Campground in Nevada

[grey ghost]

Has anyone out there been to Valley of Fire State Park near Overton, NV? Are there any campgrounds that you would recommend. Thanks in advance!!!

[JRTJH]

We were in Las Vegas with the trailer for 3 weeks a couple years ago. We stayed at Nellis AFB FamCamp. There are lots of "day trips" to various sites around the Vegas area. We spent a full day at Valley of Fire State Park. There are two campgrounds there. One is the RV campground which at that time (and I think still is) a "first come first served, no reservations campground". It has electric hookups, water available and a dump/disposal station. The other campground is a "group campground" and requires reservations. There are no hookups there and no individual RV camping...

Valley of Fire west entrance and the campground is about 12 miles down a long, deserted two lane road from I-15 and about 45 miles from Vegas. IMO, it's not a good idea to drag a trailer from a campground to Valley of Fire, and find out there are no campsites available AND, it's a "hit or miss" to ride out there, pay the entrance fees as an out of state visitor and find there's a campsite, but by the time you go get the trailer and come back, the campsite is gone.

When we spent the day there, in early April, it was over 100F and we were in the Slingshot, so it was about as "wilting" as most desert days can be...

While I suppose you could "risk it", with no reservations allowed, being an "out of stater", you'd either be gambling or have to have reservations somewhere else in case the campground was full.

It's not my intention to throw a wet blanket on camping at Valley of Fire, but unless you're extremely lucky and pay for reservations somewhere else as well, you may end up with no place to park your trailer if the campground is full....

When we were there, about 11AM, there was a line of around 7 or 8 trailers and motorhomes parked at the entrance of the campground. I asked the ranger what was up and his reply was, "they're waiting for a space if someone leaves" It was a "patient line of campers, hoping someone was going home that day. At dark, when the park closes, all of the trailers without a campsite were required to leave the park at closing time.

For me, that's not a way to spend a vacation. We enjoyed the park for the day we were in it, but honestly, you can only sweat in sand with lots of rocks for so many days before it's time for a change of scenery. For us, that was a total of about 8 hours and we'd had our fill of "red rocks that turn orange when the sun hits them at a certain angle. ....

Don't get me wrong, it's a "must see" if you're in the area. It's very interesting, but to try to negotiate getting a site in the campground is, at best, a very, VERY "iffy" proposition.....

YMMV