Scarlett Knob Campground

This is one of three options for camping in or near Ohiopyle State Park, along with Jellystone and Kentuck Campground, the state park’s own campground. Where Kentuck offers ample space for each campground, Scarlett Knob packs you in quite tightly, and only has one really suitable RV spot for anything larger than 20′. This campground is very serious about it’s quiet hours, 9pm – 9am, so if you’re looking for a quiet place to stay for the night, you may be in luck. If you’re not a 3rd grader though, 9pm might seem a bit early for complete and utter silence.
The roads into the campground (ie, the roads that take you to your actual camping spot) are pretty rocky dirt roads, but nothing overly dangerous, though if you take a wrong turn in an RV, you might find yourself still trying to back out or in need of a tow truck a few hours later. For roadtripping campers though, these same roads offer some nice twisty trails that’ll give you ample seclusion from your fellow campers.

There is a little store where you need to register on the way in, and it has snacks and some basic food items, plus a decent little bathroom around back. No showers that I’d seen, and no paper towels, but if you just need a clean place to relieve yourself, you’re surely in luck. There are other, much more primitive, bathrooms in the camping area, though I didn’t personally visit them. I was told they’re quite the stanky house, though.

The owner was a little strange, again he kept emphasizing how quiet we should be after 9pm, and though alcohol is allowed in one part of the campground, it wasn’t allowed in the section we were in, called the “Family Area.” Later, he simply told us to “be discreet.”

This campground is even closer to Ohiopyle proper, and due to that it really shines as a nice, convenient place to stay while you’re frequenting all of the things you can do in Ohiopyle State Park itself, and the surrounding area (including whitewater rafting, swimming, fishing, biking, kayaking, and a couple of gems of Frank Lloyd Wright’s).

Not too bad. Absolutely sufficient for adults that need a place to spend a few nights between hiking, rafting, etc. Less suitable for families with children that spend large part of a day in the campground – but I never understood why people did that.

I was late to make reservations (Memorial weekend – one has to think far in advance), and this was the only campground that I was able to get. I read the reviews and prepared for the worst. It was not that bad. I would give it 3.5 – between 3 and 4, but there is no such option here.

The infamous pit toilets were pretty decent, as far as pit toilets go. I would not take a 3-5 years old child there, but then if I felt like using a flush toilet, I could walk to the office. It is not far from the family camp sites.

The sites themselves were what one can expect in this area. That is, there are few flat spots in those woods. So what the owners did, they dug into the hill on one side of the road, and moved the resulting dirt and rocks to the other side. So most camp sites on our side were more or less mud mounds. Ours was one of the smallest, but sufficient for 2 people. I can imagine that eventually these mounds get eroded by rains, with the surface getting less flat and rocks showing up. But it was decent while we were there. And they are in the woods, which is always nice (not like those campgrounds where they set tents on a large lawn, in full view of each other).

I agree that the owners’ refusal to let people choose a camp site can be annoying, but we were there at a popular time, so there was not much to choose from anyway.

In a rainy weather the roads could be less muddy. Schlepping in the mud to the shower was nasty.

And the fire wood that they sold us was not dry enough. Not to mention that the fire starter was also wet and sticky (yes, it was not 2 solid sticks, but some sticky substance that looked like crap. We were able to light it eventually, but only after we had some fire burning.) The fire wood 100 yards down the road was much better.

As an unexpected bonus, our phones worked well (we had problems in Ohiopyle itself and around). All in all, I do not mind coming there again.