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Set in a quiet forest, in an old homestead, the park offers a convenient base for sightseeing, hiking and biking the Mt. St. Helens area. Kid Valley Campground is also located close to fishing opportunities at nearby lakes and the famous Toutle River.
Winter activities include hunting, crosscountry skiing, and snowmobiling in the nearby area, including the Toutle state forest, with 35,000 acres open to snowmobiling.
We are located adjacent to the Toutle River and a few miles from the Green River, both of which have recovered from the volcanic mudflows and offer great salmon and steelhead fishing. We are a short drive from fly-fishing at Coldwater Lake and bass and trout fishing in Silver Lake. Year around elk viewing is popular on the road to Mount St. Helens and hunting in the Winston, Toutle, Coweeman and Margaret units are nearby, too. Call for special hunting season rates.
So we discovered this place when we stayed at another place 20 miles closer to town. We absolutely loved it! The owner, is SO nice! I had to rescedule multiple times because my dates were mixed up and she worked with me. Other places ive been would have told me to go somewhere else.
Ray, hes the camp host, is super awesome and very nice. He was more than happy to give us directions or tell us how to get places. Since you dont get signal out there you kind of need to know.
As you can see, our campsite was MASSIVE! So much space, we loved it. Didnt really have to worry about other people to much.
The showers are on the quarter method, but i didnt have a bad experience with it. Maybe people who take 1 hour showers while camping would. Me however, I realize there are other people that might need the showers so were out within 7 minutes.
Theres no water at the campsites themselves so we would just take the short walk to the bathroom and fill up our jug with the hose.
The trees are gorgeous at the campsite and even though it rained we didnt feel so much of it. Thanks to the big beautiful trees!
Theres lots of stuff to see, we spent a significant amount of time at the river, 1/4 a mile away. Also went up to see st.helens and the dam.
Barrel of wood is $10
A bucket is $5
And they have ice! Only $3 a bag!
Pros:
-Great people here, even the few that live there are super nice
- showers
-lots of stuff near by
-nice stretch of grass to play
-you wont have signal here
Con
- you probably wont have signal here
-no water at each individual site
- the guy that cleans the bathrrom is kind of mean and takes 2 to 3 hours to clean small bathrooms, he also closes them both during that time.
Campground was peaceful and honestly the most quiet campground I've ever been to. Host was very nice and informative. If you're camping in the ST. Helens area I recommend coming here. Is rv and tent friendly.
Small wooded campground in a great location to see the westside of Mount St. Helens.
Sites/setting:
Sites 1-20 are RV sites. Most have full hook-ups. I believe sites 17-20 are just water/electric. Sites 1-6 are currently occupied with long-term residents. Sites A-J are smaller tent sites.
Sites are in a wooded setting; however, the woods are in the back of the sites and there is nothing in between each site, so there isn’t much privacy. It wasn’t too bad because it was pretty empty (aside from the residents), so we only had other campers on one side of us.
All sites are easy to get in and out, dirt, and pretty level.
All sites have a picnic table and a fire pit (you can purchase wood there for $10 a wheelbarrow).
Amenities/Utilities:
Cell service was nonexistent. There was no wi-fi available. From the campground to the westside of Mount St. Helens (trails and observation areas) we were never able to get internet, so we had to rely on maps/brochures to plan our days. I wish I would have know this so I could have been more prepared in planning our activities during our stay ahead of time.
The campground doesn't have a store(the gas station across the street is permanently closed), so aside from firewood, the closest store is Drew’s Grocery which is about 8 miles away.
There is no laundry facility. Bathroom was fairly clean and maintained.
No dog park, but they do provide doggie bags.
Activities:
The westside area of Mount St. Helens was about 30-40 minutes away (Mount St. Helens Visitor Center at Silver Lake, Johnston Ridge Observatory, and Coldwater Lake Recreation Area).
You can take a short trail to the restaurant Fire Mountain Grill (used to be called Patty’s Place at 19 Mile House). The food/service wasn’t the greatest, but you get a nice view of Toutle River.
Access to swim/fish the Toutle River is 1/4 mile down the road. Turn right out of the campground and take a right on the first road. My little ones enjoyed swimming in the river and swinging on the rope swings into the water hung under the bridge.
The center of the campground had a nice large grassy area to run around, a small plastic toddler slide, tether ball, horse shoes, a rundown basketball hoop, a balance beam, and a sandbox.
No military discount offered. Current rate was $28 per night for full hook-ups. Must have cash or check! No credit cards accepted.
Overall, it was a nice little campground; however, the long-term residents were very off-putting. Some of their trailers were old and unkept some people looked to be living in cargo type trailers even. This is the main reason for the lower rating.
We didn’t realize when booking that it was so far from some of the trails we were interested in doing during our visit. For example, Ape Cave was over two hours away. Next time I would choose to stay at a campground more centrally located (maybe near Kalama), but if you just want to see the mountain and do a few hikes nearby than this is your place.
#tencatestravel
Beautiful campground but there was a drunk guy during the night screaming. I was a bit scared to leave my tent to go to the restrooms. And there was a rude person that thought it was funny to start his car at 3 in the morning and leave after 5/10 minutes.
Okay restrooms and showers, although the big second shower didn't work.
The park was easy to find. It is located right off of Spirit Lake Highway It is the closest park to Mount St. Helen’s. There is pavement all the way until you arrive at the park. Signage is adequate. Check in this early in the season was self serve. Find a site, fill out the envelope and pay CASH only.. The rules are fairly basic.
Our site, 20, was a back in that was just long enough for our Coach and Towed. Services (30 amp and water) were to the left side. Distancing is somewhat close for a rural park. Most sites do not have a vegetation barrier. Each site has a table and most have a fire pit. Our site was flat but sloped to the rear. Overall the park was pretty and well manicured. There is a big grassy field, Basket Ball hoop. Ping Pong Table and a Sand Box for the younger set. On a very hot day, one might want to venture a short distance up the logging road behind the park to find, under the bridge, a pair of rope swings over the water.
We could not obtain any Verizon cell service thus had NO internet. We did not find a few OTA TV. Satellite might be difficult because of the trees if you don’t have a portable dish. We did not use the washrooms or pay showers (25 cents for 2 minutes) but we checked and found them dated but clean.
There is a pathway that starts between sites 7 and 8 that runs alongside a steep bank that leads to a restaurant a short distance away. The restaurant was closed while we here but it looks like the views from the deck would be amazing.
We found this park to be a well run rural RV park. We paid $30.00 per night and we feel we received very good value. We will be back if in the area again.
