Banning
MN
State Park
2020 & 2021

The first time we visited Banning State Park P was 6, T was 4, and we arrived on V's 2nd birthday!

 

One great thing about this start park is that the park is less then a mile from Interstate 35. This makes it an ideal stop on your way "Up North" like we say here in Minnesota.

 

The first time we visited Banning State Park was in August 2020. Prior to leaving for our planned camping trip on Madeline Island on Lake Superior, we decided to add a few days to our trip and stop here on our way back home. We stayed for 3 nights. The second time we made a quick stop on our way back from Jay Cook MN State Park to show my sister and her family this cool park.

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When we camped, we stayed at campsite 8. We liked how close it was to the restrooms and the trailhead, especially with young kids, but the site was very buggy. It had rained recently, and we had standing water in the bushes on the edge of the campsite. It seemed that other campsites weren't as bad. The Wolf Creek Trail was also really buggy and muddy, but the rest of the trails were fine.

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This state park is along the Kettle River. The state park was once a quarry site, and you can still see the old markings and ruins. We truly enjoyed hiking all of the trails, and learning about the old quarry.

 

There's one point along the Quarry Loop Trail that there are three bridges up the hill from each other. It's fun to spread out and see each other from the bridges. The lowest bridge makes a perfect troll bridge! After we took our picture on each of the bridges, my son and I hid under the bridge until the rest of the group caught up. Then we said "who's walking over my bridge". It was so fun to hear then see their reactions.

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My husband hiked Hell's Gate Trail, he did say it was really sketchy going. Diffidently skip it if you have kids, or take turns checking it out. He had our standard poodle with him and he said it was even hard for Max at times.​

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If you don't have kids, and plan to hike most of the day, you could check out the park in one full day. If you have kids, it would be better to plan 2 full days to check out the trails. Site 8 diffidently made it easy to hike first thing, come back for lunch & rest, then go back out on the trails. I'd say if you have small children, try to get sites close to the trailhead. Usually by the time we came back they were so tired.