Dent Acres Campground

Great COE except its way up a winding, narrow hill! Make sure you have what you need before you go up, because it takes almost an hour (38miles)! We enjoyed our stay here. There's little blue and white flowers all in the grass! It was advertised as a handicap spot, but it definitely was not an accessible spot. As we were going up the hill, we noticed that someone before us lost their steps! Several of the locals stopped to ask us if we were the ones who lost their steps!

Lots of local wildfires and smoke in mid July this year. The road into camp is a paved although sometimes narrow and steep County road. But nothing could dampen our joy with this campground. Tom and Penny were so kind and helpful.

All fifty sites are pull through. All pads are paved and reasonably level. Full hookups. Yeah full hookups. Large sites. Nice water. Fairly easy in and out access. Trash dumpster at the boat ramp. Yeah an adjacent boat ramp.

Dwoshak Reservoir is amazing. About fifty miles long. And the fish of choice are Kokanee. We saw whitetail deer and one cow elk on the road in. Beautiful country. About an hour from Orofino. Check out the dam tour and hatchery.

Verizon had text and phone coverage. Our friends with T-mobile had neither. No internet anywhere in the canyon. Drive up on top to get internet.

We’ll be back.

The good
The Volunteers!!! They are great people. They do a wonderful job keeping the place very clean and tidy!
Full hookups (W/S/E) and 50 amp power
Not very busy
Covered picnic tables
Bathrooms -women's has 2 not so private showers (just a curtain and the dressing area is one big rom for both showers) and 5 flush toilets. Very clean.
Boat launch
Pull through sites
Very peaceful and quiet.

The bad
My AT&T and Consumer Cellular had no service. Our neighbor with Verizon had 1 bar and could send/receive texts.

Yellowjackets everywhere! Park staff/volunteers put out numerous traps and they were full!

Make sure you enter from hwy 12. I called the park and was told If coming down from Highway 3 you'll get 40 miles of washboard gravel road!

The 18 miles to the park (after exiting hwy 12) is extremely narrow, steep and curvy. It is paved until you take the left turn to the campground.(dent acres recreation area). ..it's hard packed gravel for about a mile then after crossing the cattle guard it is paved again for the last .8 miles. Signage isn't that great...wasn't sure if we made the correct turns and if we hadn't I don't know how we would have turned around. Elevation went up to 3200, down to 1600 (when driving of the ridge crossing the river) then back up to 2800, down to 1700 at the campground entrance.

Thankfully there was hardly any traffic so we could use most of the road

We used first gear and just crawled down the hills.

One camper told us he had issues and had to stop to let his brakes cool down on the descents and he was also overheating on the inclines (and he said he'd never had problems anywhere else).

Overall I would not stay there again due to the road getting to the park and the lack of cell service. But it was a very nice park.

We have a Ford F-250 gas vehicle pulling a 32' Fifth Wheel.