Patoka Lake, Birdseye/French Lick, IN The Quick Click pages will scroll automatically or you can click any tab to keep that page open. Numbers on the tabs refer to our Ratings, which are explained on the Tips page. Summary Patoka Lake is best known for water sports and rightfully so since the property includes an 8,800-acre lake. But it’s also the locus for a ton of other things to do, although the options for those things at Patoka Lake itself are quite limited. Patoka is a great base of operations for outdoor fun, even if you never get wet during your visit. Fast Facts The largest DNR property with 25,800 acres under management, including the 8,800-acre lake. That lake is the second-largest in Indiana (Monroe Lake has 10,750 acres). Authorization to develop came in 1965. Dam construction began in 1972 and was completed in 1978. Facility opened to the public on August 20, 1980. Location The official address is 3084 N. Dillard Road, Birdseye, IN 47512. When using Google maps this points to a location just south of the park entrance. Use your satnav to get to this point and then just continue north on Elon Road/County Road 221 for less than a mile to the park entrance. Google Map to the park entrance. Phone For the park office it’s 812-685-2464. Timing The place is very busy in summer but it handles crowds well. Shoulder seasons are less crowded and everything is still open. Hunting is allowed on the property but there are restrictions on where and when; check with the park office or website. Where to Stay Patoka Lake has 455 campsites with electric and 45 primitive sites. Sites tend to be small and closely grouped and many lack shade. Sites 1 through 120 are especially tight and exposed. Cul-de-sacs on spurs have tight radii. If you have a Class A motorhome you may have trouble making most of the turns in the campground, especially if you’re pulling a dink. There is a single, 2-lane dump station where lines are common on Sundays in summer. Despite all this the campground is perfectly liveable. Bath houses are large and conveniently placed, there are lots of water hydrants, and there’s a general store near the entrance. Patoka Lake Marina rents floating cabins. They’re clean, spacious, and bright and literally right on the lake. Outside the park, French Lick Springs Resort and West Baden Springs Hotel are wonderful options although the latter is a bit pricey. There’s a Comfort Suites in French Lick and a number of cottages, B&Bs, and ranches in the area. Where to Eat Dining options within Patoka Lake are even more limited than lodging options: there are none. Here again French Lick and West Baden are your best bets. The hotels themselves have a number of options. The only national chain to infiltrate the area is Denny’s, which has a location in downtown French Lick. Our favorites are Café at Sinclair’s and Xanadu Coffee & Creamery at West Baden Springs and Chicago’s Pizza on Broadway/State Road 56 between French Lick and West Baden. We’ve also been pleased with Miguel’s Mexican Restaurant in the Springs Valley Plaza shopping center, which is also on Broadway, a little south of West Baden Springs. The Jay-C store in that same center is your best bet for groceries and there’s a CVS pharmacy across the street. Jasper also has quite a bit of commerce and is just about as close, but we much prefer the offerings in French Lick and West Baden. Let’s start with what Patoka Lake isn’t. It isn’t primarily a recreation facility. Its primary purpose is flood control. Secondary to that is its role as a water source to a number of communities in Indiana and Illinois. Recreation is firmly in third place. Patoka Lake isn’t managed by a single agency. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources plays a big part but the real overseer is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). As a State Recreation Area, Patoka Lake isn’t a single entity. It is an assembly of seven State Recreation Areas: Jackson, Lick Fork, Little Patoka, Newton-Stewart (the only one with developed infrastructure), Painter Creek, South Lick Fork, and Walls Lake. And finally, Patoka isn’t a great recreation destination, or so it would seem. Most of the recreation is centered on the water, which is a limitation. The swimming beach disappears in periods of high water. There is no mountain biking. The bike trails, all of which are paved, are too steep, don’t really go anywhere, and vary from recently refurbished to dangerously neglected. The hiking trails are in disrepair. Most of the campsites are packed too close together and lack shade. The recreational features haven’t been upgraded since the first ones were completed in December 1980. So why is Patoka so much fun? We can break that into two parts: Things available on site and things available nearby. Onsite Appeal Watersports come to mind first. If you have a ski boat or a fishing boat the opportunities are apparent. Less obvious are the opportunities for human-powered craft. The main body of the lake has no speed limit but the backbays - and there are several - are limited to 5 or 10 mph so any powerboats present create minimal wake, making these areas perfect for canoeing or kayaking. Windsurfing would also work well although the irregular coastline gives rise to fluky winds at times. Because the lake’s average depth is a mere 20 feet, there are a lot of shallow spots and that makes sailing iffy. Even most sailboats with bulb keels would require too much draft; a kick-up daggerboard would be okay but even then you’d have to keep a keen eye on the bottom contour. The beach is big and sandy. There’s a nice bathhouse, concession stand, and even an open-air kiosk with a long countertop and seating where you can plug in your laptop or download your next beach book to your e-reader. Although the hiking trails need a lot of work - from reroutes of fall- line sections to improved blazes that are actually visible and used in a consistent manner - they’re still scenic and offer enough challenge to be interesting without being demoralizing. Navigating the Main Trail (6.5 miles/10.5 km; rated “rugged”) requires good map and compass skills. Much of the trail was blocked by blowdowns from a stormy spring and summer when we hiked it in November 2011. Clearing the trail will likely take a year or more and even then some sections will be indistinct. If this is more adventure than you had in mind, you can easily hike the Main Trail out to Totem Rock, poke around there and eat the lunch you brought with, and hike back. The Wildlife Management Demonstration Trail (2 miles/3.2 km; rated “moderate”) is missing many of the features listed in the accompanying brochure but is an easy hike on a wide trail. Pictured at right is an intersection of the Main and Wildlife Demonstration Trails. Pictured at lower left is Station 16 on the Demonstration Trail. “Look up,” the brochure says. “This old tire has been recycled into a squirrel nesting box. There are seven such structures near the trail-how many did you see?” Answer: none. The Garden Rock Loop Trail (simply described as “short” and rated as “moderate”) brings you right past some rock features at the outset and continues through the woods. The lake spur of this route was blocked by briers and blowdowns when we were there. A number of special events are scheduled each year, from an eagle watch to a workshop where you can build your own walking stick. Other activities include an archery range, a disc golf course, and cross-country skiing. The fitness trail, located on the perimeter of the main campgrounds, is one of the best we’ve seen. It offers a surprising mix of strength, flexibility, and agility exercises. Wear gloves; several of the exercises require hand placement on wooden supports. The 6 miles/9.6 km of bike trails are fun to ride but are best left to cyclists of at least intermediate skills riding wide tires. Much of the pavement is in poor condition and some of the hills are quite steep, up to 19 percent grade between the campground and the beach. And Nearby A dozen of the trails on the Hoosier National Forest are within a 30-minute drive of Patoka. Most are shared use and suitable for hiking and mountain biking. French Lick Springs Resort is home to what Rich considers the best mountain bike trails in the state. French Lick and its sister resort, West Baden Springs, are stunning examples of the elegance and extravagance that once was common in this part of Indiana. Both offer lodging, meals, and recreation. Julie loves to simply sit on the veranda of either hotel, sipping coffee and reading while waiting for Rich to return from mountain biking. A joint effort by seven counties (Crawford, Dubois, Gibson, Orange, Perry, and Pike) created a map of road bike routes that includes points of interest, grocery stops, restaurants, and more (pictured at right). You can get a map from the convention and visitors bureau in any of those counties. Patoka Lake is in the middle of all this and makes a great base of operations to enjoy every bit of it. Dreaming Our dream for Patoka is a continuous perimeter trail. With 161 miles of shoreline, it’s easy to imagine a hiking and mountain biking trail of 200 miles or more. The major impediment is the lack of adequate setback in spots. This is the same argument we’ve heard against a perimeter trail at another Indiana reservoir, Brookville Lake. To create the world-class destination trail envisioned would require land acquisition (through exchange or purchase) or an agreement with private property owners for easement or right-of-way. It would be difficult but not impossible to achieve this and the results would be worth the efforts. In the meantime we’d love to see trail development in the six underutilized State Recreation Areas at Patoka. Let us know what you think. Send us an e-mail (e-mail addresses are on the Contact page) or post your comments on our Facebook page. 1. It’s no longer graffiti when it passes the century mark. 2. Julie hiking between the rocks. 3. Sedimentary rock from the bottom of what was once an inland sea. 4. Julie’s curiosity compels her to examine the walls and floors. 5. Some trees have been cleared (blue arrows) but 50 feet away the trail (black line) remains blocked. 6. This well is on the Wildlife Management Demonstration Trail. More Photos

Rich and Julie posing at Totem Rock. The site was named for the petroglyphs of turtles left behind by indigenous residents. Unfortunately the rocks into which these symbols were carved were removed more than a century ago by a farmer who was clearing the land for his livestock to use.

The Visitors Center has a number of interesting displays, including a collection of local coins known as “rabbit checks” (inset). The Center has a large parking lot, rest rooms, and is the starting point for the three trails described above.