Which campground in Custer State park?

We camp at Custer SP for two weeks every year in the Fall. Have been meeting friends from all over SD for the past 14 years now. It's like a family gathering. We always gather at the Grace Coolidge Campground. It's a smaller CG with only a few sites to fit your length. Like others have said Legion Lake is nice, but I would recommend the Game Lodge Campground for your stay. Much larger pads and a choice from anything from full sun to almost full shade and is located nearer to more of the park activities. Custer SP has a great web-site with a map of each campground layout and to see a picture of the individual campsites.

Custer SP just recently changed their reservation system allowing reservations to be made up to one year in advance. The park is very popular and I would recommend you make your reservation as far out as possible.

On edit: I see other posts were made while I was typing and your reply. I see Legion lake suits you better. Legion Lake does have great fishing. We fish there too. Center Lake also has some great fishing.

Sorry if I repeated what others have already said. We all had some of the same thoughts.

Game Lodge and Legion Lake sound good, but maybe Legion Lake just a bit more because there is a swimming area. My kids are like fish. And after reading some reviews, there is trout fishing there? That seals the deal for Legion. My son is a fisherman at heart!

Looks like reservations can be made a year in advance? Is this a situation where I should be sitting at the computer at exactly 9am, or is it more flexible than that?
Funny, I am going to be booking our big trip for 2016 before I have even gone on our big trip for 2015!

here's another one for Legion Lake. It's small, has an excellent shower room and water available (long hose). Third from the right site will have some shade part of the day. Or all the way back...also shady.
Custer is a great state park and worth your time.
Make your reservation as early as you can. This is a very popular park.

We stayed at Legion Lake campground summer of '13. It's one of the smaller campgrounds at Custer but was very nice. We stayed in the 3rd site on the right from the entrance and were able to run a hose from the bathhouse to top our tank off. Legion Lake is also very central to everything in the park. We also had several bison a couple times and actual "Legion Lake" is a minute walk across the road, you can swim there and there is a cute little Inn with a store and restaurant.

We are going to Assateague in June this year,got an elec. site woohoo!!!

NCWriter wrote:
the bison herd wandered through (just on the other side of the campground fence) almost daily.

This is great! I'll go just for this.

I'm hoping for ponies this year at Assateague and bison next year at Custer. ;)

We really enjoyed our 5 night stay at Game Lodge in 2013. There are a lot of evening programs at the theater building in the campground, and the bison herd wandered through (just on the other side of the campground fence) almost daily.

Some sites are down by a creek or small river, others are up on a plain. It's a great area with so much to see.

We've stayed at two of the Custer State Park campgrounds over the years. If I recall correctly, they all have electricity. Water is available at the campgrounds but not at the campsites. If you travel with empty tanks, you will need to fill the freshwater tank then park. A long hose can be a life saver! There are dump stations at a couple of the campgrounds. Each campground has a bath house with showers. I don't recall any playgrounds at the CG's.