Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park

We have been to the park in the past for day visits, but this was the first time that we camped. On previous a visit we enjoyed touring the town and visiting the fossil house. The parking employees are very knowledgeable and helpful.

On this trip we arrived after dark. There were only two campsites that we’re unoccupied. It looked like a lot of people were using the campground is a base camp for hunting. Although the campground was quite crowded it was fairly quiet. It was October, so the weather was cold but there was still water throughout the campground. We didn’t spend much time in the park, but did take advantage of the dump station on our way out to explore the nearby valley. Some of the sites are quite small, while others or a little bigger. Most of the sites aren’t particularly level. I wouldn’t recommend a fifth wheel or large trailer. Great place to go if you have a truck camper or small trailer.

Not sure if we hit it just right, but we almost had this campground to ourselves. Super quiet evenings with abundant star gazing free of any light pollution. Our Jayco 212QBW was a bit too big for most of the spots here. We did find 3-4 that worked. Great staff that worked the tours at the fossil house as well as everything else at the park. Would definitely recommend for those wanting to get away.

Berlin-Ichthyosaur state park has two very cool attractions, the ghost town Berlin itself and North America's most abundant concentration and largest known Ichthyosaur fossils. The state park is open all year, day and night. So if you love taking photos of ghost towns, you have a lot of opportunity right here.

We came here in the middle of November, after emailing with both the main office of Nevada state parks and the park ranger for this specific state park. Because we have a 29 feet fifth wheel, we wanted to know if there would be a space that would fit, as the website states it fits RVs up to 25 feet. We were assured there are a couple spaces where our fifth wheel would fit. We were also warned to bring water, as this time of year the tabs are winterized.

With that in mind, we confidently kept driving the dirt road to the park and continued through the windy dirt road to the campground. It was a little bit challenging, but as the campground was almost empty, we could use site 13 to maneuver our trailer into site 1. The sites are different in size, and some pretty long.

We met the park ranger later in the evening, and after hearing our concerns about the incoming storm, he promised to print and deliver the weather forecast, which we got early next morning.

The toilets are pit toilets, there is a dump station and in summer there are arranged tours. Since there are no hookups, we had to conserve our energy use, as the winter hours did not fully charge our batteries, but the trees are relatively low, so we had our solar panels completely exposed.

Coyotes howling in the distance at night completed the perfect experience in this very cool park.

No Sprint coverage, but Verizon got 1 bar at 4G, which got us the internet access we needed.