Dupont Reservation Conservation Area

The campsites are large and pretty well maintained. Not many tables are available. The one I used was wobbly, but held up. Otherwise, I have only accolades for this primitive campground.

It’s actually the Ted Shanks Conservation Area. Dupont is a bit further north, no camping there that we saw.

. All sites fronting the river, shaded by trees. Mix of campers, fishermen and hunters. A few trains at night but not many. Vault toilets. No tables, no fire rings.

This is a free primitive campground on the Mississippi River. Most sites have some sort of fire ring and a gravel spot to pull a vehicle in. I only saw two picnic tables in the whole campground(maybe 10-12 sites total). The clean but basic vault toilet is at the far end of the campground loop near the boat ramp. Pretty much every site has great views of the Mighty Mississippi(depending on where your neighbors set up their site), which means you can watch boat traffic from your site and maybe feel a little like Huck Finn. A few notes of caution: this area WILL flood if the river floods; it WILL be buggy in the summer as the campground backs to a large wetlands area; on the other side of the wetlands is an active train track, so you may have train noise as well as barge noise on the river.