Babcock State Park Campground

This Park has two areas with elect and one without. The area 41-51 had crowded sites which were mostly level. The other areas sites were not level and some would not accommodate a camper but they were well spaced and covered by trees. Not much vegetation between sites. All the park activities are a couple miles away including the trails and the ancient grist mill.
WIFI provided by the Park was excellent but did slow down in the early evening.

There is both an easy and hard way to get to this lovely campground.

The hard way is described by an unhappy reviewer below.

Here is the easy way: take 19 to Midland Trail/60 east. Just after the Sunoco station on your right on 60 east there is a Y in the road.

Our gps said go right. Don’t do it!

That take you onto the one-lane, two-way road described critically below.

Instead, just heed the brown sign at the Y saying Babcock state park and go LEFT at that Y.

At the junction with 41 stay to the right and continue on 60e/41s towards Rainelle.

Take right turn onto 41 south when 60 goes straight. It is well marked and says “Babcock State Park campground.”

Turn right on CLIFFTOP roof road. Look for campground sign.

Campground check-in is on left.

There is good signage for this campground all the way from when you turn from 19 onto Midland Trail/60 east.

Just keep following those brown signs, which corresponds with my directions. .

As to the campground itself, I’m giving this cg five stars because I am judging it against other campgrounds with no water at the site. I don’t think it’s fair to compare this to a campground with water at the site, any more than it’s fair to give five stars to a campground with water and electric versus a campground with water, electric and sewer. Do note when reserving that some of the sites here do not even have electric. Be careful on site selection.

With that explanation, I would give this cg five stars (4.5 if I could). We had site 39, which required three leveling pads, but which was lovely, well-spaced from others and partially shaded. It’s a short walk to the bathhouse, which is older, but kept clean. The laundry facility is excellent and the machines are only $1.50.

I recommend pies and pints, an excellent pizza and craft beer restaurant in nearby Fayetteville, as well as Cathedral Falls. Please visit America’s newest national park, New River Gorge National Ppark.

Staff was friendly. Firewood for sale at the camp office. WiFi, but spotty. I would definitely come here again.

We had a short stay 5/13-5/14 a couple notes.
Very clean bathhouse, however there is only one and if you stay in the small loop across from the office it’s a bit of a walk.
There are 2 ways in on 11, would avoid the route heading to the northeast, single lane, blind curves and a nail biter. The route out to Stanford Rd (Rt 41) is a little longer but so much better and 2 real lanes.
There is a short cut to the park from the campground, Park Forest 802, it shows up on Google maps if you zoom in. Leaves the campground to the left of the only bath house, paved, narrow but with nice berms. Would not take a camper down it, but fine with a car and is a nice short drive to the lookout, grist mill etc.
Internet and cell was not great, made calls from the bath house.
Staff was great, great location and hiking opportunities
If a rainy day make the trip to Becky and do the Exhibition Coal Mine. 45 min on way, a fantastic tour!
Also check out Camp Washington, 5 min drive
We stay in site 43 which was very tight to 44, and had some dead limbs above it. Very quiet.

The road to the campground is only one lane with a very small space to pull off allowing an oncoming car to go by. This goes on for about 5 miles and from experience the oncoming vehicles think they have the right of way.

The campground is very beautiful and very spacious so you have plenty of space. Also our 30 amp electrical box wasn’t working.

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.