Best Campgrounds near Upper Jay, NY

Camped here for a few days, no cell, no internet

Stayed twice - first time at site 59 with a 28' travel trailer and second time at 56 with a tent. This is a great home base to explore from the Lake George region to Ticonderoga to day hikes or cycling. Both times the bathrooms and showers were immaculate. The staff does a fantastic job of maintenance. This is an old-growth forest area to a site on the west side of the road gives best Morning sun - sites 57 and 59 are good examples.

Access to campground is on a gravel road but my van did okay. It is small and primitive and there is a camp host who is very nice. Within walking distance from the campground are accesses to hiking / biking trails. Sites are spacious and shady.

My husband and I really enjoyed our stay here 5 years ago due to the hiking along the river that was available. Sometime between then and now, the KOA moved down the road a couple miles, so when we arrived, we were really disappointed--now we just paid for overpriced "camping". Despite that, the staff was very friendly and the showers were warm.

small number of sites and a bit hard to find

Snowbird is very wet and some sites are rooty. There is no lean-to. There are roughly seven campsites within ~20' of each other. Three sites could accommodate a 4 person tent and the other four would need a 1 or 2 person tent. You could potentially squeeze in another 2 person ternt sight somewhere. There is a privy. There is a small stream for filtering water ~50' down trail from the campsite that will likely be running all year. Snowbird is the only campsite that is above 4000' in the park. The location is awesome for tackling the great range, but how muddy the sites are is a major con. Just be aware that some if not all sites could have several inches of water at anytime of the year.

Absolute worst campground we have ever been to(and we do a TON of camping in state parks both in NY and out of state and private campgrounds as well). When we arrived our site was covered in trash and the picnic table was in the site next to ours with old propane tanks sitting on them. Beer bottle caps and cigarette ends were EVERYWHERE on our site, crushed cans and bottles scattered around, tons of garbage throughout the site(plastic spoons, cardboard pieces, plastic wrappers, a huge metal pipe, etc.) We spent the first half hour there cleaning up all the trash on our site and we didn't even get it all. All of the sites next to us had just as much trash in them as well and were never cleaned up the duration of our stay either. When walking around we noticed tons of other sites with garbage left in them too. I don't think any of the sites are checked after checkout and if they are they are definitely not cleaned up at all after check out. We stayed on the'other side of the road' and the bathrooms were absolutely disgusting and falling apart. They were never cleaned at all during our stay(although we seen workers sitting in the golf cart goofing around and talking several times instead of actually cleaning the bathrooms). The only thing the workers did was add toilet paper(and not even enough because there were several times we went and there was no toilet paper). We were there 5 nights and the trash can wasn't emptied once and none of the garbage or toilet paper on the floor was ever picked up. There was also poop smeared across the wall and door in the one stall and poop all over one of the other toilets that was like that our whole stay as well. Mirror was literally tapped together with black tape, there was only one faucet handle and locks on the stall were broken. We had to go across the street into the other side of the campground to shower and the showers were absolutely disgusting. Black mold covered the shower curtains, was all in the lights and on the lower and higher sections of walls and it smelled like mildew. It was gross and cannot possibly be safe. This is definitely a party campground and no quiet hours are enforced. People were up partying, drinking and blasting music literally all night. It's such a shame because the location of this campground is amazing and it has the potential to be a great campground but we will never go back. We have never been to any campground this dirty, unkempt and with workers who literally just don't care or do their jobs. Such a disappointment. Wish I had seen all the other bad reviews before going.

We were with RV. Mostly permanent places, showers and toilets are full with mould and not clean as is said on the website. Rates are not transparant. The pool was nice for the kids.

We stayed in the Venus yurt from Saturday August 3rd thru Thursday August 8th 2024. We were going to stay until the 10th, but we had an incoming hurricane and decided to leave before the exit flooded. 

Overall, their website pictures are NOT current and I believe the reviews on their website to either be inaccurate or very old. 

Day 1: the yurt smelled heavily of febreeze and was smaller than the pictures showed. The mattress, which had no cover on it, had been turned over(the bottom had nubs on it so it wouldn’t slide- this was face up). When we flipped it over, there were obvious fresh red fluid stains and other stains on the top of the mattress. For the price we paid, we would have expected either a waterproof cover enclosing the mattress or that the owners would have swapped out this mattress. The fact that the cleaning staff felt it was ok to turn it over expecting nobody to check was a bit revolting. We went to the office to get it removed, but the best they could do was provide 2 comforters to place between the mattress and our sheets. 

When we left to meet up with friends, we found the door lock was broken. We could only lock it from the inside. Our friends were in RVs and apparently the site was digging for new sewer lines, so when the wind shifted, we got a fresh scent of raw sewage. 

When we went to take showers at the facility nearest the yurts, we found there was no hot water, the showers had to be pumped to run(no continuous water flow in either the showers or the sinks), and only 1 of the 4 stalls had lockable doors. Both of these were reported to the office the following morning. 

Day 2: found that by the store were 6 showers with hot, continuously running water. 3 were out of service and only 1 locked. This was reported to the store/office multiple times. 

The lifeguard on duty at the smaller pool across from the store was sitting down in a regular chair with a table with an umbrella between her and the pool, face down in her phone with one hand, holding her sunglasses up with her other hand, while 3 small children(~8 years old) were sliding and playing unsupervised. As a former life guard/ wave pool certified lifeguard, I would have fired her on the spot. That is an unacceptably dangerous situation. 

The mini golf course was in disrepair, the arcade was empty of machines, and the activities touted on their website were nonexistent. 

The charcoal grill, which we would have used, had a large rusted hole in the bottom right side taking out~25% of the usable bottom, making it basically useless. Thank goodness for butane camp stoves.

 Day 3: shower lock situation had not improved(did not improve during our stay despite the office being made aware) Our neighbors left the yurt to our left and the person cleaning the yurt did a cursory cleaning at best. No sign of COVID cleaning discipline whatsoever. We spent the majority of the day offsite  

Day 4: lawn mowing started at 8:15 am. The grass absolutely did not need to be mowed. Very loud stand behind rider mower that kicked up dust more than anything as it had been very dry. Took them~3 hours. As a person on vacation, this clearly woke me up early. Very disappointing.

 Day 5: got a bit cold in the early morning, so we turned on the heat. It blew dust, filled the entire yurt with a burning smell and caused my partner to use her rescue inhaler. We turned it off quickly, opened the door and 2 windows to clear the air, and found the heater had not been cleaned. 

Day 6: decided to leave due to the pending hurricane. As I was checking out, a gentleman checking in was told he had been moved further into the campsite in case the river flooded and was told that, if the river did flood, they had a plan and to not be surprised to see RVs in the road. That was their plan?!?!? 

Overall, we will not be returning and will not be recommending this to anyone. If anything, we will encourage anyone looking to camp in the Adirondacks to avoid this campground.

All the sites were full when I visited (6 to 8 sites, approximately, but i didn't go down a couple little gravel paths to check each spot as you couldn't turn around easily) , so I didn't get to camp there. There was a NFS sign along FR-25 posted asking people to clean up after themselves (litter and human waste) as there'd been complaints to the extent that they were considering closing the sites if people didn't do better. There were some fire ring sites along Vermont 100 where FR-25 intersects it, but those are marked as No Camping (though one tent had been there at least a week). That area along 100 is supposed to be a day-use picnic area. 

The sites looked lovely though. Some people were really entrenched with string lights etc.