roadtripper2926411

Grand Teton National Park in mid-September used to not be so crowded. However, these are different times, and the tens of thousands of brand new RV owners, as well as seasoned campers are flocking to our National Parks to quarantine and recreate at the same time, but you knew that already if you have been on the road these past few months.

We arrived at the Moran Junction park entrance on the first day of what we thought might be 4 nights in the park at 1430 hours on a Tuesday. Unfortunately, all of the 1,000 + campsites in the park were either full or closed, and had been since 1100 that morning. The nice lady at the gate told us about some dispersed camping options just outside the park on Buffalo Valley Road, towards Dubois...and that's where we went the first night and found a spot along with other late arrivals.

On day 2, we broke camp early and was in line to the campground just before 0700, and we got a site. The process to get into the campground on your first day resembles a military operation. RV's and cars line-up in front of the gate shack to the campground very early in the morning, usually before daylight. The official opening is 0800, but they opened at 0730 on our first day. A nice concessionaire employee told us while we were in line, that they were expecting ~100 departures that day, and she was confident that we would get a space. The employees are friendly and accommodating to the extent possible. There are several people working the line to get in with radio communications with the gate shack that looks at vacancies and works to fit campers with what is vacant. One lady took our information, size of RV, days staying, generator or no generator and completed a form and took it to the gate shack. Another nice gentleman (Tony), comes out and get's our money and takes it to the gate shack, and comes back with our change and a map to our assigned site. I assume they will take a CC, but I didn't ask because I didn't want to push my luck.

There are 2 dump stations in the campground. There is double station for RV's that are leaving, and a single station for RV's that are arriving and need to dump before they set up camp, like we did. Both stations are on the main road to the loops and are easy to get to, albeit its fairly tight at the incoming single dump station with other RV's coming and going on the same road. Also, the wash out hoses will not serve to back flush your black water tanks as they have no coupler on the end. There is a potable water spigot at each dump station that can be used to top your water tank. Although there are dumpsters, there is nothing for recyclables.

The campground has over 300 sites. Yes, it's a small town to be sure. The bigger rigs will go in loops H through O, while many of the tenters or smaller rigs will go in loops A through G. While most people will park along the loop roads, there is plenty of real estate usually to the side where you can spread out within the lodgepole pines before you get into the other campers' spaces. Each site will have bear boxes, picnic tables, and fire rings. If you dare to be so bold as to ask for a certain type of space, I would try to get as far away from the main road as possible, inside the loops. The traffic each morning on the main road is substantial until around 1100 to noon. After that, the campground will settle down.

Colter Bay Village, including the grocery store, gift shop, visitor center, marina, and restaurant are within walking distance to the campground. There is also a gas station that sells propane just as you enter the Village.

For those arriving to a full campground, we saw many rigs parked within the village and marina, some with slide-outs and jacks down. I was told that 'officially' there is no camping in the parking lots, but...there you go.

The smoke from the Northwest and California fires found its way to Wyoming while we were there. The Tetons were hard to see and Jackson Lake was also smoky, but it was still a nice setting.

I can't say enough about the nice concessioner employees that we met. They all were very accommodating and helpful! But, for me, I think I would rather find dispersed camping outside the Park next time.

Nice double dump station just off of the highway. However, the water and station was closed on October 9, 2020. The water is not supplied by frost-free spigots. Thus, they need to close it when it starts to freeze.

As others have reported, this is a rest area on I-10 Eastbound at mile post 135. It's a circular thing with a few sites for RVs and some for Trucks. There is 24 security on site provided by a civilian security company. I appeared lost to the security guard as I circled, and when I pulled into a RV site, he rolled his window down and gave me a thumbs up! I went over and asked him if it was ok to put my slide out, and he said 'Sure, whatever I needed to do'. All of the sites are really out of the drive lanes, and we felt secure here, albeit, some of the trucks come in pretty 'hot'. Yes, there are numerous trucks throughout the night and you can hear them, but it's okay for a night.

We got lucky and secured a site that was easy to get into and with a beautiful view of the hoodoos in mid-October.

The hardest part for us was getting off the highway. We missed Cabin Hollow Road the first time heading east on the hwy as you don't know that you are coming up on the road until you almost pass it, which we did. But, there was a turn off about 3/4 of mile up the hwy that was large enough for us to pull off and turnaround. Cabin Hollow road is best to turn off on when west bound as you don't have to cross traffic.

Once on the dirt road, you will see certain areas where others have camped. The Campendium map is accurate regarding the roads and spurs. The first such site goes off and up to the left just a few hundred yards off the hwy. Our spot was off the hwy about 1/2 mile, I would guess and straight in from the hwy, exactly where the campground symbol is on the map. Its easy to see from the road. One other spot for maybe larger rigs would be the site to the right which is next to a wash. It looked large enough to turn most rigs around, or could be used for a small group site with 2 to 3 small to medium rigs who were close.

We drove past our site to the north and west, up Cabin Hollow Road a couple of miles and saw other campsites, some better than others, and some just a wide spot in the road.

Our site wasn't level, but we found shade. Although you could see cars on the hwy from our campsite, you really could not hear them as we were far enough away.

I'm not sure why anyone would stay here more than one night, unless you were working in Saratoga Springs, or another local town. Its just open field with very little to no ground cover. Certainly, I would not want to try this area when its wet as I believe the mud would be tough, although the road in has plenty of rock. I would just be leery about pulling off onto the dirt/mud if it was very wet.

Good cell coverage with Verizon. No amenities and our spot was not very level. Easy to find. We saw a couple of rigs that looked like they maybe longer term residents with wind generators and large propane tanks.

But, for one night just passing through, its a decent stopover away from I-15 and the road south back to the freeway is very scenic.

We decided that we needed to wash clothes, so we opted to forgo our usual federal or state campgrounds to wait out some high winds that were forecasted on our return trip home. Initially, we thought we were going to a KOA, but we learned upon arrival in early April 2022 that the campground had recently been bought out by Rjourney.

There was still a KOA sign on the road, but at this writing, most other placards and KOA identification had been removed or otherwise covered up. No yellow shirts did we see.

The campground managers have not changed and they are very nice and helpful. This is a relatively small campground, but very nice. Many of the water spigots are new, however, they are not frost free, so I would advise to just run off your holding tank in freezing weather. They had just opened at the first of April, and some of the rigs I saw were there for the whole season.

The facilities are in very good shape. Nice laundry and store. There have been some recent improvements including taking out a few sites, and making the existing sites larger, some with concrete patios and privacy fences. I recommend something in Row D if possible. I found #32 to be one of the best there with some of the most room.

There is a nice grocery store in town, and a very nice Ace Hardware in Panquitch.

There will be some hwy noise, but really it wasn't bad.

Well, I had this coming I guess as I didn’t do sufficient due diligence before booking. What looks good on a website shown in July or August will certainly not be the same in March for a property that sits at over 6,500 ft in elevation.

Before I write about any short comings for this property, let me say that what Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort does have of superb quality is a very professional marketing plan and website showing attractive young adults enjoying some of the activities offered at additional costs by a separate co-located entity in bluebird summer weather. Oh, and they do have very good WiFi.

To qualify this review, I must disclose that the property is in fact much more than an RV campground. In fact, the RV section of the property makes up only a small fraction. While there is only 13 FHU sites for RVs, there are ~54 tents sites in a separate campground on the other side of the property. In addition, there are ~32 cabins, ~19 Glamping Tents, and 6 Conestoga wagons in a tight semi circle that guests can rent.

This review considers only the RV campground experience. Also, I can’t review any of the activities as we did not partake due in part to adverse weather during our stay. We wanted to try the restaurant out, however, there was no fish on the menu for a Friday in Lent.

To get to the property, I tried to use GPS, but that didn’t quite work as it didn’t get us all the way to the property. There are a few signs along the road, but one of those is past where we were about to try turning around because we thought we had missed the property. Luckily, a UPS driver slowed down for us and could tell we might be lost and told us to keep going.

The reception at the check-in was ok. Although she didn’t tell me about any of the facilities (pool, spa, tennis courts, mini-golf, hiking trails, etc.) except when I asked about the restaurant. She did give me a map and told us how to get to our site. They had assigned us in probably the most challenging back-in site to park in the campground. I couldn’t help but notice that a small rental camper van was in a large pull-through site just below us. However, our site was a little more private than the rest.

Our 27 ft trailer and truck filled up the site that sloped down by the ball, where an un-chocked trailer could roll into the side of the rig just downhill in the next site. There was no room to really linger outside the trailer due to the limited pavement and mud where there wasn’t pavement from the recent rains and snows. There was a plastic picnic table in the mud behind our trailer, but the fire pit was some 30 feet away in front and to the side of the trailer and seemed that it was located far enough away that it might not be our fire pit but the neighboring staff dorm’s fire pit...not that it mattered because of the weather. We found litter on the ground all through our site. The sewage intake was far enough forward of my discharge as to require 3 sections of sewage hose, and I had to turn the elbow as to almost kink the hose to get it in the pipe because of a service box. We found the pavement in most RV sites to be in poor condition as to need resurfacing. Also, there were no recycling bins, so we had to carry our cans, bottles, and plastics home.

The property itself is large and sprawling, with buildings and facilities scattered here and there. While the RV section seems to be dated and not in good condition, the cabins look much better from the outside with gravel and rubber bark in places. There continues to be construction activities for additional development and improvements.

We didn’t try the pool, but it looked like a nice facility.

If I had pre-teen, or teenage children or grandchildren, I could easily see where my experience here could be different in the summer. In fairness, I spoke with a younger group who were in the RV section who had children with them and they told me they were having a good time. They had done some trail rides and canyoneering with East Zion Adventures and really enjoyed the experiences. I think the kids really like this property. I guess we are just too old to see the value.

But, I couldn’t secure a spot at Watchman Campground in the Park, so here you are.

Well, we tried to get in one of the many spots available but having to lock into 4wd to get turned around because of the mud, we abandoned the notion and went back to the truck stop at the round about for the night. It would have been a very muddy mess had we stayed.

Some sites can be tricky to get in. Also, it’s right on the Hwy and bridge, so I know there would be plenty of road noise.

Picked this park over another one a little further away from the Plaza to be closer in. At first glance once we got settled in, we thought that this was a good location and a nice park, just 4 miles to downtown. However, we felt differently after we returned from dinner which was a short walk to the El Coral Restaurant.

The Cerrillos Road neighborhood is filled with street people, drug users, prostitutes and others who are doing business and panhandling, enabled by the vacant lots and other hiding areas along the road. Later on the first evening, as we were lying in bed, we heard several rapid gunshots above the din of the road noise, followed by police sirens and lights flashing through our curtains. This was on a Saturday night, however, the following Sunday evening it was much quieter. Certainly, the seedy neighborhood is not the park's fault. In fact, the well kept park and other mid-range hotels probably helps the neighborhood's overall condition to some extent. While there is no closed gate to the park, there are security cameras throughout the park, and cipher locks on the laundry rooms. We never saw any of the street people wandering around the park.

OBTW, the El Coral Restaurant is highly recommended. I had some of the best tamales I ever tasted. The restaurant is not fancy at all, but the service was great and so was the food. However, I must warn you that both the rojo and the verde sauce is 3-alarm. I recommend that you get the sauce on the side. They do have bottled beer, sangria wine and maybe some bottom shelf grocery store white wine.

Aside from the neighborhood, the park itself is very nice, clean and quiet, with the exception of the road noise. They have good wi-fi, and very nice laundry rooms. They also have a large 1/2 acre dog park some distance from the RV's. No recycling. All of the staff that we encountered were nice. We booked our stay the day before arriving and was told that we got the last available spot.

They do have several rules. You must check-in before 1730, and you can't self park your rig without someone being there to help guide you in. I'm not sure what you can do if can't make the 1730 deadline. I guess you find somewhere in one of the many shopping centers parking lots along Cerrillos Road. Dogs are not allowed on the grassy areas, and they want you to park your vehicle to the side of your trailer. No charcoal or wood fires of any kind.

The downtown plaza is a $15 Uber ride away that we used.

I really wanted to like this place. It was easy to get a reservation via email and it didn't require a security deposit to do such. Its also not one of those yellow shirt parks, which is good in my view. However, I'm sure I'll never be back here for a couple of reasons, the foremost being I don't like parking our trailer on such an unlevel pad as we had. It's dangerous unless you stay hooked up. Basically, most of the lower A row sites are sloping down with the driver side high with leveling jacks fully extended on the passenger side. One gentleman, 2 spots above us, had a mishap unhooking his trailer when the tongue jack slid off his chock and came down on his power cord. There was so much vertical at our door that I had to use a step stool to get to the bottom rung of our fully extended ladder. When I complained to one of the staff about our site, he indicated that there was nothing else available...but, he did offer to assist me in leveling our trailer. I got it done, but still...

Checking in can also take a little time as the reception is also the store and the single person checking in arrivals is also ringing up ice cream sales and taking phone calls. No recycling except aluminum cans and their Wi-Fi is nearly nonexistent.

I'm not sure how this park received the Campendium Camper Choice Award for 2020 and 2019. However, one cool thing that they do is to allow you to wash your rig.