Campground Review: Manchester State Forest
Recently, we travelled to Pinewood, SC where we camped at Mill Creek County Park. The county park connects to the trails at Manchester State Forest and they offer both equestrian and non-equestrian camping. This is the last equestrian campsite in South Carolina that doesn’t require reservations. You can simply pull up and set up camp. Be forewarned, they have a HUGE organized ride in March every year - if you show up that weekend without a reservation, you will be out of luck.
Address: 7995 Milford Plantation Rd; Pinewood, SC
When you pull into the dirt drive of the campground, you will immediately see a fork in the road. Take the fork to the left to get to the campground.
The campground has 147 sites available. Sites 1-70 are at the bottom loop near the barn. The outer ring of sites in that loop are large with huge shade trees. The inner sites in that loop are a bit smaller with few trees. Sites 71-147 are on the upper loop near the bathhouse, dump station, and pavilion. All are fairly large and shaded.
The bathhouse is heated and each one has 3 toilet stalls, 3 private showers, and a double sink. The facilities are dated and “rustic” but they are extremely well-maintained and clean.
The dump station is across from the bathhouse. It’s got a nice concrete pad and water hose.
There is a nice 20 stall barn on the lower loop. The trail head for both the yellow and orange trails sit at the end of the barn. Each stall is approximately 10x12 and has very high walls. Stalls are only $5 a night. You are responsible for providing your own shavings and cleaning up the stalls. You must bring everything - muck buckets, shovels, manure picks, water buckets, and hoses. Cleanup is easy - just toss your manure over the back wall. A local guy comes and picks it up for use on his farm.
They offer 30amp sites for $20/night and 50amp sites for$25/night. Each site has electric, water, and a place to high tie. Most have high tie poles, but some of the perimeter sites have trees for high tying. Most sites have a picnic table. There are no fire ring or pits, you can make a fire if you make sure you keep it contained.
The orange-blazed trail entrance sits to the back of the lower loop past the barn on the right. The yellow trail entrance is at the tip of the barn.
Trails are barefoot friendly. Most trails are wide and sandy, although some - like the yellow-blazed trail - are single-track. Sandy roads cross the trails throughout the state forest, allowing you to make your loops as short or as long as you’d like. You can also ride up to Poinsett State Park and ride some of the trails there. We rode a 13 mile loop (orange to yellow). While we passed a lot of marshy water, we only found one spot to water the horses, so make sure you take advantage of those spots when you find them.
This dated-map is posted at the kiosk in the county park. The trail layout is spot on, but the blazing color doesn’t always match what we saw on the trail. For example, the yellow trail is blazed blue where it runs into the orange trail. We use the AllTrails App and found that not all of the trails here are on the app so using a combo of this map and our app really helped us stay on track.
All-in-all we really enjoyed our weekend here. It’s a quiet place and well-maintained. The trails are pretty typical for the midlands of South Carolina and the prices are quite low compared to other comparable equestrian campgrounds in the state.
To see a more detailed review of the campground, including video footage of the barn, bathhouse, and trails, please check out my Youtube review below.