build within a fairly thick bush, which is why people may say it’s URBAN?
I dunno… it’s not my favorite park, but I don’t mind it.
Have Fun!
A great and thorough review! Thanks!
@Kurt
No Problem. Thanks for the comment.
I really appreciate the time you took to gather information on the campsites you have been too! It is most helpful in deciding where I would like to go on my next camping trip. Thank you!
Wow! This was extremely helpful and I love the fact you photographed the actual sites and not just a couple sunset pics!!
After reading and seeing your photos, I think I may book for this summer!
Thans again,
Camper D
Hey Man!
We’re going tomorrow, and we got sites 156-158… do you know them? Thanks for the pictures!
@Jerry
Hey. Ya, those sites are on the inner circle. If I remember correctly, they are pretty private. Right across the road is a trail, and a swamp.
The outhouse style toilets are flushing toilets and do not smell bad…our family camped at Site 47—-amazing private…was a little hard to find—turn left at the deadend sign to the left of the pop machine past the outhouse….drive straight up to 47…before 47 is site 41 and also there is access to the Living Edge nature path…
The outhouse style toilets are flushing toilets and do not smell bad…our family camped at Site 47—-amazing private…was a little hard to find—turn left at the deadend sign to the left of the pop machine past the outhouse….drive straight up to 47…before 47 is site 41 and also there is access to the Living Edge nature path…and yes…unfortunately you can hear the highway noise
We just got back from this park. Our site #88 was great, fairly private and we did enjoy watching the beavers. We did hear highway noise at least until the wind picked up, then we mostly heard our tarp fluttering. Other than that, it was very quiet, and not very busy. The loop we were on was almost totally empty, despite the Ontario Parks site showing almost all of them had been booked. We didn’t manage to walk all the roads, but I will agree on your suggestions of sites 106, 79, 80, 88, 140 and 50.
Just got back from Six Mile Lake – got Site #165 – the walk-up site mentioned. For a non-lakefront site – IMHO the BEST site at the park. Total privacy and a nice level site backing on to wilderness. Site #30 on the lake looks like the best site if you want a lake front site – ie for canoeing etc. The toilets are a mixture throughout the park – they all look like outhouses, but vary from outhouses with no sink to wash hands, to flush toilets in an outhouse building, to flush ones with sinks. Walk around and find a flush one if you are near an outhouse. The flush ones don’t smell at all. You CAN hear traffic on the 400, but it is was an acceptable level from site #165. Would go here again – want to try to get Site #30, but told it books early.
Just got back from 3 days at Six Mile Lake (Aug 29-31, 2011). Nate’s review is pretty good but I could hear the highway everywhere except at Maple campgrounds. Birch Campground is like sleeping beside a 400 Highway because that is pretty much what you’re doing. But it is closed to showers, laundry, flush toilets and Birch beach. SML PP seems to be popular for one night stopovers to someplace else.
Pluses of Six Mile Lake:
- close to Toronto (100 miles) so great for a day trip. Closest point to Muskoka
- great for kids with a nice beach and new playground. Short hiking trails are perfect for little legs or those who can’t walk too far. Note there are challenging sections, especially with wet weather on the Milne Trail.
- good quality pedal boats, canoes and kayaks for rent
- David Milne Trail is a short hike but absolutely beautiful
- Good boat launch on a beautiful Muskoka lake. If you’re coming from Toronto save on gas hauling your tub up.
- 15 minute paddle south there is a spectacular rock formation which has good dives and is very photogenic
- good camp store with long hours
- well maintained roads and sites
- friendly staff and warden does frequent patrols
- despite all the marshes there were no bug (mosquitoes or flies) around, even on the marsh hikes. The staff confirmed that August has been pretty much bug free, even Maple CG.
- lakefront campsites are really nice.
- lots of wildlife
Minuses:
- pit toilets stink pretty bad (flush ones are fine)
- shower is hot water challenged and the shower heads spray all over the place. We kept our clothes etc outside while we showered to keep them dry.
- Highway 400- lots of road noise, especially with a west wind.
Wow, just stumbled on this review and delighted to see it. A small group of us have booked at 6 Mile for Thanksgiving, we’re kayakers, so we were looking for someplace reasonably close to Halton region, good paddling for 2 days, and decent sites. We’ve got #112 since at least one of us needs a toilet fairly close. All the lakefront sites were taken but it still looks like a good bet for this time of year. Really looking forward to fall colours and now that I’ve read this, I plan on looking for the beaver ponds too. Thanks!
nice site good info
Love that you did a great review. This has helped alot since we are looking for somewhere new to try. One question though, is there a dog beach. We have 3 labs and they love the water.