Afton State Park is a state park of Minnesota, USA, on the St. Croix River in Washington County. Its hiking trails offer views of the river, rolling glacial moraine, and bluffland it preserves. It is a popular place for birdwatching, picnics, camping, and other typical outdoor recreational activities. To deter overuse of a state park only 20mi from downtown St. Paul, there is no vehicle access to the camping area or swimming beach.The park is located approximately 5mi south of the town of Afton, Minnesota. The park surrounds the unaffiliated Afton Alps ski area on three sides. The name "Afton" was given to this area by its settlers as a reference to the Robert Burns poem "Afton Water," which is about the River Afton in Scotland.Natural historyThe park lies on a glacial moraine, scribed with deep ravines running down to the St. Croix River. Sandstone outcrops have been exposed in some of the ravines. The vertical drop from the blufftop to the water is 300ft.A few patches of remnant prairie survived the decades of farming that took place on the blufftop. Today the former fields are being restored to prairie and oak savanna. The ravines leading down to the riverbank are thickly wooded with oak, aspen, birch, and cherry.
