Quiet Waters Park

Campsites are $35 per night for up to four campers. The 10-by-10-foot tents sleep six, so two additional campers can be accommodated for an additional $3 each. A security deposit of $35 is required, and up to two pets are permitted per site for a fee of $1 per pet. Firewood, kindling and ice are available at the park office, which is adjacent to the campground.

Quiet Waters Park has a campground, but you can’t bring your own camper. You must use their tents, which are already set up on platforms, and all but five sites are waterfront.

There are 25 tent sites and two tepees, each with running water, electricity, a fire ring, picnic table and grill. There are two restrooms with hot showers convenient to all sites. The big draw at Quiet Waters is cable water skiing at Ski-Rixen, but the park also has a 7-mile network of paved multi-use trails and challenging mountain bike trails with segments for everyone from beginners to expert riders that wrap around the park’s five lakes.

Quiet Waters took a big hit during Hurricane Wilma, the center of which passed right over the park, and a huge swath of trees and vegetation was ripped out of the ground, leaving much of the park barren, compared to what it once was.

Volunteers piled into the park to rebuild the mountain bike trail with new landscaping, new structure and adding new trails under the guidance of the International Mountain Bicycling Association. There is a staging area at the trailhead with parking and picnic tables.

There is also – surprise! – a water park with a sandy beach on one of the park’s freshwater lakes. Adjacent to Ski Rixen, which occupies another lake, is a 20,000 square foot Skate Park for skateboarding, inline skating and BMX biking, open only on weekends. The Skate Park features more than a hundred ramps and grind trails.

A third lake, perhaps the most scenic of them all, is home to a marina where you can rent canoes, kayaks, jon boats and paddleboats. You can also bring your own canoes and kayaks and launch on a nearby grassy “beach” with nearby parking.