The Bow River area has some beautiful scenery with rivers, trees, meadows, wild flowers, and wildlife. The forest service road into the campground is in great shape, and although it's a little rocky, there are no pot holes or rutted terrain. We made reservations for 3 nights, but only stayed 2, primarily because of a serious mosquito infestation. But that's nature and if you want to be in it, you have to be prepared for nature's unexpected turns. Just beware and prepared if you're visiting in June.
The forest along the dirt roads are obviously big logging areas with clearcut swaths (no selective cutting) and grounds littered with slash. These areas are unsightly and make you wonder what kind of forest service management is being observed. It appears to be about satisfying a lumber industry instead of preserving the health and beauty of our national forests.
What we weren't prepared for was the obvious neglect of the campground itself with seemingly little to no supervision or maintenance. We reserved and paid in advance for two campground sites at Bow River for ourselves and another couple. We arrived to find no posting of any reserved signs at either site. Luckily, there were few people there when we arrived so our sites were open and available to us. We're still wondering what we could have done if our sites had already been occupied by other campers.
We also quickly discovered that no water could be collected from the handpump. Thankfully, we brought some water with us, but our friends had none so we had to be very frugal about our use of the little water we shared. We also gave one kettle of water to 4 young men who arrived with no water at all. They were forced to leave the next morning because of it. I still have not been able to find anything on rec.gov warning people that the campground has no drinking water available. This is irresponsible and, at the very least, creates an inconvenience/hardship for those who are paying to stay there. There is an assumption that the information being provided and the services being sold are accurate. People arriving at this campground have traveled at least 19 miles on a dirt road with no facilities to get there. Are they just supposed to leave again and travel that same distance out if they have no water with them?
Finally, the bathrooms were quite run down and dirty. The pits themselves seemed as though they had been cleaned out, but the doors were rotting and the floors were littered with paper and covered with dirt.
We never saw any campground host, supervisor, manager, or employee of any kind. We did meet one man who circled the campground once, told us he was the campground host, and said he was looking at the sites for the first time. He was camped somewhere else and was told that his job was to drive to Bow River to colect any registration envelopes that might be in the iron collection box that was old and partially hidden behind some bushes, making it hard to locate. There also was no sign on the box.
The website claims "Open for 2024 Season!," "Tent camping, Camping trailer, Picnic tables, Toilets, Drinking water, Parking."
The bottom line is that this campground is sadly neglected. Too bad the forest service isn't paying attention.
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