Frank Russell Campground

This is a COE campground that is absolutely beautiful with access to a cove on the lake (very steep hill). The sites are all paved and have really nice fire rings with grates. The are electric only with 50 amp service. The lake's namesake and legendary author and humorist, Mark Twain, was born in a town beside the lake. The 32-mile long Joanna Trail is accessible from the campground. Here, horseback riders, mountain bikers and hikers can enjoy the rough and varied terrain that meanders along the northern banks of the lake, across bluffs and over hills.

Backing around the trees that line the site was a bit of a challenge, but just take your time and get out an look often and you will do just fine. Nite time was very quiet with the exception of the crickets and other creatures of the nite. I will keep this one on my list to visit again.

We generally love COE campgrounds but this is one we probably wouldn’t go to again based on the site we had. To be honest we didn’t check out the other loops and they could have been better than the loop we were in. This seems like a popular area for boating as we could hear them going by even though we couldn’t see them.
Our site had good tree coverage and with 90 degree temps that was nice. Trees were trimmed and we had no worries about overhang in our site. But the slope was so bad we had to use multiple blocks to build up the back end of our trailer so it could be somewhat level. We did not unhook from the truck, frankly we didn’t trust the trailer to not roll backwards even with chocks behind the wheels! Almost all the sites in our loop were sloped, some more than others. Too bad they don’t indicate the slope in the site details.

This is a beautiful campground in a forested setting. All sites are "electric only" but the power is solid and water and dump are available on site. This area is very quiet and makes a great overnight stop when traveling east/west along US36/I-72 corridor which we find to be a good alternative to I-70 which traverses many more large metro areas. Verizon and AT&T cell data service were quite good (VZ better than AT&T.) Many/most sites will accommodate larger rigs but be aware that front to back leveling a longer motor home can be a challenge in this campground. Unfortunately the reservation system does not address this so if you make a reservation it's going to be hit or miss (FYI, our site #38 is OK for a long rig.) We were lucky that when we arrived there were plenty of available sites from which to choose. Had we made a reservation "blindly" we might have ended up in a site where leveling a 38 foot motor home would be impossible.

Ditto the previous reviews. Our rate reflects the senior pass rate. We were there mid week the latter part of October and had the campground to ourselves. By chance we did run into a ranger after our first night so we could let someone know we had switched sites to be closer to the bath house. We didn’t spend any time there as we spent our time touring Hannibal, which was our reason for being in the area.

Very nice campground. Good spacing between sites with trees and some bushes, so very private sites. Lake seems to have a non-developed shoreline, so campsites are on the hill and cannot see lake from campsites. We're here in the 1st part of October and there is only one other campsite in use. Several of the other loops were closed off and there was no attendant or campground host. Several of the campsites are reserved for this weekend, but virtually empty during this week.