Blustery Camping with a View at Brigham Park 

Happy fall! This last weekend we did our very last camping trip of the season (oh the sadness). It was a bit of a spur of the moment thing. I have been itching to get out one last time, and Mark of course wanted to spend the fall bow hunting, but he gave in and said ok just in time for me to book a site at a nearby county park, Brigham County Park.  

I did not get compensated at all for my time or the opinions expressed here monetarily or with goods or services. Any links I provide in the following are just for informational purposes only and I do not claim affiliation with any of the linked sites. I did my best to only include information here that I knew for certain was correct but things can change and often do quickly. If you have questions or need specific information, it is always best to contact the agency that runs the campground directly. 

Quick Stats: 

Brigham County Park- 3160 County Highway F, Blue Mounds, WI 53517 

https://parks-lwrd.countyofdane.com/park/Brigham

• 23 campsites within the park, 4 with electric (1 of which is Handicap Accessible) and 1 group site 

• 2 pit toilets 

• Fresh water spigot located centrally in park 

• Playground for the kids 

• Closest Vet offering 24/7 emergency service: Veterinary Emergency Service– Middleton- 1612 N. High Point Rd, Middleton WI 53562- 608-831-1101. I have used this vet service before, being the closest emergency service to my own home; they have always been great with my animals. Even if you have a question about if it’s an emergency or not, they are always a phone call away and will advise if you should bring your pet in or not.    

• Lots of hiking opportunities 

• Dog friendly 

Brigham Park is a super rustic retreat situated on the top of the hill overlooking the Wisconsin River Valley in southern Wisconsin. I had been by there many times, being literally a short 20-minute drive from home and offering one of the best panoramic views in the area. No matter what time of the year, if you drive along highway F between Black Earth and Blue Mounds you are rewarded by breathtaking beauty. Even though I had been by the park multiple times, I really had never stopped in the actual park, so I really had no idea what the campground would be like, or even that they had a campground. After doing some searching for camping nearby, I stumbled across it and of course was immediately intrigued.  

When I say it’s a rustic campground, I really do mean it. I was a bit on the fence at first because of this, and I know many people that wouldn’t give it a chance because it has very little in the way of amenities. There are no showers. No flush toilets. No dump station for campers (although, rumor has it they are working on that). They only have 4 electric sites. I wasn’t really expecting much. 

But even with their lack of amenities, I wanted to give it a go. We are used to roughing it a little more than most people, so I figured we could make the best out of it and not miss the other stuff and boy, I was right. They really have a great little campground. The pit toilet building near the park office was clean and heated, the other one seemed a bit less-used, not heated but still clean. The lack of showers didn’t really bother us, but they do say that if you are in the possession of a State Park sticker you can go down the road and shower at Blue Mounds State Park.  

The website really doesn’t offer you any information on each individual site except for some of the sizes and if the parking area is grass or gravel, so we made a little trip up there before I reserved and drove through, picking out the campsite we wanted and making notes about others we would be willing to try in the future. Most of the campsites seemed pretty level to me going through. Not all of them would be good for campers, but the side that we chose with sites 1-10 were well suited for campers, as are a lot of the wooded sites beside possibly 17 (that one seemed just too narrow to me, unless you don’t want to use your awning) and a couple of others (unless you have a super short camper like ours they seemed just too short). If you have another person with a camper that you want to camp next to, I would say the best sites would be 8 & 10 or 22 & 23, possibly also 19 & 21, although that one might not be good to camp together if the trees are full of leaves, and obviously the group campsite. To see photos that I took of the sites, please click here. A map of the campground can be found here.    

Once we got to the campground after I got done with work on Friday, it was the easiest check in process we’ve ever dealt with. We seriously drove into the park, found our site and set up. The park office isn’t staffed all the time, so when the rangers swing through multiple times a day, they put any site reservation information they have up on the site post, making it easy to see which sites are reserved and which are open. If we would have known how it works before-hand, we would have probably looked into switching to an electric site, there was one that wasn’t reserved when we got there. 

Even though we didn’t have electric at our site, I absolutely loved the spot we had. It was open with a smattering of old, tall trees above us, and a huge grassy area behind us. The only downfall to the openness is that the wind can be absolutely wicked up there. When we got there we had a constant strong wind out of the south, which happened to be the side that the grasslands were on. Being on top of the hill the wind whipped through at a really good rate. We were lucky to only have to deal with a wind from the south most of Friday evening before it swung around and started coming more from the northwest, we had trees on that side of us, which helped a lot. It was still windy, but not nearly as bad. 

Dogs are welcome at the park and while Dane County requires a permit for every dog that is in their parks, dogs are welcome in the park for free for the duration of your stay. They must be leashed at all times, and of course, cleaned up after, but that’s a given with any campground. With all of the hiking available in the park, I would rate it as a pretty great place to take your furry friend. It was pretty cold for us while we were there (it even snowed!), so we didn’t do as much hiking as we would have liked, but we did cover the segments closest to camp through the woods and grasslands, plus did most of the Brigham Trail. We will most definitely be going on the other side of the road to check out the grassland trails over there the next time we go! To see a map of the park including the trails, click here. 

Brigham Park is a great place to camp if you just want to enjoy being outside and camping. There isn’t a ton of stuff to do, but for fall camping, I would call it a perfect place. You can go on a great hike through the woods or down the Brigham Trail toward the Military Ridge trail, you can sit in the colorful splendor of a million golden hued trees and look over miles and miles of rolling hills and valleys. You can sit by a campfire and enjoy the company of your fellow campers and just revel in the natural beauty all around you. After a weekend like that, you will definitely feel rejuvenated just like we did!