Best Tent Camping near Juneau, AK

After being unable to find good reviews of campsites here, I took what I could find and gambled on a site. We were in tent site 021. It was a gorgeous site, had a large picnic table, bear box, water spigot between us and the site next to us, fire pit, clean pit toilets and a clean bath house. This campground has backpacker sites, RV sites, and car sites as well. We had a short walk through the moss on a trail that led down to Mendenhall Lake. It had a gorgeous view of the glacier. We enjoyed listening to all the birds and it was a pretty quiet campground.

There are a few sites close to boggy areas and they can be mushy and muddy, especially after a rain. There is a map on the reservation website where you can kind of see it. Our site was fabulous.

The trails are not far from the campground, so they are walkable.

This campground has 11 sites and we were lucky to get #5, right across from the pit toilets so we didn’t have to walk far. We had a great site, bear box, campfire pit, and a fabulous view when you walk to the edge right behind your site! We didn’t put any hammocks in the trees or do any cooking on site, as it is black bear country and you don’t want any uninvited guests. We went to the picnic shelter at Lena Cove for our morning breakfast and hung our hammocks in the shelter for the morning. We had great views of Auke Bay and Lena Cove.

I could not find any reviews to pick a site but I reserved this one and it was gold! We had a water spigot close to us in the campground, but there are no electric or water supplies at the sites. You need to bring your own firewood because some sites say it was supplied, however, due to low crew numbers they can’t keep up with demand.

After a month of kayaking in Glacier Bay, stumbling off the ferry and taking the bus to the campground Mendenhall campground felt like luxury. Without a doubt the best hot showers I've ever had camping. The proximity to the glacier and the views from around the lake are astounding. Mt McGinnis on the west and Mt Bullard and Thunder Mountain to the East. The shark fin and the towers piercing out of the ice field. It's all jaw dropping regardless of what direction you turn your head.

The campground is walking distance to multiple trails including the west glacier trail that approaches the glacier or splits off and climbs to summit Mt McGinnis as well as the visitor center. Also big heads up there were the famed ice caves but those have long collapsed and as of my visit no new caves have formed.

Bear boxes are at each campsite as well as fire pits. By far my favorite established campground in Juneau. Only downer in my opinion is having to reserve online first.

Tent camping review. This was a great camp ground. Very clean and quiet. You can't beat the proximity to the park and hiking. Some of the sites even have great views. Each site has plenty of privacy, so even with intermixed RV's it stays pretty quiet. The showers were okay, not the cleanest and not the hottest but got the job done. My only complaint was coming after dark the first night to someone clearly squatting with their RV in our site. The camp hosts do not mark each site with the booked reservations (even though the posts clearly say that the section we were in were "reservation only". So people just drop in and take sites, assuming they aren't reserved. We attempted to solicit the camphosts help but in the 4 nights we stayed there, we never saw the hosts available once. We asked the people to move the next morning in daylight- not wanting to start anything or end up shot by knocking on their door and asking them to move that first night. However, that meant that we set up in someone else's potentially reserved site and started a huge domino effect. So I recommend getting there early to make sure your reserved spot isn't taken.

I stay here every summer with my s.o. and our pets and absolutely LOVE it here. The f.s officers could use some grooming but mostly they are okay as long as you are polite and follow the rules they usually leave you alone. They are helpful but tend to not want to listen when you try and explain a situation, any how other then that the camp grounds are usually always clean and I've never had a problem finding my site.  And if I've ever needed a food bear box or anything I've always gotten it asap. Overall pretty awesome place to just kick back enjoy the view and relax the day away.