Misty Mountain Camp Resort — Hotel in Crozet

We were there ten years ago and wanted to post our experience.|Well Nancy and I went camping again. We stayed at a place called Misty Mountain. I found it on the Internet. It is located right outside the Skyline Drive here in Virginia. We knew we were going to get in late so we made reservations for a Thursday & Friday.|We loaded up the camper with the usual stuff, you know, blankets, sleeping bags, crackers, drink,|TV with a DVD player (a must have), kitchen sink, bathtub, and anything else we could empty out of the house into the trailer & SUV!|My god! How do people pack for a week? We were going for 2 days. I told the wife, why don’t we hire a moving van & they could deliver the stuff to our campsite. Then my wife informed me the grandbaby (5 months) Ava would be coming with us. I said “good, her first camping trip.” So when we stopped by to pick her up, her mom (our lovely college educated daughter) had packed Ava’s stuff like she was going away to college. (Why does a baby take so much equipment just to live from one poopy diaper to the next?)|So as my wife & her daughter acted like they hadn’t seen each other in years, I carried everything to the pack mule…err, I mean SUV. How I did it to this day I just don’t know. Why the windows didn’t blow out is a mystery to me.|I notified the chatting couple it was getting late & we had to hit the side roads to avoid the state police. (I know we had to be violating several states laws & a few SPCA laws too.)|Grammy sat in the back seat & played with Ava. I was just glad to be moving again without the tires blowing out.|We got to Misty Mountain about 10:30pm. I was tired, the wife was asleep & Ava was pooping for the 3rd time. The manager had a map & a lot number pined next to the office door. I thought wow this place is squared away. After driving up the mountain my thoughts turned sour when I saw the lot. Half the lot was level & the door side of the lot had a slope that worried me.|I stopped & walked the site & my flashlight couldn’t see the bottom. But I brushed bats away from my throat as they came out of the pit towards my flashlight. I hid my fear as I told the wife, “What a nice site. Can’t wait to see the sunrise from here.” She calmly asks “Are you sure we aren’t going to tip over or something?” I just shook my head no, worried my shaking voice would give me away as I drove us towards our death -I mean onto the lot.|I noticed we were next to a fifth wheel trailer. I thought that maybe he’d call 911 for me. I soon found out as I was hooking up & trying to be quiet (which you can’t be late at night), that he would not be calling 911 for me. As I was setting up, they kept flashing their lights off and on real fast like. I found out I could read light language.|It read “you are making too much noise you jerk, and I hope you fall down that abyss you are parked next to!” (Turned out he lived there.)|I had to use the level jacks on the door side of the trailer. They were cranked all the way up & the tire wasn’t touching the ground. (The tire was so high I was worried about an eagle making a nest in the trailer axle. That would be a whole different set of problems.)|As I got my lovely family out of the vehicle & walked them to the trailer, My wife asked “Is this safe and where did these bats come from?”|“Sure it’s safe just keep the baby’s throat covered.” I replied.|She couldn’t see the tears running down my cheeks because I was staying in the dark. (Of course the guy in the fifth wheel didn’t help either by flashing the lights off & on.) When we got in the trailer I immediately jumped into the bed & said “I’m tired, see ya in the morning.” As I covered my body with all the pillows and blankets to help me survive the disaster, I knew what was coming with each step my wife took.|She’d say as she was leaning towards the pit, “I feel like I have an ear infection & my balance is off.”|“Just don’t fall against the door. I’m not sure about the lock.” I mumbled between prayers. Every time I peeped out that night my wife would be sitting up with her feet braced against the wall. (The next morning she stated she kept sliding out of bed.)|At about 4:30 AM the guy in fifth wheel trailer must have had trouble with his truck. He kept gunning his engine real loud and honking his horn. I just ignored him because I was up to the letter “Z” praying to the god “Zeus”. (I was covering all the bases. I didn’t want my lovely wife in eternity with me saying, “I told you so!”)|The next morning the manager allowed us to move to a very nice secluded level lot, which I kissed as soon as I parked the trailer. (I think the nervous twitch & wild look gave me away, because he just looked at me & said, “Here, use lot U13 you’d like that better.” I grabbed the map and ran laughing all the way back to the death trap. (Had to go back and get my vehicle once my wife asked, “Where’s the SUV?”)|Let me tell you fellow campers. There is nothing like a level lot. If I had found a bottle and rubbed it until a Genie popped out and gave me 3 wishes, I would of yelled out “a Level lot” 3 times so fast your head would spin.|(I did keep looking out the window making sure the ground had not moved.)|The rest of the time was very enjoyable. We changed the grandbaby, walked the grandbaby, and changed her some more. We all had a peaceful stay.|As we were leaving I laughed madly to myself as a big diesel was trying to park next to the abyss.|Overall Misty Mountain is a very nice campground. Just ask for...

TLDR: I would not recommend Misty Mountain for camping; for RVs, it's probably great.

My family stayed at Misty Mountain for a weekend of tent camping and it was not an enjoyable experience.

Cons: Bad Tent Camping Sites It is impossible to tell from the map of the site, but the "Tent Sites" (listed as Creekside tent sites) are not in woodsy/wilderness areas as shown on the Accommodations page. They are super close together and wedged right between a busy road and the RV sites. Not private at all. You hear all the noise of the RV park - including whatever events they have going on. We also had constant headlights lighting up our tent as RVs drove past the road next to the site. The sites are not close to any bathrooms and you cannot park your car next to your tent unless you're in Tent Site 6.

We stayed in Tent Site 3, which was on an island surrounded by a large ditch. When it rained, that ditch filled with water - so we had to wade through a creek to take our gear out. Terrible design.

If you want more wilderness camping, they have "backcountry sites" but those are all hike-in and are even further from any bathrooms.

LOUD area When we booked our site, we were not told that there would be a loud concert event very close by. We were trying to put our baby to sleep on Friday night and there was live music playing so loudly she could not sleep.

We also have tent neighbors that blasted music until 2 am, but there was no number to call about noise complaints. The office line had an "emergencies only" number to call.

You can also hear the nearby highway at night.

Pros: here were friendly ducks near the fishing pond. A beaver. A pileated woodpecker.

The onsite playground and bounce pad was fun.

Bathrooms/bathhouse were clean.

My recommendations for Misty Mountain Build a bridge for the two tent sites on that island. Navigating that ditch/creek was difficult and in the rain, there was no way to leave without getting feet soaked. Include more details about tent sites on your map and website. Show where tent sites are in the "tent area" and include the fact that you can't park next to them and have accurate pictures of each one. When someone is booking a site, please inform them of any loud events that will be going on at the time Have a number to call when there are noise...

I do not camp in an RV so my perspective is purely as a tent camper.||When did camping get so expensive?! Regardless of whether you tent or RV camp I feel that prices have really skyrocketed. I do not know what the going rate is most places but 65-77. Per night (Before tax and fees) seems steep to camp on a site with no water or electricity. That’s about what it will cost you here. I camp for the experience and to enjoy nature and a camp fire so to stay near Crozet I was willing to pay it. Next time I will examine my options more thoroughly.| I stayed in the backcountry area recently with other family members who met me there. I will start by saying there are some features that all the tent sites seemed to have from what I saw such as a campfire ring and picnic table. What is different in the Backcountry (BC) is the sites are more spread out. I had BC 4 and BC 5. BC 5 was a great site, BC 4 is for desperate campers who can NOT find anything else. It was truly an awful site, total waste of money! We ended up all staying on BC 5 because 4 was so terrible. There is no good place to put a tent and we just ended up parking cars there but there isn’t much room for that either. Being away from other campers was great!|The downside of the seclusion is that the bathroom is a hike, all of them. We mostly used the bathrooms a showers up the hill and everytime we were up there to shower we ran out of water or had no hot water at all. So you might hike or drive there and be all soapy and suddenly..no water. |The restrooms were also not cleaned while we were there that we noticed. They were clean when we arrived but by the end of the weekend the trash was full and the restrooms were pretty well used. It’s camping so I don’t expect a 5 star hotel experience but I feel the water shouldn’t run out and the trash shouldn’t overflow. |The store is pretty well stocked with most anything you’d need. The people in the office are pretty helpful but the office hours are like banking hours if banks opened on the weekend.|Breakfast was available for purchase on Sunday and we took advantage of that. That was a great deal, well worth the money. I definitely recommend the breakfast option when it’s available.||In a nutshell I would stay here again. I would probably look for a special deal though...