Basin Campground

This is a beautiful campground. Most sites have a little tucked away spot that is semi-private, if you can park so that your camper lines up with the road and covers the entrance to your campsite. Site 15 was perfect for our tent trailer. Right against the edge of the campground, with some scrubby trees and a little dry water run before the canyon walls.

It was raining off and on during our visit and we didn’t want to explore the area too much and get stranded by impassable roads so we hiked a few of the trails right in the park and they were absolutely incredible. The Panorama Trail with the Cool Cave loop was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Angels Palace Trail was up high with paths onto little ridges that terrified me but delighted my family (I just stayed back a way).

Showers were amazing. Roomy with a spot to put dry clothes. The shower head was high up, a big square with lots of hot water, really nice for tall people.

Potable and non-potable water to fill tanks. Dishwashing station near the restrooms. Dry and easy to chop firewood for $10 a bundle.

Laundromat was nice and clean. Visitors centre had a few essentials -ice, water, wifi. Had a little gift shop too.

Loved our stay here.

Great campground, we stayed in site 13 which is more isolated at the end of the loop - site 12 would be also. Pretty level, great setup with picnic tables on a concrete slab and nice fire pit. This was not a site with hookups, although there are some. The whole campground is by reservation and seems pretty full. The bathrooms are amazing! Pretty modern, flush toilets, good sinks, and walk in showers with either a rain head or handheld wand. Lots of hot water (but be a good citizen and use frugally - we are in a desert!) The views of towers, spires and cliffs are spectacular, especially early or late. Highly recommend the panorama loop - pretty easy, 3 miles with some side routes (especially Cool Cave - fantastic) that can bring it to 6 miles. Start early and you’ll have it to yourself, mostly. Also recommended is Angels Palace, a bit of a climb but more great views over the valley and towers all the way to Bryce. The staff at the visitor center are very nice, and have 8 flavors of ice cream to scoop for you along with other snax, bevs, and swag. A very nice experience. But, no T-mobile except at Panorama Point…and that was 2 bars LTE.

Beautiful Remote SP with Fantastic Night Skies... Sites are spaced well with foliage between providing additional privacy. It is little remote to Bryce but acceptable. Campground is a destination itself. Slick rock, hoodoos and spires abound. The route to the park from the east on Route 12, is an adventure itself (especially the portion known as The Hogback).

Easily the nicest campground I’ve seen in 6 months of full time travel along the west coast and northern border. The other two areas in the park had unpaved roads and pit toilets. Basin campground had spacious, private sites with showers from a 5 star hotel and views of the Milky Way you would not believe. Surreal but difficult disc golf course on site. Great laundry facilities. Zero cell service

$35/ night plus $8 fee. We chose this to be our base for the Bryce Canyon area. It will take 35 minutes to get to Bryce from Kodachrome but the scenery around the campground is worth it. One of our 3 GPSs could not find the park. That makes sense given there is no address. Turn south off of Hwy 12 in Cannonville and go for about 9 miles on the paved section of Cottonwood Canyon Road. Turn left into Kodachrome when the pavement ends. We are a big rig and we felt big on the road - especially when the dividing lines end and you keep crossing cattle grates. But there were no tight turns or other obstacles that were a problem. We were in one of their FHU sites. All of the FHU sites would have fit us- we only chose this one after several days of trying to book something. Site 22 does have a good view of site 24 and 3 cedar trees around the picnic table. It is a little low in the rear. We enjoyed the shorter hikes we did in the park. The coin laundry has 4 each washer and dryers and was not crowded during the week. We found the Clark’s General Store in Tropic to have a better selection and better prices than Ruby’s in Bryce Canyon City for any grocery items you may need to restock. Our pep wave cell router allowed enough service to get texts out and that was about it. The visitor center does have Wi-Fi and comfy chairs outside. The sites overall are spaced out well and the campground is quiet. The stargazing is amazing.

So we picked this state park as a base camp to visit Bryce and Red Canyon - but in retrospect would have stayed in a more centrally located campground. The state park is very remote and perfect for a stay-in-place and chill kind of experience. Many local Utah families were enjoying it. As travelers who want to tour the surrounding areas as well it didn't work out well for us - too much driving. We also want to reiterate there is zero cell reception at this campground - so to check on our other plans/routes we had to drive down to the office to use their wifi. We enjoyed hiking a couple of trails and the beautiful scenery. Our campsite was a paved pull thru with full hookups, but primarily the sites are small and the majority of campers we saw were vans and small class C's. Driving through the campground there are several tight turns for long rigs - we have a full bed truck and a 35' fifth wheel and could maneuver, but wouldn't try to fit a 40 footer through here. The rangers at the office were very friendly and we used the laundry facility, which is a cute western themed building. Didn't use the showers but as everyone has exclaimed, they really are outstanding! Driving on Rt 12 near the Red Canyon campground, you will drive through two natural arches, both were high enough for our 13' 4" RV.
To see Escalante or Capital Reef continue East on Rt 12 from Cannonville. It is approximately 120 miles to Rt 24 and Capital Reef Visitor's Center. The road is very twisty with many steep ascents/descents, switchbacks, and cliffs with no guardrails. We saw large RVs being towed on it and big motorhomes, but wouldn't do it ourselves. The different rock formations are really incredible along the road. Drove out and back in one day, had a picnic lunch at the Gifford House with some of their pie for dessert.

Loved our site (10) as it had a well-screened picnic table area with outstanding views. Sites 12 and 13 also looked great. Mostly level "pull off" area worked well for camper van.

No Verizon or T-Mobile service-- not even a nibble.

Showers literally the best we've seen at any campground! Unbelievable for camping!

Dishwashing sink not clean.

Plenty of water spigots.

Dump station at entrance.

Walkable to several trails.

If you are looking for quiet (limited generator hours, so bring your solar if you don't have an electric site) darks skies (no one left lights on while we stayed in Basin) and a scenic vista at every site, then this may be the place for you. The campground road is narrow and twisty. The inner sites tend to be smaller and more secluded, so pick your sites carefully. You may fit, but will you be able to maneuver into your site is another question. The full hook up sites, about a dozen are in two rows with good spacing. They are easy to maneuver into. This campground is oriented north and south, meaning your door will either face north or south for the most part. Everything else positive people stated is still true.

We have Verizon service and there is NO reception here. The office has 24/7 free wifi as well as the building in Cannonville that houses the PO, clinic, library and townhall.

If you need groceries get them ahead. There is a small but well stocked grocery store and hardware store in Tropic, as well as restaurants and accomodations. Cannonville and Henriville do not appear to have much in businesses.

Get out on the hiking trails which are relatively flat for a different perspective of the area.

There are three campgrounds, so review the other two to see if they appeal to you. They are:
Arch View that has water and electric. The road and sites are gravel. Good spacing between sites. Great views for sunrise and sunsets. Basin bathroom. You use the showers at Basin.
Bryce Canyon View - Up a little higher, gravel road and sites, no hook ups, vault toilets Again great views for sunrise and sunsets. Good spacing between sites.

Arrived at 12:15 and the ranger would have let us have our site early even though check in time isn’t til 3 pm. (Checkout is 1200).
Site was great—glad ours pulled in up hill because we were able to leave the trailer on the truck with slightly high in the front. (The downhill sites had people raising the fronts of their campers very high!)
Reviews said Verizon cellular, but we were barely able to get one bar, even with our Weboost. Unusable signal.
Very nice picnic bench and fire ring/grill.
Generator hours are 12-4 which isn’t helpful if you’re only there for one night and you check in at 3 pm.
Would definitely camp here again if I came back to the park. One night was sufficient. We hiked Panorama Trail first day and I rode Grand Parade the morning we left.

This is the absolute best campground in our opinion. We were lucky enough to get 4 nights here last minute in September. Our site had beautiful views of the mountains and formations and the light was wonderful. A bit toasty but the full hookups allowed us to run the AC as needed. There are multiple hiking trails within walking distance of this campground and you can bike the entire park in maybe 2 hours. There is zero service but there is WiFi at the ranger station near the entrance as well as a small store. We even bought a blacklight flashlight and went scorpion hunting one night and found a bunch of them. We can't wait to come back here...if we can get a reservation!