Babcock State Park Campground

Although the area around the bathhouse is the most scenic, with nice tall trees, the best area for larger RVs is the loop with sites 41-51. There is no foliage between sites, but there is good separation between sites and with only 11 sites on the loop it was quiet. Sites in this loop all have electric service and on average are much more level than the electric sites in the other part of the campground. Sites are gravel pads with grass, so can get a bit muddy when it rains. It's about a 5 minute walk to the bathhouse, but we were happy with our choice to stay here. The electric post was unreliable when we arrived, cutting out randomly, but park staff fixed the problem the same day we notified them. The showers are nicely modern and were kept clean during our visit.

We found the park wifi to have good coverage (full strength at our site and most locations we walked to) and it was plenty strong for streaming (20 mpbs down) during the morning and daytime. It got a bit clogged in the evenings when presumably everyone was trying to stream at the same time. We also had decent service on AT&T (also 20 mbps down).

It is a drive of a few miles to the main part of the park where the mill and most trailheads are located, but we enjoyed having amenities like trails within relatively short reach. The Skyline/Rocky/Narrow Gauge loop is great, but beware the extremely steep grade on the Rocky Trail. Roads in WV can be a challenge for RVs and the best access to this park from I77/I64 is via US 19 to US 60 to WV 41.

Babcock is the crown jewel of WV State Parks. Great hiking and scenery. The campground is in a completely separate area of the park, however, and to get to the other features of the park you need to drive or take a longish hike.

The campground is well-situated and tent sites and non-electric sites are spaced nicely. RV sites seem a little cramped. We pulled our van into a fairly level tent site and had plenty of elbow room and privacy.

A dishwashing station was a nice perk, but the bathhouse is showing its age and could use some updating. Clean though.

This campsite is a little strange due to its location. It’s on the opposite side of the state park.

Most of the sites don’t have power but a few do. Site 42 was mostly shaded and probably the most private even though it does have a buddy site with 41, the actual 42 site faces the woods.

The dump station was well maintained and the trash area was very clean. There is also a fresh water spigot in the tent area listed for rv fills.

The bath house was very clean, but it’s almost a 10 minute walk from the rv sites.

Again, just strange locations. Overall it was a nice spot to be close to the grist mill and to the new river gorge NP.

We were able to a couple bars of service with our weboost.

Unlike the last reviewer, we had terrific AT&T access for data and consistent but not strong cell service for the phone. I even got a 5G signal in several places within the park! Neither Verizon nor T-Mobile worked at all. Only downside was the site location in the middle of a field. I knew that when I made the reservation but it was all I could get. Lots of great trails to hike and bike in this park with a huge variety of mushrooms and lichens to discover. Our purpose in coming here was access to the New River Gorge National Park and we explored it for two days but today we checked out the trails in Babcock and will do so again tomorrow. Very rewarding. The featured grist mill is photogenic and charming.

We did get one ABC affiliate broadcast TV station from Beckley and the wi-fi was very good at our campsite, so we were able to watch all our channels on YouTube TV and Netflix. We aren't into campfires. The sites in this section are pretty well spaced out which was appreciated. There is NO WATER at the campsites so you need to fill your tank before setting up. The electric post looks a little dodgy but works fine. We did not use the restroom facility as we prefer our own camper facility. No noise to report except from the maintenance folks.

I was really excited to stay here because the pictures are beautiful...but the campground is several miles down the road from the main entrance to the state park. Most of the sites are level and the electric boxes are in bad shape. The website specifically says they have wifi throughout the campground (which I never trust), but it also states they have cell phone service. I even called to confirm there was cell coverage as I work out of the trailer. Perhaps if you stand on the hill, on top of the picnic table you will get a signal...but we have AT&T, Verizon and TMobile devices and NONE of them worked. You could get a call/text out, but not connect devices to hotspots. I was also not able to get any signal from the campground wifi. And there was a road that split the campground with very fast cars that were loud from out site. Our 4 day trip turned into 1 night because I had meetings I needed to be on. Beautiful area...but not impressed with campground portion.

Babcock State Park is clean, but many sites are small, and the wash/shower rooms are dated but relatively clean. The RV hookup sites are larger, but we relied on our solar so stayed in the non-electric area, which is basically designed for tents, but smaller rigs can fit in some of the sites. We just got our 23 foot camper into sight 19. We stayed 2 nights during the middle of the week and it was quiet. I got the feeling that weekends are much busier.

What a great place to camp. Stayed in the middle of the week and could stream the news. The facilities are older but clean and the personnel were very kind and helpful. Loved the trails and enjoyed the views. Liked our site in the corner under the trees. The road to get to the park is a bit curvy so maybe not huge rigs but we were a pickup camper so not hard.