Ferne Clyffe State Park

We attributed most of our negative experience to the total lack of visibility of the camphost. On the nice spring weekend that we stayed here, the campground was filled with locals, many of whom seemed to know each other, and who had lots of local friends. By Saturday afternoon the 2 vehicle per site rule was a joke, with three and sometimes four vehicles in each site. Campers parked near the "common" water spigots chose to turn them into their personal water lines with 100 foot hoses. There were dogs everywhere barking at each other constantly, kids were everywhere playing various games (and, weirdly, peeing on trees despite have a bathhouse right in the campground). Virtually every campsite had a campfire going continuously for both weekend days, making it very smoky. The camphost never bothered to check with us as to whether we were actually the people with the reservation for the site (there is no office to check in) and we heard from other campers that the hosts were letting some campers stay for free because of personal relationships. We were not impressed withe the management, obviously.

Apart from that issue, the sites are gravel and level-ish, and electricity worked fine, but the multiple loops and sites were too close together with no foliage in between even without the problem of excess vehicles. It was close to being like a private parking lot, not a state park. The bathhouses were fairly dated and grungy; my husband declined to use the shower. There are quite a few hikes in the park, but most of the trailheads are about 1-2 miles down a road from the campground, with no signage for the trails and no obvious way to get a trail map. The park felt safe and was convenient for our route, but we would not stay here again.

Great campground with several options for camping. They have electrical hookups, walk-in tent camping and backpacking sites. The showers are warm and all facilities were clean and well maintained. Nice little playground for the kids to congregate and make friends. Several amazing hikes that include waterfalls, boulders for climbing and creeks leave from campground and surrounding area.

The area drains pretty well but all the fire rings are at ground level. When we arrived it was raining so it took a day for them to dry out and be usable.