Halfmoon West Campground

The road in is dirt, but in my low clearance vehicle I didn’t have an issue at all. It’s also super easy to find off the main highway (24).

The campground itself is pretty spacious and offers decent privacy between (most) sites. But the lodgepole forests don’t really buffer much noise if you have the ill fortune of getting loud neighbors (they do offer some adequate shade, though).

The campground offers access to both a wilderness and national forests with endless recreational opportunities, so you don’t really need to drive far for a good hike. But that’s where it gets tricky: this place is BUUUUUSY.

From OHV, jeeps, and RV/Campers to endless mountain bikers, fisherpeople, and hikers you’re lucky to have much actual peace and quiet. Even in the middle of the night you’ll have some OHV activity (I stayed S - Th and was woken up each night by some numbskull ATVer). If that doesn’t bother you, then you’ll dig this place.

The campground itself was pretty clean, but they have only one host (Dan, one of the kindest, most interesting people I’ve met on the road) to manage three campgrounds. So there are some details that get overlooked, but nothing that impacted my enjoyment.

No tent pads, but most sites are flat-ish so it wasn’t hard to find something that worked.

And no water, so bring your own!

Cell signal was one bar of Verizon LTE and even at that was in and out. I could make occasional calls, send some texts, but that was it.

Halfmoon West is a basic campground with no frills and first come first serve. We visited to scout it our for future trips. I do not recommend large rigs for this area. The camphost did have a 30 foot fifth wheel but the area is more suited for trailers in the 20 ft range.

The road to the campground was well maintained and just a bit washboard. It was two wide lanes except for one turn prior to the forest service property.

The sites were well spaced and maintained, but offered little privacy. The location of Mt Massive's trailhead also decreases the areas solitude.

The campground had pit toilets, picnic tables, a dumpster and fire rings. Bear canisters are not provided but required.

We had no Verizon service.