Dry River — Crawford Notch State Park

This state park campground located between Rte 302 and the Dry River in Crawford Notch is a great location for exploring family friendly trails to (Sawyer Pond, Arethusa Falls, Willard Cliffs to name a few) or longer excursions to Mt Washington and other peaks in the Whites &amp; Presidentials. Story Land is an easy drive, too, if you have young children.

Fees are a reasonable $25/night. Facilities include clean bathrooms with showers. In addition to the full-service, handicap accessible wash house, there are vault toilets around the loop. Cell service is poor to absent throughout Crawford Notch. If you need to connect, drive south toward Bartlett or North to Bretton Woods.

Sites are spacious, level, and wooded, though some have no real demarcation between them. This can be good if you are with friends and reserve sites side by side (2 &amp; 3; 12 &amp; 13), Because most of the sites are on the outside of the loop or opposite sides of the road, you won't feel surrounded. There are no hookups. Site are back-in. A few of the drive-to sites include small lean-tos. In addition, there are a few sites that are more secluded, set back further in the woods and providing a tent platform as well as a fire ring and picnic table. The entire campground is close to the road, so you will hear traffic noise. Sites 27-31 are particularly close to the main road. Although sites 2-7 appear to be far from the river, it's still just a short walk. There's a formal trail to the river from the back of the loop, near 16B (lean-to). Reservations open 11 months in advance. Mid-Oct to Dec 1 sites are walk-in only. Pre-register online and bring your print-out with you to save yourself some time.

There's no camp store, though they do have firewood for sale if you see someone. During the peak season, i expect the sites fill up in advance, but this early in the season there were sites available for Friday night when I checked in (though most only for 1 night; Saturday night was definitely harder to come by). If you haven't stocked up in advance, your best bet for groceries when coming from the south/east are Grant's Supermarket at the junction of 302 &amp; 16 or your choice of major supermarkets in Conway.

Nice base for exploring Crawford Notch

Dry River Campground is not fancy and by itself, will not entertain you.  It's strength is in it's location and the fact that it provides large, flat sites, with moderate amounts of sun, and plenty of privacy.  The fairly new bath house is a plus.

From it's strategic location off Route 302, any hike in the Whites is only minutes away.  In fact, a short connector trail from the campground gets you access to the Dry River Trail and Mt. Washington!

The park rangers are easy going, provide lots of great info, and come around with wood for a campfire nightly ($5 per bundle).  The rates are cheap so the campground fills up fast and stays full most of the summer.

We return to Dry River Campground and Crawford Notch State Park every couple of years as part of our northeast rotation.... Lily Bay at Moosehead Lake in Maine is up next!

Great basecamp for the Whites!

A friend and I went with our two dogs, we got a site set a little back, which was great!! Offered privacy, but still accessible to bathrooms and the office. Very close to many amazing hiking spots. Can't wait to go back this summer!!

Great Weekend!

This campground secluded and incredibly quiet. We stayed there with three families with children and the campsites are far enough away from each other that kiddos crying in one campsite were barely heard in the other. The other plus was that this campsite allowed dogs which truly made it a family affair.

The place is very clean and well kept. It also has a little trail that leads to the river which was a fun spot to hang out. It's also located near Mt. Washington and Mt. Willard. Mt Willard is a great and moderate hike with amazing views.

Fun and somewhat secluded spot-highly recommend

Great place! You do have to pay for showers and laundry, however it was worth it. The bathroom facilities are so clean! There are great hiking trails right on the campsite. Chipmunks surround you at all times, which was pretty epic and magical! Highly recommend this camp ground!

Very clean and cozy campground!!

When checking in, the ranger described this as "a pretty chill campground"; he wasn't wrong. Even though my dog joined in with some other camp dogs barking at people walking by (sorry neighbors), no one seemed to mind. Most everyone packed and headed out early in the mornings, since Crawford Notch is the perfect place to explore hiking, climbing, swimming...generally being outside. For such a prime location, the campsites don't feel cramped, and there's enough trees surrounding most spots to hang hammocks. No cell or internet service, but who wants that in the middle of the Whites anyway?

Chill campsite + great location

Dry river camp ground is great it’s not a huge campground so it’s quite and more relaxed then the larger campgrounds. The park rangers were fantastic they were super helpful with hiking trails and they came around a bunch of times with wood. Which was a big bundle for $6. The bathrooms are super clean and the showers and laundry room were clean. They also had a huge sink area for cleaning your dishes. We hiked a trail right from the campground to Wiley’s house it was 6 miles round trip with the dogs and the trail was well marked and we had ice cream at Wiley’s house which was great. Most of the sites had separation with a wood area but some had none so make sure you look at your site. We stayed in campsite # 14 and it’s was huge. We will definitely be back next year

Awesome 

The ranger at this campground was so helpful. The spots are nice and secluded. The showers are great and they have a full bathroom. There are hiking trails in the campground as well, which is nice to have! 

Really nice spot! 

Quiet and clean. Large sites. Bathroom and showers we also very clean. There was an interpretive ranger staying there that held a fun night of scores and spooky stories. Hiked the Arethusa Falls and Frankenstein Cliff Trail right from the campground!

Great location for hiking

Nestled in the White Mountains, Dry River was the sweetest little state park camp spot. We stayed on site 16b (a lean-to), on the edge of the river. If you’re lucky enough to stay in this spot after a nice rain be prepared for beautiful river sounds and fresh mountain air coolness. Very private, with beautiful bath house with clean hot showers. The ranger was nice and informative.

Most magical

We booked at the last minute and got stuck with site 002, which is basically a parking lot shared with another group (no privacy at all except any vehicles you park in between). Not ideal for tent camping, but oh well! At least it was a large site, and while we could hear road noise (sites further back may not), it wasn’t too bad at night. The site also drained well after a massive thunderstorm! Most of the other sites at the campground looked great, so if you can grab one of those, you will be happy. There are even a couple of sites with three-sided shelters, which looked very appealing in the rain. We appreciated the dishwashing station, coin op showers, and friendly ranger. The river is a short walk away and would have been pleasant for a dip in warmer weather. We didn’t use it, but at the front of the campground is an open picnic area with nice mountain views. Of course, the biggest advantage of this site is the proximity to some incredible White Mountains hiking — we enjoyed gorgeous hikes to Mt Pierce and Zeacliff.

We had the worst site, but the campground was nice!

My husband and I spend a weekend here in June and it is by far our top choice for weekends away without the children.  We loved being close to the mountains and trailheads, the lack of cell service forced us to become more connected and the bathrooms were so clean!! 

Weekend Away

This campground was operating under a serve-yourself basis when I camped in October, 2021. I reserved my spot, #10, online less than a week before. I loved my spot a great deal and would highly recommend it to others with tents/small rigs. Throughout my stay I didn’t see any staff and there weren’t too many other campers either as I was there during the week. They have outhouses, bathrooms, showers, laundry, potable water and a dishwashing station all included for the nightly rate of $25 + $6.50 reservation fee. No dump station, no WiFi with Verizon. They have wood for your campfire on sale with payment on an honor system basis. Domestic pets allowed, no proof of vaccination required. Can hear the traffic from the nearby road occasionally but not consistently. Lovely place that I would visit again, perfect for the introvert who likes to keep to themselves and be around those doing the same. Some spots have no privacy, #10 had the perfect amount for me. 

So many amenities. $25/night + $6.50 res. fee

we stayed here with friends to do some hiking. I loved having a platform to set our tent up on. we had a really rainy day but had so much fun just hanging out at our site all day cooking food under our "tarp city" we created. close to great hikes and of course the Saco!

great location

We were pleasantly surprised by this campground, booking 3 nights sight unseen. You could hear the river babbling at night and had incredible views of Frankenstein Cliffs as you walked to the wash house. Very private sites, clean bathrooms and coin operated showers ($0.25 for 3 minutes) and laundry. We base camped out of here and explored nearby trails, as well as Mt. Washington.

A gem of the white mountains 

With very few sites, the Dry River Campground is one of our favorite places to camp.  The location is the White Mountain National Forest is spectacular and allows easy access to the trails.

  

The rangers are friendly and helpful, but mostly leave you alone.  

  

Facilities are basic but well maintained.  Hot showers are welcome after a long day on the trail!

Small but perfect!

How can you go wrong with a state park?  It's great!   Hammock camping for a Batchelor party!  Right in the the "dry river"  

👌🏻

Very nice and clean campground. Super helpful and friendly! 

Great campground 

This campground has a lot of amenities like showers and washer/dryers (all coin operated). It’s right off the road, which makes it a convenient jumping off point for various trails and Mount Washington.

The sites themselves are hit or miss. Some of the sites have a view of the road, which isn’t too pleasant. 

The bathroom and dumpster is not centrally located, so you have to go all the way to the entrance of the campground. 

Not sure if this is normally how it is but it seems the river is quite high/flooded onto one of the sites. Now that we live in the age of climate change flash flooding, I would be watching the weather closely before staying here again.

What’s tiresome about the reservation system is that on the one hand, if you’re driving from far away you know you’re getting the site you want. But on the other, the nicest sites were reserved the entire time we were there and they were total no-shows. NH isn’t different from other state parks in this respect, but it’s definitely annoying.