roadtripper2926411

This nice campground is on the west bank of the Mississippi River, along a backwater slough. Its an expansive park that includes a frisbee golf course, store, equipment rentals, a community garden and sandy beaches. Some RV sites have electricity and water, and some have only electricity. There are no sites with sewer but the park has a single station dump facility. Our site was electricity only, but there was really a lot of real estate between us and the next campers, and we parked on grass. The best sites in my view are the ones along the long beach, sites #84 through #106. However, they won't be as large as what we had at 170, but good access to the river for swimming or paddling. They do have recycling.

The manager, Jamie, is very personable and ensures that your needs are met. There isn't much else for RVing in Winona, so here it is.

Our nightly rate includes a $5 a day County Park fee. There are electrical hookups at all sites. Also, a water spigot was only 2 hose sections away, and we were able to top off in place. A single RV dump station is conveniently located on the right as you exit the campground. Each site has a fire ring and picnic table. All encountered staff were friendly and accommodating. Very quiet surroundings with mature trees.

We may have had one of the best sites in the park, as it was very spacious with a view of the lake. However, we could have done without the overhead flood light on the pole beside our site. Thank goodness it wasn’t too bright.

We chose this park in large part because it has a small 70 acre lake. However, the shallow lake is too full of weeds to really have been much fun. I wouldn’t swim in it, and I didn’t see a tight line all day observing the few fisherman we saw. Also, launching our new fiberglass canoe was a challenge to not scratch up the boat on one of the many rocks thrown about the shore.

We found no recycling binds. As this park is close to a larger urban area, we saw some rigs parked in sites and locked up during the week. I'm guessing that some families are willing to pay the daily fee, but only come out on the weekends.

When we visited in March, only the C Loop was being used. We had full hookups. We had privacy on 2 sides with shrubbery. The Stellar Jays and Turkeys roam the campsites.

The decommissioned Coquille River Lighthouse is 3 miles away, and the beach is 1.5 miles away. There is a shorter trail leading from the back of B Loop, but it was underwater, about .25 miles from the loop.

The campground is just north of Brandon, OR.

Craters of the Moon National Monument, the only National Park Service facility in Idaho, unless you want to count a small sliver of Yellowstone National Park that's hard to get to in Idaho.

The campground is appropriately named as it is carved out of a lava field (A'a' Lava as is called in Hawaii).and the campground is close to the Hwy, so you get vehicle noise. The spaces are tight to get into and you don't want to get off the pavement with your rig as the lava will do damage to tires and anything else you rub against it, including a pair of Birkenstocks I was wearing.

There is water, but no electric that I saw, or dump station. There is also bathrooms, dumpsters, and recyc bins. As previously stated by many reviewers, you pay daily at a credit card kiosk located at the entrance to the campground and monument. There will be an entrance fee to the monument for all visitors unless you have a Senior Pass. When you look for an open site, look at the site posts that have a small slot to deposit a kiosk receipt behind a plexiglass window. A park ranger will pull all receipts around 0900 to 1000 every morning. So, if a site does not have a receipt inside the window of the post, or a rig parked there, it should be available. No reservations, first-come, first-serve, and spaces to fit were hard to find for us arriving at 1430 hours on a Monday in the middle of September.

The staff are very friendly. There is loop road road that you can drive out and see caves, etc., however, all caves were closed due to the Covid. The bookstore was open

Dumpsites are located close both West and East of the monument. To the West, Carey, there is a dump station behind the Exxon gas station on the corner. To the East, Arco, there is a dump station just East of the downtown area at the Truck Plaza.

This is the closest campground to the cut for Upper Priest Lake on the west side of Priest Lake, and it's far enough away from the highway to be really quiet. This is dry camping but potable water is available at many spigots throughout the campground. We never saw the camp hosts in the 3 days we were there. There are a couple of beaches just down from some of the sites where you could launch a kayak, canoe or paddle board, but no dogs are allowed on the beaches. A dump station is located in Coolin at the south end of the lake and most everyone will pass it when leaving the area. Trails around the lake are also located near the campground. I would prefer this campground to any others around Priest Lake, including the State Park on the east side.

So, we have stayed here every year for the past 3 springs for about a week at a time. It was expensive, but our good friends have a park model there and so we wanted to be close to them. I called in December 2020 for a spot for 5 nights in March 2021 and was told then they were only taking reservations for monthly stays, but to call back in January to see if that policy had changed. I called on February 22, 2021 and was told that it had not.

The funny thing is, our friends who live there tell me that the park is half empty due to Canadians unable to travel this year because of the closed border. At first I thought, well...its because of COVID and they don't want short term transients in there leaving the virus. However, that doesn't make any sense as residents are renting their park models out on a weekend basis to whoever.

The park is under new management, and its changed hands a few times in the past 3 years that we have been coming. They may not understand how 5 nights at $60 a night is more revenue for them than 5 nights at $0.

Also, some of the sites along the fence are challenging to get into as they are old park model sites with water on one side and power and sewer on the other. Plus, big rigs parked across the narrow street make it even more challenging for trailers.

The pool is very nice, its salt water and heated. Also, the laundry is large.

The road into the campground off of Hwy 75 is a washboarded gravel road for about 2 miles. Pettit Lake Campground has 13 sites for dry camping. Most of the sites will accommodate small to medium size RV's. Sites 12 and 13, I believe, may be a couple of the best sites as they are close to the lake. There was no on-site camp hosts. Although I saw some folks come from another camp ground I would imagine to square away sites on Labor Day. Also, there is no drinking water contrary to what the Sawtooth National Forest shows on their website for the campground...perhaps they are considering the lake water. One couple from Colorado drove 12 miles back to Stanley to try and find drinking water. They had to go to a small store and buy it. Water can be found without buying it by going to either Alturas Lake or Redfish Lake facilities. There is also dump stations north of Pettit Lake at Redfish Lake and also at the Stanley Park Ranger Station, just south of Stanley on the left as you are heading north on Idaho Hwy 75. If you are going south from Pettit Lake, there is a nice dump station at Smiley Creek, just across the hwy from the Smiley Creek Store, near the airfield. There is also dumpsters for trash and recyclables there. It has $5 fee for dumping on the honor system.

The sites all have fire rings and old picnic tables, and the campground has a couple of vault toilets and a dumpster for trash. The campground also is a major trailhead into the Sawtooth Wilderness Area and there is a cul-de-sac parking area that fills up even during the week in the summer with hikers and backpackers' autos. We had a tight situation when I was driving through the cul-de-sac with my 27 ft trailer and someone had parked illegally on the road. So, to avoid that cul-de-sac, take the first loop to the left as you enter the campground as most of the decent sites are in that loop, including 12 and 13.

Of course they charge for the sites. $16 for a single and $32 for a double. Half price for us old guys with a Golden Age pass, all on the honor system it seems, and I'm not sure anyone polices who pay and who doesn't. The same goes for fire restrictions. Although camp fires were prohibited when we were there the week after Labor Day, that didn't stop a few from having one in their fire rings. There is no one to tell them not to, and just having a sign doesn't stop everyone.

There is also several spots where free dispersed camping is found around the campground. Some of the dispersed sites can be found on the road into the campground from Hwy 75, and others on the Yellow Belly Lake road, 365, that goes off to the right, just before you enter the Pettit Lake Campground.

The only advantage that I see with staying in the campground vice free dispersed camping is the proximity to the lake itself and the Tin Cup trailhead to the Sawtooth Wilderness Area, unless the vault toilet and dumpster is a draw.

Pettit Lake is a medium sized clear mountain lake, very pretty, just on the edge of the Sawtooth Wilderness Area. There are private homes with docks and ski boats on the south shore. The water is very clear and I saw some large fish swimming near the bottom while canoeing. There is a boat launch on the lake and power boats are allowed. Fortunately, I and a hand full of paddle boarders had the lake to ourselves during the week late in the summer.

Located just a couple of miles north of Brookings, OR., Harris Beach State Park is a gem! It's easy to get to off of Hwy 101, but the campsites are far enough away from the highway to avoid all but the loudest of trucks roaring down the road.

Our site was perhaps one of the easiest to park that I've ever had. All of the volunteers were very friendly and helpful. Oregon State Parks now has a 100% online reservation system, where Park Rangers and Volunteers won't be able to do much for you in terms of securing a site. You have to do it yourself, even if a site is vacant and not reserved, you have to go online and reserve it yourself. You pay online and that seems to be the only way to get a site. We were there in mid-March, and although there was a 'Vacancy" sign on the highway, and as you enter the campground, you couldn't tell from driving the campground, what was really reserved, or taken.

We arrived around 1500, and there was no one at the gate shack as you enter. I did not know what site I had reserved 6 weeks earlier, and missed the 'check-in' units schedule posted at the shack. We weren't online when we arrived, and so I tracked down a park person who was emptying trash cans to ask him if he could tell us. He got on his hand-held radio and asked someone and told us in short order. Lesson, know what site you are going to. Also, there are no parking tags to hang on your rear-view mirror or lay on your dashboard, and no one checks if a vehicle belongs in the park, or not.

The park is easy walking distance to a couple of small and picturesque beaches, and not a long walk to Brookings. The park has a single dump site for those that do not have a sewer connection. The park is very clean and most sites have sufficient shrubbery to give you some privacy.

This was our 3rd visit to this park, and our best one yet. We were first greeted at the entrance by a nice young Ranger who checked us off her list and told us our campsite was ready for us, even though we were a couple of hours early. She knew who had already vacated.

We had always stayed down on the lower loop before, but this time we had a drive through site in the upper loop. I first noticed the fresh sealer on all of the payment throughout the campground and park. The second thing I noted was how much room they gave us between sites. Other parks would have probably doubled the capacity of the campground by moving the sites closer.

Each site has 30 or 30/50 amp service, water, picnic table and fire ring. There are bathroom showers in each loop, and a dump station as you enter or leave the campground.

We were welcomed about 30 minutes after we arrived by a very friendly camp host, Kevin, that went over a few of the rules, one of which was to limit or turn off outside lights as they are considered to be a ‘dark sky’ park. However, they do allow those annoying LED rope lights that some big rigs like to put out to ostensibly keep the snakes from crawling under their rigs. I don’t understand the difference and I’m all for dark skies.

You have to reserve early to get a site if it’s Oct through Mar. I would recommend the upper loop if available. I also recommend doing a cave tour, and be sure to reserve those early as well unless maybe it’s summer time. For late spring and summer, I understand they close the upper loop and only use the lower loop as crowds are not coming due to the hot weather.

I also recommend hiking the many trails that lead from the campground.

This was our first visit to JTNP. We have a 27ft trailer and it would fit in about 5 to 6 of all the sites in this campground. This would be a great campground for tents, tent trailers, or camper vans. No water. However, they do have trash and recyclable bins as well as vault toilets. Water and a dump station can be found behind the Cottonwood Springs visitor center.

It is a short walk from the campground to the Ryan Ranch ruins.