Westside Campground

Sand Hollow State Park is centrally located in southern Utah. Its a mere 30 minute drive to Zion National Park as well as plenty of other great destinations. The main draw for this campground is the reservoir as well as the OHV areas surrounding it. There are two campgrounds at Sand Hollow. We stayed at the Westside Campground where no OHV's are allowed on the roads which minimizes the disturbance they may create. I never felt like we were surrounded by OHV's even though they are clearly enjoying the area.

We did not stay at the best site in the park but I was pretty happy with it. The sites along the upper loop provide 360 degree views of the surrounding mountains as well as of the reservoir. Each site has a covered picnic area and fire ring. What I liked best was the easy access, flat sites and excellently planned full hook-ups. I never felt like I was on top of my neighbor and always felt I had a generous amount of space to enjoy. There is no shade at this campground which was no issue in late October, I assume that may present a problem in the summer is you don't like running your AC full blast. The electric provided is 30 and 50 amp, so if your AC is operational you should have plenty of power. Water pressure was a little off the charts so we filled the tanks and used the pump.

We had excellent cell service on both Verizon and AT&T as well as LOTS of OTA channels on the TV. Bathrooms were clean and dumpsters were conveniently located. As a bonus, they did have paper, plastic and metal recycling at the campground but did not have glass recycling.

Extra info: They do lock this park at night. If you provide a $20 cash-only deposit they will give you a key fob for after hour entry. You can keep the fob for your entire stay. The gate closes at 10pm in the summer and 9pm the rest of the year.

PROS:
Huge sites
Level sites
Well laid out full hookups
Great views
Central location
Upper loop has the best views and location
Recycling at campground

CONS:
Some sites lack water view
OHV-ers love the area

This park campground is terrific. All the sites in the West campground have water, electric and sewer hookups, they are mostly pull-through and they are large and well spaced. Each site has a fire pit, BBQ grill, picnic table and shade canopy.

The upper loop has better water views, in fact we had site 28, which although it was one of the few back in sites, we think was the best spot in the entire park. The site is huge and has 360 degree views. We were completely jazzed to get this spot reserving it only the day before we got there.

Our experience with the Utah State Park system had been good so far, and this one surpassed our expectations. This has to be the cleanest park we have ever seen. We saw a park employee cleaning the picnic table in the next site for 15 minutes. Seriously!

The towns of Hurricane and St George are close for supplies. Zion National Park is not far from here (about 40 minutes) and Snow Canyon State Park is just on the other side of St George and has some spectacular scenery too.

The other campground in the park is primitive, and they allow parking on the beach on the other side of the lake. We didn'y check it out as we were so happy with our spot, and we had heard that there were a lot more OHVers over there, so we stayed in our little paradise on the Westside.

Great Cell coverage but not good TV reception.

Date of Stay: May 2015

Sand Hollow State Park made a great one night stop as a midway point between Las Vegas (Nevada, as if I need to add that) and Page, Arizona.

The other reviews discussed the developed camping area, but I stayed in the primitive camping area on the west side. Right on the beach. Not only is this the cheaper option, but it was pretty much empty when I stayed there.

The west side camping area is a bit of a drive from the main gate. You continue west on the road inside the park, past the off road vehicle camping area and keep going after the road turns to gravel. There are several dirt roads you can turn down. Some are no more than Jeep trails and others are graded dirt roads you feel safe taking your RV down.

I chose a graded road in an area with no other RVs (there were only a couple in one spot) and headed straight for the beach. I passed several camping spots that were inland, that I imagine would definitely be full when the prime beach spots are taken. But this place was essentially empty, so I headed for the best spot around. Right on the beach. You could camp in the water if you wanted, however I opted to stay a few feet inland. :)

There was some off road vehicle noise as they were playing in the sand dunes, but I am guessing you might also hear this in the developed area. Other than that, it was peaceful. Great spot to stay as long as it wasn’t so hot you needed A/C.

3 bars AT&T/Verizon LTE unboosted.

This was our first time at a Utah State Park and I must say we were impressed. Everything from the check-in process to the immaculate facilities and sparkling lake were perfect. We also enjoyed, our large, level site with full hook-ups for only $28 a night.

The only negatives were that some of the sites are not quite as nice as others (we happened to be in one of them), and that even though there are lots of signs stating NO OHVs in the Westside CG several drive by our site everyday. I only found that annoying because there's actually a separate campground on the other side of the park for the OHVers.

Oh, and that reminds me that while there is a huge area for the OHVs to ride, there are no marked hiking trails in the park for those of us who prefer to spend our outside time exercising instead of riding on noisy machines.

Aside from all that, we really enjoyed our time here - especially kayaking on the lake with gorgeous views all around.

We had TWO different types of spots while we were here.

Our first spot was a paved, level campsite with FULL hook-ups in the West campground for $28/night. It was very clean and well maintained and if you get a spot high enough on the hill, I can see how the views can be spectacular of the nearby mountains.

Because we had a last minute change of plans (extending our stay), we had to move to the Sandlot campground, which is geared toward people with off-road vehicles. We shared a large pull-thru spot with another rig (not ideal) and the views were lackluster. In the Sandlot campground we had just water/electric (not full hook-ups) - but the savings was only $3 a night. For that little price difference I'd opt to stay in the Westside campground, if they have openings and you don't want the off-road vehicle trails.

The bathrooms in the Sandlot are fine, not fancy. Hot shower with decent water pressure.

Although the Sandlot campground wasn't ideal for our needs, the campground is located in a beautiful area! Bright red sand with green ground cover and mountains along the horizon - it's a beautiful place to camp. It's also only 20 minutes to St. George, Utah for every service or store that you might need.

We had a lot of rain and some beautiful rainbows while we were there.

We have Verizon Jetpack and had LTE coverage with no problems (and no booster).

Don't dismay when you are driving into the park, it doesn't look like much. But once you enter the campgrounds you'll see its fairly new, sites are huge and level, private, all paved, with a mix of pull though and back ins. Each site has a new fire pit and covered cement picnic table. Showers are clean and hot.

Staff were friendly. Unfortunately they did not tell us the gate is closed and locked at 10pm and there is no way in unless you have previously asked for a security key. This prompted some interesting ideas from my husband, including using nearby building lumbar to depress the exit gate's tire spikes so we could drive to our Airstream. But after some reasoning from his logical wife, we decided to walk in. Did I mention the grounds are huge? But whatever, a mile walk in starlight is not so bad.

The reservoir is beautiful with crystal clear waters. We paddled our stand up boards to the rocky outcroppings and explored nearby coves. Many boaters come in daily for fishing but the parking area for them (also huge) is separate from the grounds. There are sand dunes in the park for ATVers, which seemed very popular. There are primitive campsites near the dunes that we did not see.

We drove into Zion twice from this campground. Its a bit far but the price is right and its a really great park.

This is a fantastic campground! The sites are huge and the views are beautiful! We had so much space and privacy and full hookups. The park is convenient to the town of St. George which has all the stores and restaurants you could want. It's about a 45 minute drive to Zion National Park. We also visited Snow Canyon State Park from here which was about 30 minutes away. Verizon worked very well here also.

All of the reviews I read are accurate. It's a great state park. However, I would not stay here again because it is just to far from Zion. Once you hit the national park and decide you want to hike every day the daily 1 1/2 hour drive (roundtrip) just becomes too much. Next time we will stay closer to Zion. However, if you want nice weather (LOTS of wind) and playing on a lake or off-roading, this is the place for you. We were disappointed with both St. George and Hurricane, they both lacked any type of town character. Springdale, as you enter the park is awesome.

If you decide to stay here...pick site 20...it has a view of the desert sunsets and the lake sunrises!

We camped here the first week of July in triple digit temps. We spent most of our time in the water or the air conditioning during the day. This is a popular place for speed boats and rock jumping. Fun to watch both. We enjoyed the cleanliness of the sites, campground and bathrooms. West side campground enjoys full hookups and lots of space between sites. The table had a shade cover and a grill. We saw bunnies and chipmunks in the campground and perch in the reservoir.

There is a general store and grill on the other side of the lake with a man made sandy beach. Dogs are allowed in the water but not at the beach side. The campground is close to town and a Walmart/diesel gas and other restaurants.

If it wasn't so hot we would have ventured to Zion. Next time.

We put our canoe in the reservoir. Although it isn't terribly big it is very beautiful. Crystal clear water, rocks to jump from, and great sand beaches. We spent three hours just paddling and enjoying the day. The campground was nice. Plenty of space between the campers.