Cathedral Gorge State Park Campground

We had planned to only stay one night passing through. We decided to stay an extra day, because it was so nice and beautiful. I think it’s great for families and adventurers of all ages. There are several easy trails that meander through the desert vegetation and up on the ridge lines, where you can also spend time walking around large rock castle islands and explore many slot canyons. With no big cities nearby, the night skies are amazing. All very interesting for kids. Near the group site, there is a park with a large area of manicured green grass (bring your frisbee), a tether ball, and a horseshoe pit. The rest rooms and showers are sparkling clean. The picnic tables are veranda shaded. There are sites of varying sizes: some for tents and a few pull throughs for bigger rigs. All sites have electric, but cold water can be pumped at several spigots around the park. Highly recommend this park.

Not sure why we haven’t been here before, but great experience without the constant barrage of campers coming in wondering when you are leaving….like at Valley of Fire. Scenery of the cathedral rock formations are beautiful..walk right up to them. Sites are spacious and relatively level. Heard #10 is most level. Good Verizon service and Viasat internet available for a fee. Showers and restrooms clean. Our site had been raked prior to first come arrival. Quiet folks around but very friendly. We have the NV senior pass, so only pay $10/nite for 30amp hook up. Dump station at entrance. Water available but you will need a female 3/4 inch pipe thread to male 3/4 hose thread to connect. Water located at various areas in park. There is overflow parking too.

We arrived at the Cathedral Gorge campground at about 11am. There were no sites available so we stayed in the overflow area for two nights. We have a State Park pass so there was no charge. This is a really I interesting spat to check out but it doesn’t take a lot of time. The second day we drove over to Beaver Dam State Park to check it out.

Very nice first-come first-served State park in a very pretty area. All single use sites have 120VAC so are $30/night for non-Nevada vehicles. Camp site fee includes normal daily vehicle entry fee.

I planned to stay two night, then extended to four. So much to see and enjoy. Mid-January daytime temps around 52F, gets below freezing at night.

Most nights only two RV in campground due to time of year & weekdays stay.
Can see how this could be very busy in the spring and fall months.

Wi-fi is ViaSat and it is really bad. Slowww up/download speed and I'm nearly the only rig using it. 30-minute free each day has been 30-minute free for total stay. Purchased data connection is over priced for quality. == hence 4 stars not five - - - however NV State Parks are at least trying to provide service - - - they just contracted a really bad company. ==

Consumer Cellular No Service in this region of NV.

We purchased the Nevada State Parks "All Access Permit" for $250/year, at the visitor center at the entrance to the park (only open certain days/hours, check in advance). This permit includes park entry and camping, and we were planning to stay the full 2 weeks, so it was worth it just for that. The campsite circle is quite small with only a handful of sites, but if everything is full when you arrive there is overflow parking on the circle just past the campground. We stayed in the overflow area 1 night while we waited for a site large enough to accommodate our 40' bus to open up.
There are 3 or 4 designated "Big Rig" campsites with signs on the welcome board that say to reserve those sites for setups longer than 31'. Frustratingly we saw only small vans/ tents taking up the big rig spots the entire 2 weeks we were there. We stayed in Site #3 which ended up working out great for us, but we had to really work to squeeze our bus into the spot (sideways). The staff on-site at this park are remarkable, the nicest state park staff we've ever encountered. They even cleaned our firepit! There are showers & restrooms on-site an easy walk from the campsites. There are water and electric hookups available, but not required to be paid for. We didn't use them as there were plenty of water fill stations and we have solar.
Cell signal was NON-EXISTENT on T-mobile, but Verizon was great (why we have multiple carriers). There was also satellite internet available for purchase which was a nice offer.
All in all this was an EXCELLENT introduction to the Nevada State Park system, we LOVED IT!!

If you'd like to see our campsite and the hikes we did inside the park, you can see our youtube video here:
https://youtu.be/IerBm6jKmjs

This is a pretty good stop for the area- lots of BLM land around so I am sure one could find a nice dispersed campsite but they have showers, which was much needed. The sites are OK, not much in between them, but once it is dark it doesn’t really matter.

Just want to note as it isn’t totally clear on the website- for out-of-state it is $10 for a day pass, and $20 for camping. However, the $20 camp fee INCLUDES the day pass fee in it, which is nice.

This was our second time at Cathedral Gorge State Park. We visited previously in February, 2021. Quite a difference in temperatures. February was comfortable and this stay was during August, 2021 and it was hot. Go figure! The $10 per night fee was for electrical power. We used our Nevada Annual Senior Permit, which allows for free camping and entrance to state parks. Potable water available around the park and there is a dump station available at the entrance. There is a single building with men and women restrooms and showers. Positives:
+ Large sites (both pull in and back in sites).
+ Quiet campground with very dark skies
+ Clean restrooms and showers
+ Electrical connection at each site
+ Verizon service (after many days at different campgrounds without service)
+ The many slot canyons which can be explored
+ Juniper Trail was very nice and not difficult
+ Also, there is a free book exchange cabinet near the restrooms.
Negatives:
- No water or sewer at each site, but this we knew before coming to the campground.

Cathedral Gorge is a surprisingly lovely little state park in southeast Nevada, about two hours north of Las Vegas. It's a bit out of the way, in that it's not near any major highways or cities. Unless you're traveling through eastern Nevada to points north or south, you'll have to make an effort to get to this park.

Remoteness aside, it was a great place to stay for a week in late fall. The park itself sits on an ancient lakebed, and the passing of time has carved gorgeous caves and tiny slot canyons into millions of years of compact mud and ash. Think Badlands or Escalante, but at a smaller scale.

Cathedral Gorge's campground has 22 first-come-first-served campsites; no reservations. There are a couple of sites that can fit big rigs, a handful more that can fit mid-sized (20-25 foot) trailers, and a couple more that can only fit vans, truck campers, or tent campers. Each spot has a ramada with a picnic table, a fire pit, a charcoal grill, a tent pad, and a lantern pole. The sites are compacted gravel and relatively level.

When I stayed in 2021, the cost was $25 for Nevada residents and $30 for out-of-staters. That price included the $10 electric hookup fee, which is required. There's a fee box on-site to pay via cash or check; you can also pay via credit card at the visitor center down the road when it's open. Rangers come through consistently and often to check on registrations.

There are water spigots around the campground but not in each site. There's a dump station on the entrance road (free for campers) that has potable water, too.

I read plenty of reviews that said "this park is great for one day," and while I agree that it's a small park, there's plenty to do for a week if you're working during the days and exploring in the evenings. There are three cave/slot areas, five trails (my favorites were the Juniper Draw Loop and the out-and-back to Hawk Ridge), and a nice little nature loop from the campground that is perfect for dog walking. In nearby Caliente, there is a new mountain bike trail system with 40+ miles of trails.

There was a fair amount of turnover every night, so I wouldn't stress too much about first-come-first-served on the campsites. If you arrive and everything is full, there are two overflow camping areas ($15/night), one right by the campground, and another over by the slot canyons. Both are clearly marked.

Verizon service was sporadic, but AT&T was strong enough for me to work without issue (15 mpbs down and 5 mbps up), though it slowed at night. My camp neighbor shared that TMobile was non-existent. When I told the park ranger that I was working while camping, he said he hoped that I hadn't bought the on-site satellite WiFi because people complain about it (I didn't).

Overall, a nice, clean campground, in a pretty place, with good AT&T. I'd definitely stay again, if I found myself in the area.

A surprising gem discovery! We are always looking for RV camping like this one—not side-by-side, plenty of space and privacy. The price is about half of you’re residents of Nevada. These were great sites—many had good tree shade, with ramadas and picnic tables as well. We really loved exploring the geology slots (and loved telling our friends we were “in Nevada playing a different kind of slots”). Go see for yourself. It’s a fun and wonderful place to explore.