My family and I stayed at Pounds Hollow Campsites for three days on the weekend of July 12, 2008. It was, to say the least, incredible...or it would have been had it not thunderstormed on us all weekend. Even that, though, was in a way spectacular, a big storm came through, and your surrounded by these big pine trees, and the trees were swaying like mad but we never felt the wind at tent level. The campsites are very nice, we stayed at site 46 at Pounds Hollow Campsite and it was great. You can actually walk down to the lake to swim every day, its that close. I Mention our campsite because, if you drive down to the lake, on your way back up you pass a small cave, which is accessable from our campsite. At the back of the site was a small hiking trail which we explored, to find it led right down to the cave. It isnt big enough to do any major exploring, and the thought of snakes kept us pretty well out of it, but its interesting to see anyway.
There are bathrooms, pump water at an adjoining campsite, fire pits, and picnic tables at each site, and they are good large sites as well. Its $5.00 a night to stay as of July 2008.
Pounds Hollow lake is a great place as well, you can swim in the designated swimming area, which is fairly large and has a beach, as well as the bottom of the swimming area being sand instead of lake mud. There are lots of picnic areas with concrete flooring and picnic tables, and a sheltered picnic area on top of the hill. There are also bathrooms and water fountains there. Theres a sign that says you can rent paddleboats, but we didn't see any. You can also boat and fish. There are several porch type platforms set up around the lake you can fish off of, as well as going off and setting your hook somewhere.
Right next to Pounds Hollow (and actually connecting to it) is Rim Rock. If you don't do anything else in the Garden of the Gods area, you HAVE to see Rim Rock and hike the trail. Rim Rock isn't really a specific rock formation, its just a set of sheer bluffs that kind of separates it from the other areas of the park. you start out basically on top of it, and wind your way down into the hollows. Theres a nice trail, which leads you onot an observation deck. from there you have several options, you can circle on back up to where you started, or you can follow both wooden and carved stone stairs through a large rock and down onto the floor of the hollow. Once down there, you find yourself looking at Ox Lot Cave, a big cave carved out of the rock face. There is a sign post saying what the cave was used for and why it was named Ox Lot. Back in the early 1900's, there was extensive logging in that area, and the log men would keep their Oxen and equipment in that cave as a shelter and feeding area while logging went on all around them. From Ox Lot, you can again circle up and around back to the starting point, or you can continue on to Pounds Hollow. We've been there twice, the first time circling back, the second time we followed it to the Hollow and swam afterwards. No matter which way you go, it isnt a long trail, and my three year old did it without too much complaining.
Shawnee's website rates the rail as "difficult" but there really wasnt anywhere I would consider it to have that kind of rating. I would call it moderate at best. The shortest route is .4 miles, but its a bit more than that if you continue to follow down to Pounds Hollow.
UPDATE:
We stayed again in April of 2010 with a couple of friends. Even better time! We each brought our dogs, which several people in the area had also done. We were at a campsite at the end of a closed off road (leading to more campsites) where we scavenged for firewood. We walked the trails again, and took more and better pics. There's just so much to do in this area, and I don't want to eat it all up on this one post, but if your looking for a better campground this is it.
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