Greenfield State Park Campground

I come here often. Nice large sites, no hook ups, cell service good, quiet, peaceful depending on neighbors. Always have a great time. Nice hikes, walks, biking, and there’s the lake. Limited generator use if needed. AT&T around 20mbs+ download speeds. Nothing not to like for primitive dry camping. Dump station at entrance/exit. Friendly staff.

I stayed here for two days, the staff was friendly and helpful, the restrooms were very clean, I was here on a Monday and Tuesday, so hardly anybody around, supposedly the weekends are packed, I had one to two bars of T-Mobile, which my We-boost turned to 3 to 4 bars. Heavily wooded, pretty, over 200 sites, Great spot, my campsite was over a half an acre in size, or at least it looks like that, the nearby town is nice, there is a old school playground nearby which was cool to do some workout stuff like pull ups… Kind of far from anything really, but really nice while I was here.

Note: I wrote this in 2012. I continued to camp at Greenfield for 6 more years, deciding not to return any more after my 50th year there in 2018. - Mark

I have been camping, swimming, and fishing GSP for 44 years, so I have a very detailed perspective on what shape the park is in, in 2012. In the 1960's this park had the same overall footprint that it has now, but many things were different; some are subtle and some are more obvious. In the past, this was a mecca for friendly camping families from all over the Northeast, from Maryland to Canada. Children were everywhere, and the beach was packed all day long, with radios playing music. I met and became friends with kids from Penna, Massachusettes, Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont and so on. The parking lot at the camper's beach was always full, and a spillover area on the sand on the right was also full of cars. At Otter Lake, there were always three lifeguards in orange suits, and there were white wooden raised lifeguard chairs. There was an orange body board (rescue board). The lifeguards did daily practice drills. There were trash cans at the beach, and the building where the store is now was a snack bar serving burgers and cokes. The beach had an expanse of white sand, and no grass or bushes grew on it from the cattail reeds by the footbridge on the left, to the curve toward the christian camp way over on the right. The water was clear, and loaded with schools of perch, bass minnows everywhere, turtles and mussels. Beaver pond had an overwhelming abundance of bullfrogs, and their noise at night was deafening. In the camping areas, families hung signs on their campsite numbers with their name and hometown, often listing all their kid's names and pet's names. Every campsite had a large poured concrete fireplace that was great because you could easily rest coffee pots or anything else beside the fire. In the woods surrounding the sites, blueberries grew in vast quantities all over the place, and we would collect quarts of the them and have blueberry pancakes daily. There was a "Ranger Station" checkpoint at the spot in the road where you now turn in to the showers, and you had to show papers in order to be admitted to the camping area. This kept unregistered guests out. Quiet hours (10p - 7a) were respected by most everyone; I really can't ever recall a loud disturbance, and quiet was enforced by State Park Rangers in clean trucks with state decals. In the bathrooms, everything worked - lights, electricity, faucets, toilets. There were spiders and mosquitoes, but these rooms were cleaned every day. Firewood was available in a pit in the center of the circular driveway behind the park A-frame. Chipmunks were absolutely everywhere all the time. Trash cans were located at the water taps in the campground. Ok, that was then ... this is now: the checkpoint is gone, anyone can drive in, the park is run by a skeleton staff, and now has become a mecca for 22-35 year old hell raisers from Massachusetts and NH who drive big trucks, and crank their music loudly. They come to drink. They shout. They have generators and they string up lights. They stay up very late with no concern for quiet hours whatsoever, and the park has exactly one person who patrols the entire place at night in a golf cart, usually confining himself to the large loop - meaning he never visits the small circle or other areas. There are fireworks and gun shots in the night. Yes there are families mingled in, but it is rare to find a quiet, well-mannered family. It is very common to see and hear loud yelling children and drinking & smoking parents yelling right back at them. Parents drink on the beach. Trash cans in the camping areas are gone now, and campers leave trash bags at the ends of their driveways. These are picked up promptly. Chipmunks and blueberries can be found in very small numbers. All the concrete fireplaces have been replaced with metal fire rings, which all rust and turn black. The campsites were sandy, now they are grassy. Faucets in the bathrooms are about 50-50 working-broken, electricity in the outlets is hit or miss, the lights are often out, and from time to time the entire park suffers water outages, meaning campers have to use Port-A-Potties. The campers beach never has more than five or six cars parked there, the overflow lot is overgrown with grass and trees. There are no frogs left in Beaver pond. The trail around Beaver pond is not cleared of brush. The beach itself has far less sand, has outcrops of grass and scrubby shrubs all over it, the lifeguards are gone, the mussels are gone, the lake has a small number of fish, the water is cloudy and has mercury contamination from the atmosphere, and the road leading to the boat launch is horribly pocked by deep sink holes. The lake is not one of the cleanest in the state, just go to Willard Pond or Hunts Pond or Newfound Lake, etc and compare. The biggest, most problematic issue facing the park in 2012 is the bad behavior of the campers, and the lack of any enforcement of park rules due to zero staff. Greenfield needs an infusion of cash and a lot of T.L.C. it is not going to get.

For our first night we registered on line; for the second, we did it in person. Both were easy. The website takes a little getting used to.

While we were there during the week, it was fairly empty but they said the weekends were completely booked. Could be a bit "hopping" then. We were in our 20 foot camper so we did not need the bathrooms. The showers were closed and porta potties were available ... Covid.

The sites are large and very private. There is a beach and swimming but we did not take advantage of it. We biked a local rail trail and it looked like there were plenty of places to toss in a kayak.

Most of the sites can handle 50ft or more. They are large with vegetation in between. We did not use the showers or restrooms. You can walk for a while just walking the roads in the campground. There is a lake and swim area that a lot of the people around us were using. We were here 20 July 2018 during the week. It was filling up as we were leaving on Sat. Morning. The roads coming from the east were narrow and winding to get to this park.

We stayed there over Father's Day weekend, prior to the NH summer. So we did not go to the lake for swimming. In fact we never saw the lake. We started to take a path to go to the lake, but it covered in leaves which were wet and the slope was steep. After I slipped once we turned around.

Most of NH State Parks have no hook-ups except for the ones at the seashore, and then you cannot have pets at those.

The sites were big, in fact the entire park is huge. There are nice fire rings with grills on them, so we were able to cook dinner outside.

There are water spigots to get water in jugs no way to have water hook up. The girl at the desk wasn't sure if it was potable water or not.. I'm sure it was drinkable. The bathrooms have ceramic toilets and sinks but are primitive and clean. There is no hot water in the bathroom sinks.

I would stay there but when it is warmer and get a spot closer to the lake.
We paid $25.00 a night and received a discount of $5.00 per night for being seniors. However their online reservation system charges $8.25 for a reservation fee. So we saved a whopping $1.75.

I wish Campendium had a rating for price. To pay $50.00 for a sight to dry camp is a bit high. But this is true of most NH States Parks not a reflection on this particular one.