Upon arrival and check-in we were greeted by a rather grumpy owner. Not even a simple "hello, how are you". He just rattled off the bill, told me what the balance was and pointed to the direction of our cabin. Our son had also reserved a campsite and he got the same treatment. We reserved one of 2 of the oldest and smallest cabins. To our surprise the cabin was nice. Lakefront with great view, clean, central air, relatively new appliances, nice full bath with large step in shower, screened-in porch, small outside deck. The cabin was more then acceptable, but it went sort of downhill from there. When we returned to the office to get our fishing licenses we received the same cold shoulder we received on check-in. One word answers, no eye contact. Not very people oriented for this type of business. We, and our son, also each reserved a boat and motor. The boats were older 14' aluminum V bottoms with still older motors. The boats were dirty inside. Mud, dirt, seaweed and some dead worms. Obviously not cleaned from previous use. The motors were not in the best of condition and one chugged and sputtered so much we had to have it looked at. Turned out the plug was bad. We had to ask for oars and the oars that we were given were 6' oars. The only way you could row a 14' boat with 6' oars is to stand up and row. This facility is comprised of two separate areas, one with a "campground" and cottages and the other with just cottages. We stayed in a cabin on the campground side. This side has 3 boat docks, each of which moors numerous boats and each of which has 3 light poles. The first docks lights all were lit, the middle dock had one light lit and the last dock had none lit. The electrical outlets that were spaced along the docks were common indoor receptacles (no GFI'S) with no covers on the boxes. The workers indicated they thought power to the lights and the receptacles was off due to a short somewhere, but were unable to fix the problem. Subsequently, we had to carry our trolling motor batteries back up the hill to the cabin to charge them. Not much fun. The "fish cleaning building" was sort of a makeshift affair, quite dirty and again with no power to the light inside.
The "campground" is actually an area occupied by approximately 20 or so seasonal RV's, more than a few of which have some rather extensive "additions" to the RV's. This place does not have an actual "active" campground. Our son was assigned a specific "campsite" on his reservation confirmation, but when we arrived he was directed to back his trailer into a space between two seasonal's with another one directly behind him. So they were squeezed into a U shaped area. Turned out the"campsite" they were assigned no longer exists. There was no picnic table, and no place for a campfire, next to the road and no view of the lake. The electrical service consisted of a pipe in the ground on which was mounted a 4 outlet box with standard indoor receptacles fused with a old screw in type 30 amp fuse (which was blown on check-in). The service box in the seasonal site next to him was a Medusa's head of RV power cord, plugs, extension cords and electrical tape. The sewer hook-up was a horizontal 4" PVC pipe cemented to a tee fitting which in turn was fitted to a ground pipe. The horizontal run was open on both ends and non threaded. Had to jury rig a set up to drain the RV's tanks. On top of that the sewer connection was up hill of the site. Difficult situation. They did request a picnic table which they got the next day. Also, there is no cable service to the RV sites, which is kind of a moot point due to the fact that there are no actual campsites anyway.
We did not see any of the other cottages in either section but in view of the fact that our cabin was nice we will assume the rest of the cottages are just as nice and probably better owing to the fact that they are larger and newer.
The on site store is well stocked with fishing equipment and some normal everyday grocery needs as well as ice, beer and live bait.
The biggest problem here is an owner who appears to be desperately in need of some "dealing with people" training and an overall lack of some sort of maintenance program. Dealing with problems here appears to be much more reactive versus proactive and in some cases there is no action. These two items are mostly the reason for the two star rating.
One final observation. We have been camping and fishing (with almost 10 years full timing) for over 30 years and Black Lake is one of the few lakes we've been on where common boating courtesy is apparently not in the operating book. Some re-education of boaters on this lake is definitely in order! read more