Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Ruth, NV

This place is giant! There are tons of RV spots as well as a tent area and some cabins. We stayed here to visit Great Basin National Park because the weather was going to be too cold to camp in the park safely without hookups for us. We also used this KOA as our midway point to dump and refill our water between campsites without water. It had what we expected of a KOA - friendly staff, full hookups, easy level pull through sites, a playground, store, etc. The surprises for us: no pool (not that we wanted one), adorable neighbor goats, and two dog parks areas (one with grass). Our dog loved the dirt dog park. It was great giving him a chance to run around off leash for a bit on our trip since everywhere we went he had to be on-leash. The goats were a fun surprise, too, since we love watching goats.

Located outside of Ely, but close enough if you need to run into town.

Staff was great, informed us about facilities and also map listed restaurants that deliver.

Hometown Pizza delivers to your site, good pizza.

They do inform you that by state law they have to have water pressure regulators on the water hookups so no need to add yours. (in Las Vegas at the KOA they had no idea what I was talking about but since we were within the city limits may not be needed).

Great view of the night sky after dark, dog parks are decent size, but by the time we got their our dog had found a spot on the roads.

Site pretty level, site and roads are gravel. Appears to be quite a few long term campers.

We were only there one night, but with everything if offers appears to be a place to stay for a week if so inclined.
Gets chilly at night, high altitude (close to 7,000 ft in elevation).

Great Basin is one of the less-visited national parks, but when we visited during the annual Astronomy Festival in September, we knew we might have a little more trouble finding a campsite inside the park. None of the campgrounds in Great Basin are reservable ahead of time. We aimed to camp at Upper or Lower Lehman Creek Campgrounds, located near the entrance of the park, and after driving through the lower campground with no luck, we snagged the last site at Upper Lehman Creek. The sites here are nicely spread out and nestled in plenty of vegetation, and we had no issues with noise even though we camped on what might be the busiest weekend in Great Basin.

Like most other national park campgrounds, Upper Lehman Creek provided just the basic amenities: flush toilets, water, and picnic tables. We’d gladly take this rustic setting over other over commercialized campgrounds.

Although Great Basin takes a lot of work to access -- it truly is in the middle of nowhere -- this park is a hidden gem. We especially enjoyed climbing Wheeler Peak (the second-highest point in Nevada), walking among the Bristlecone trees (the oldest trees in the world), taking the tour of Lehman Caves, and attending various activities at the Astronomy Festival. There’s little sense of being “on the beaten path” anywhere here, but if you want to get even further away from people, the Johnson Lake/Baker Lake 11-mile loop trail was also a great loop hike. 

The only downside, besides being located in the middle of nowhere, is that sites at Upper Lehman Creek campground are not reservable, so be sure to arrive early enough in the day to grab a site, especially if you are visiting during peak weekends.

You can read much more about our four days in the park on our blog: Switchback Kids (Great Basin)

This campground was a great stopover for the night as we headed south to Zion and Bryce, UT. Both Lakeview and Elks Point campgrounds were very clean and offered scenic overlooks of the Nevada hills below. Keep driving past the first loop through the white gate to the second loop of this campground for the best sites (on the left). Individual flush toilets and free showers were very clean. Cave lake is nothing to special but had pretty clear water for a reservoir. Not ideal for swimming (you have to walk through about 1 foot deep mud to get to the waters edge in which lots of fishing tackle is snagged). Fishing was awesome. Lake is native and stocked with rainbow and brown trout.

Despite the name, there is are no caves that one can see at the lake. This lake is a very small hidden desert treasure. There is a lakeside campground with few campsites that fill up very quickly. There is also BLM land 20 minutes from the lake where you camp disperse camp for free.

There are toilets, and showers available at the campsite. Dogs, fishing, and boats are allowed. Along the backside of the lake are the best spots if your looking to let your dog off of the leash to play in the water, or be secluded in the soft grass and shade of the bushes.

This is a nice family spot to spend the weekend. It gets very crowded very fast so be sure to leave early if you want to stay at one of the lakeside campgrounds. All roads are paved.

This is a popular stop near the town of Ely (a couple miles north off the highway; the closest town is actually McGill). Because of its proximity to a major thoroughfare, and I guess what northern Nevada would consider a major town, it seems like it fills up quickly. There isn’t a lot of privacy from neighbors because the foliage is limited and the landscaping is minimal, but it’s clean, relatively quiet, well run, and a good pit stop if you’re making a run across this area of the country.

Recommend that, if you know you’re coming in advance, you go ahead and make reservations at recreation.gov.

There are two pit toilets in a pretty good state of cleanliness. Potable water, picnic tables, and fire rings. Out of the eleven sites total, five are considered group sites and six are considered RV sites (you can car/tent camp here no problem, however).