Lava Hot Springs East KOA

We have been twice to this KOA and its great for families and pets. We have a 5th wheel and stay in the newer part with the private dog parks and fire pits. They are really nice, new, and well maintained. Public grill is solid and the outdoor covered eating areas are also nice. The cabins are also nice and perfect for 2-3 people. My parents stayed in the tiny home ones on the river. Remember to bring linens.

Wish they sent reminder email about linens when you check in beforehand.

The reason for 4 stars is the location is loud with trucks using their engine breaks and trains. The road and train tracks are adjacent to the entire property (and the entire town of Lava). Nothing the KOA can do about it, but it does need to be known.

Arrived about 630pm and lots of sites to choose from at this time of year. Good full hook up pull thru. Lovely and clean. Friendly check in. 7 minute walk to hot springs along a nice path and little sunken garden. The trains weren’t as awful as everyone said. Heard one around 9ish and then one during the night but it was no big deal. Trucks with jack breaks are noisy

We came to this KOA to meet up with friends and just relax. Unfortunately, the park is right off a main thoroughfare and a set of train tracks. Although it gets somewhat more quiet at night, it's so noisy during the day, it's difficult to have a conversation -- much less relax. The trains seem to stop about 11:00 p.m. but the big rigs and other large vehicles continue to pass by and the grade is so steep along the park, their motors and transmissions groan loudly enough to wake you.

The sites along the water are "premium" sites. The premium sites feature concrete patios with very nice tables and chairs and cool fire pits. They are all smaller back-in sites and run about $109. They're quite short (our friends' 30' fifth-wheel barely squeezed into the space and they had to park their truck sideways along the front which required them to move it when another camper needed to back into their space). The pull-through sites in the middle are pretty narrow and vary in length. They feature wooden picnic tables and ground-level fire rings.

There's a community pavilion with a sink and counter as well as a gas grill. If I correctly understood the sign, the pavilion can be used by any guest. The bathrooms and showers are quite spacious and modern. The laundry room is pretty typical but the washers only run about 26 minutes so they don't clean all that well and dryers don't get hot enough so they require twice the time to dry. Also, if you're at the opposite end of the park, it's quite a hike to the laundry/shower facilities.

Like pretty much every other KOA I've seen, there's a nice convenience/gift shop incorporated with the front desk. Although they're TEMPORARILY CLOSED for construction, the park also has a playground, horse shoes, volleyball, and tetherball.

It was a stop over to visit family for a night and the camp is fine for that. Sits right on the Portneuf River with some access to the water. Trains running through the canyon on the other side of the road were noisy, but seemed to stop by 11p.
The side of the park we were in had large Willow trees and lots of room between some of the sites. Easily accommodate a big group with rv and tents. A little further up the hill from us were a number of new sites that looked really nice and across the entrance road, the same.
The odd part is that the Willow trees under which we were camped (we were in site 90) were oozing some sort of sticky substance that coated everything below... your motor home, trailer, chairs, bikes, tow cars, bbq, everything (including your dogs paws and the bottoms of you shoes). And not just a little bit. Google tells me that it's not unusual during the summer months for Willows that are infested with aphids to have this problem. Just wish we knew this when we booked the sites earlier this year. Kind of a mess to clean up.
The best feature of the campground might be the Lava Hot Springs Pools and water park nearby. Grand kids loved that.

We stayed just one night here on our way home from a 6 week outing. This KOA has something for everyone and every type of campsite you could ever imagine. It is very busy! We had a patio site near the office, overlooking a weedy bit near the stream. While you couldn’t see the water from the patio, you could hear it and could enjoy gazing at the cliffs above it. Road noise and train noise was excessive (4 trains went through during the night and the train track is right on the other side of the highway which is right next to the park and carries a lot of semi truck traffic).

Lava hot springs is a great place to visit. The hot springs are awesome, and the park is next to the Portneuf river. As others have mentioned it’s directly off a small highway and there are train tracks beyond that. Not a big deal to me, but something to keep in mind. The whole area is nice, the local town is cool with some small restaurants and stores. Cellular service was acceptable. ATT was 20MB down and 15 up. Verizon was slower with about 8Mb down and 15 up.

We usually go here on the 4th of July. We love it however its has gotten really pricey. There are plenty of trees for shade. Check in an out was great and the staff was great. Its a very short walk into town where they have shops, bars and restaurants and of course tubing down the river which is very short (about 15 minutes) and crazy busy but is still fun. If you don't mind somewhat of a crowd then this place is great. Oh, I almost forgot if you have issues with noise at night you might want to go somewhere else, there are trains that are close to the campground that go through all times of day and night. We don't mind it because we have a train that is basically in our backyard and are use to it.