Best Glamping near Upper Tract, WV

Nice facilities (shower, bathrooms, garbage, etc.), but the campsites themselves leave a bit to be desired.

Pros: deer wander the grounds, making for some beautiful morning animal encounters. Seems to be family-friendly. Very fair quiet hours. Easy access to a number of great hiking trails! We had a blast hiking the Rose River trail and part of the AT for one whole day.

Cons: Uneven ground all over the reserved site made it so our tent had to be pitched at an angle. The fire pit was strange due to the grilles covering half of it (would prefer to have just had a simple pit instead). Also the firewood we were sold was abysmal; it sputtered and smoked instead of burning cleanly. This made cooking extremely frustrating, so I will be bringing my own (certified and labeled) firewood next time.

This campground is the highest in West Virginia, it has a total of 65 campsites 30 of which are electric and 35 are non-electric. Each site has a picnic table and fire pit, most of the campsites are open and have little privacy from neighbors. No tent pads, but no more than two tents permitted (but may be charged for the second tent). It has a bath house with hot showers, flush toilets, and coin laundry. There is a dumping station. Reservations can be made by phone or at campground registration but is otherwise first come-first serve. Pets are permitted. The sites are $25 a night.

The park has tons of hiking trails to choose from and two viewable waterfalls. There is a lake that is open to swimming, volleyball, basketball, and tennis courts are in the vicinity as well. Fishing is a large draw as well to this area, both catch and release and catch and keep permitted on the Blackwater River.

Campground Review: Canaan Valley State Park and Resort, Davis, West Virginia

The Canaan Valley State Park and Resort is situated in a very popular outdoor activity area...for every season. Winter brings copious snowfall and the skiing here draws thousands...downhill and XC. The summer sees backpackers, hikers, mountain bikers, gravel grinders, car-campers and RVers. Not only do you have hiking trails here on the State Park location...you can drive up to the nearby Dolly Sods Wilderness Area for camping, day-hikes or multi-day backcountry trips; Blackwater Falls (10 miles north) offers memorable falls, great hikes with long gorge views (Lindy Point a favorite). Even Seneca Rocks and Spruce Knob are only 30 minutes or so away. Possibilities are endless in this neck of the woods. This very weekend was to be the Mountainbike Festival, but due to Covid-19, well you know the rest of that story. The Abe Run Trail was a pleasant trail leaving from the campground.

The campground portion is not expansive but 34 sites are situated in three small loops (see photo of campground map). Primitive tent sites don't have water or electric and parking is roadside but you are within 100 yards of the "Comfort Station." The three "tent only" sites have only been around for a couple years...but sites 1 and 2 are in a nice grassy area away from the RV loop 2. Always verify current rates, but June 18, 2020...mid $30's nightly for nonresidents (WV residents get 30% off). Primitive tent sites were $17 a night.

The Resort Lodge, Golf course, swimming pool and a covered ice skating rink (obviously the last three mentioned being seasonal) were further up the windy park roadway. (See rates on park website).

The campground "Comfort Station," is a restroom/shower/laundry and soda machine building. The gender specific restroom/shower rooms each have two wooden stalled modern facility stools, two shower stalls (men's are separated by a shower curtain, women's by a wall); a separate unisex ADA restroom/shower sits adjacent to the men's and appears newer.

The grounds are well-maintained and manicured as are all WV State Parks. Trails are scattered throughout the park. some are foot traffic only, others permit bicycles. The Back Hollow Trail was predominantly a mown grass trail but occasional wooded sections were rocky two-track. This is Wet Virginia, so expect to experience rain and bring foul weather gear in the summer months. I have mastered the fine art of campsite tarping due to West Virginia camping. It also still gets chilly in these mountains during the early summer months.

Deer meander through the primitive tent sites with their fawns each morning and evening. A kid's playground is situated beside (separated by a field) primitive tent sites 1 & 2.

We spent three days in June and experienced afternoon rain showers daily, but arranged our hikes and bikes around them.

This was a great campground location to many, many National Park Trails. Our stay was during the last week of September. We met up with family who live in the area and got 3 sites hugging the AT. We pitched two large tents on our E178 site and a hammock in the trees just beyond our fire pit. My brother had a large tent on site E177 and it was just as nice. Our third site E176 was across the road from us flanked by travel trailer campers. That site had less privacy, but gave us a shorcut path to the running water bathroom. There was a sign in the bathroom that said it was ok to pour filter dishwater down the toilets, so we did that quite a bit to keep our campsites clean and safe from bears. My favorite sites were E177 and E178. They were a good size and distance from the other sites. We were close to the water pump and running water bathrooms. The pay showers were a bit of a walk from us, but they were clean. We liked having a nearby store, visitor's center, and gas station at this campground. In the evenings we went to the big meadow to watch the wildlife a few nights.Site E178 had great sunrise vistas through the trees. We positioned our chairs to face the valley and pretended there wasn't a packed campground full of families. It was actually pretty peaceful until the weekend which got rowdy at full capacity.The parking pad is level, on E178 but the grassy area was slightly sloped for our tents. I thought it was not too bad of a tradeoff for the view, but if you've ever slid down on your pad or cot a bit, you might not like it. My brother was at the adjoining site E177 and while his parking pad had a slight slope, he had a fairly level spot for his big tent.

There were bear lockers at each site (about 50 in x 34 in) and we never had any bears visit while we were there. The bear lockers were great for us since we were tent camping and our vehicle was a pickup truck, so we did not have to juggle messing with coolers/food in the truck cab. Deer came through the campground every morning right up to our tents, which was delightful, except it made me paranoid checking for ticks every night. I really enjoyed being right off the Appalachian Trail and enjoyed seeing a few through-hikers each day while we made campfire feasts.

We brought USDA wood and another camper gave us a few cords of USDA wood he brought from GA when he left. We did purchase one bundle from the campground and it was pretty green, so it burned smokey. The cost was about the same as it is at Lowes or anywhere else like that. We enjoyed multiple hikes and had a group with different hiking abilities, but there were many great Shendoah sites to see that we all could enjoy, including the group's dogs. Shenandoah is one of the few National Parks that allows dogs on most of the trails (leashed of course.) We had two dogs in our group and enjoyed seeing the other dogs in the campground. There was only one instance when we noticed someone bagged their dog poop on a trail, but left the poop in the bag. People!

Because of Covid-19, the ranger programs at this campground were cancelled. I would return again, but maybe choose dispersed camping for a better view and less people.

We camped here the last night of the season (Nov30) and shared the campground with a mix of tent campers, car/van campers, and a few larger units. The bathrooms were plentiful, heated, hot running water, and a utility sink available. Our site had some privacy and some extra due to about 50% occupancy. Showers and laundry were closed for the season but are centrally located near entrance area of campground. Elevation above 3000 feet and plenty of deer! It was an especially cold night hitting a low of 14F. Very happy for the nearby heated restrooms with hot running water.

Swallow Falls has a great loop trail where you see four waterfalls. You can walk to the loop from the campground. It ma be adds a third of a mile to the hike. 

We stayed in cabin 58, which has a short, easy path to the bathhouse and even shorter to the mud sink. This was very handy when traveling with two young kids. Prior to going, I wished I could have seen the inside of the cabins, particularly to know how big the mini fridge was. I couldn't find any pictures, so here they are.

It is a one-room cabin, was impressively clean, and the beds were very cozy. There are blackout curtains on the windows, so we slept late and it was glorious. There is one small window in the door that does not have a curtain. I taped aluminum foil up over it.

Each bed had a mattress pad on it when we arrived, as pictured. One minor note is that the bunk bed mattresses seem to be a bit too big for the bunk beds. This caused them to not lay perfectly flat and also made me feel uncomfortable having my roly-poly kids sleep on the top bunk, where there were only a couple inches between the mattress and the top of the railing.

I have Verizon and could make calls, but could not reliably send or receive text messages and there was no data access.

Great park. Great cabin. Great stay.

We booked the Thorny Mountain Fire Tower two months in advance, it is pretty popular, so if you want to stay there you will have to book it in advance. It is $75 a night, which is pricey, but is well worth it.

To get to the fire tower you will want to take the Loop Road, it is gravel and there are pot holes on the edges of the road so you will want to be careful of those. The fire tower is secluded, so you will not have to worry about neighbors or noise while staying there. At the base of the tower there is a fire pit, picnic table, and a pit toilet. The toilet is part of a small shed that has already split wood on the other side for you to use. But no electrical hookups at the base or in the tower. They do have a shower house behind the rangers station, it is very nice and clean. The website says the tower can house up to four people, however, there are only two cots, so you will want to bring sleeping mats if you plan on having more than two people. The 360 degree views are breathtaking. One night we had two different storm systems blow through the mountains and the lightning show was amazing to watch. You will definitely want to watch a sunrise as well, absolutely stunning.

Seneca State Forest is one of the oldest forest in West Virginia, it has a small pond/lake you can fish at and even take small boats onto. They have plenty of hiking trails, which also allow mountain biking on most. They have cabins on the lake for rent as well and have plenty of tent camping spots.