Spirit Mountain Campground — Hotel in Duluth

APPARENTLY NOT KID OR SMALL FAMILY GET TOGETHER FRIENDLY. -Sites are way too close together. Had a terrible experience here and was even harrased by 2 other nearby campers, TWO SEPERATE TIMES, who would not leave us alone at our site and continued to be rude and yell at us with all our children around. We were minding our own business and kept to ourselves the entire time. The two campers felt we were rude for showing up past midnight trying to get our stuff together and set up. We finished setting up and made super late dinner for our children who were hungry and just finished a 5 hour, no stop, roadtrip. The first camper who showed up to tell us that we were being too loud was very rude to us, but we felt we were in the wrong and complied because it definitely was past quiet hours. We respected their confrontation, even if it came off rude. We quickly and quietly ate and all went to bed about 10 minutes after the confrontation. The "white woman who is 61 years old" (her own wording) told us off and was super disrespectful to us and our children. She came to yell at us to be quiet on our second day and even threatened to call the cops on us if we did not. It was only 7pm and we were cooking dinner for our children. Our children were playing, was that so terribly wrong?? Mind you, quiet hours dont begin until 10pm. She felt so privileged to tell us to be quiet at 7pm as we were just having family bonding time and making dinner. When she began to start getting verbally agressive, we asked her to leave our site as we did not feel comfortable with her on our site with all our children (all under age 9) around. She was even more verbally aggressive and triggered us to become verbally defensive back to her and yelled back at her because of her disrespect. She would not leave our site and continued the harrassment confrontation for another 5 minutes. They reported us the first day to the office already for apparently being too loud when we showed up past midnight to our site, we were warned by the office already. I believe that was more than enough, but they didnt feel it was enough and confronted (more like harrassed) us another 2x when we were minding our own damn business and were at a respectively loudness at 7pm BEFORE quiet hours even began. There was even another site right next to us who was thumping loud music, in the middle of the night and all day during the day of 2nd confrontation/harrasment, from their cars and camp site and it didnt seem to be be an issue whatsoever to anyone or them apparently. But i guess arriving late past quiet hours you cant make dinner or set up your site or even have your kids play together during the day because its disrespectful and rude and apparently too loud. We still own up to being "too loud" when we arrived though we felt we werent. We even complied and apologized when they came at us with rudeness. Terrible experience overall. Would not reccomend to anyone nor return again. EVER.

Also, the campground map on the website has an address which we thought and assumed was the campground address since there was no other address listed. We followed our gps to the address listed and it wasnt even the campgrounds! It looked like it was the ski area, which was 11 minutes away from the campgrounds. We were lost for a good 1 to 2 hours until we used google satelite to locate the campground and found the...

Spirit Mountain is okay. The biggest thing going for it is the privacy compared to other campgrounds. That is about all though. Signs were posted in the restrooms that if you feel unsafe at night to call 911. The sites are not kept up. Trip hazards in the campsite, like roots sticking up, rocks, etc. The bathrooms are old. But to be honest I could overlook all of it if not for the outrageous taxes. 14.35% is added on to the nightly fee of $56.56 for water and hookup. Had to pull through backwards to get to the water and electric hookup. I did inquire about the taxes and was told that 6.85% is state tax, over 7% for city tax, and 20 cents for county tax. Considering the condition of the park I have to wonder where this money is going to. Have contacted finance dept in Duluth, no answer. Contacted general question in Duluth, no answer. Contacted the mayor of Duluth, no answer. The money definitely is not being used for the upkeep of the park. The first day we got there the office was closed.. Could not get firewood or anything else. Had to drive to the convenience store for that. I did express to someone that I was able to get in touch with in accounts payable for Spirit Mountain that for what they charge it is not worth the price. I can go and spend my money at a State Park and get much more for my money then what Spirit Mountain has to offer. Whether I go back in 2023 depends on what they are charging for the campsite and taxes.

Update 9/25/2023 I decided to save the money by not going to Spirit Mountain this year and use it for camping at the state parks in MN. The last place we stayed at was Moose Lake State Park recently and really enjoyed the space we had. Not cramped like Spirit Mountain. Facilities are nice, campground was nice, pricing is great compared to Spirit Mountain. I bought the annual permit of $35 and each time I went camping this year on the average the cost per stay was around $30 to $35 per night. Much more cost effective compared to spending all that money at Spirit Mountain just for a 2 night stay. Considering the parks are state parks, there are no hidden taxes added in like Spirit...

Had a great time last weekend, we booked site #51, pretty large, with just electric and no water hookup. Bit of an incline to back the camper into its spot but it’s a nice tucked back site you could say, biggest downside is the only level ground on this site is right where the camper parks and then from there is pretty uneven and downhill. The fire pit is even more downhill and closer to the next site so if you’re looking for privacy by the fire I’d look at a different site, you can see in my pictures how close it is. Looked like each site does indeed have a picnic table and fire pit provided. Electric panel I will post a pictures of for all who are curious what hookup is like. All sites on that side by us were back facing the hillside just FYI. Bathrooms were about what you’d expect at a campground, nothing new, nothing super clean (forgot to take a pic), the rest of the campground was well kept though. Bonus is it’s dog friendly, just can’t leave the dog onsite while you are gone. We didn’t have time to explore much as we did most things around the Duluth area instead, but wish we had time to bring to kids for some activities at Spirit Mountain or go hiking on the trails. We would go...