Steel Creek Campground — Hotel in Harrison

First off, this campground is just outside of Ponca, runs $12/night during the "regular season," and includes a tent camping area on the west and a horse trailer camping area on the east.||Expect the tent area to fill up early on a Friday - the ranger told me that some people get there Thursday or Wednesday to guarantee a space. A few of us got there later on a Friday afternoon (6:30 PM for me), and there were no spots on this nice November evening. I drove over to the horse campground on the east side, and there were several open spaces, and a few already taken by tent-only (i.e., non horse trailer) campers. After setting up camp in the dark, a nice ranger came and told each of us tent campers that we couldn't camp there, but he was gracious enough to let us stay until morning, although he said that if a horse trailer camper needed our spot in the middle of the night, we'd have to pack up and leave.||Thankfully, on Saturday morning we grabbed a spot that had opened in the tent area. Our other options were to either see if another tent camper would share a spot or go to Kyle's Landing Campground which has more camping spaces.||Steel Creek was definitely more convenient to Ponca, Hawk's Bill Crag, and the elk in the Boxley Valley. ||The camp sites are roughly 20 yards apart for tents, and there are a few slightly shaded areas along the treeline. Consider bringing a portable gazebo for shade. There is a bathroom facility (no showers) and a water spicket but no electric.||The people we met were nice, but expect a number of dogs. One group of young ladies each brought a dog which included some barkers, but they were at least conscious enough to keep them quiet between 10 PM and 6 AM (quiet hours).||Bring some firewood or expect to buy some from one of the Ponca stores unless you want to pick from the woods.||The water was very low in the river when we were there, and this made for excellent hiking.||Finally, the unpaved road down to the campground is not conducive to RVs...

Booked this campsite based on all the great reviews. The campsite is very clean and good respectful crowd at the campsite! We went for spring break and I did not find it busy or too close to neighbors as many people had mentioned was an issue||Camp site has very clean toilets- no showers or electric outlets. Fire pits and picnic tables at each site. The most disappointing thing was you can’t really access the river from the campsite. It looks NOTHING like the online pictures. You have to walk through woods to get down to the river bank ( can’t see it from the camp site) and it’s really not a good spot to get into the water ( lots of brush, trees etc. 🐍 )||Helpful reminder:|I had tent prepped for ticks but forgot to spray the duffel bag down. Husband placed it on the grass before bringing it into the tent so we had to clean it out for ticks within minutes of getting there.||There is absolutely no cell phone service and we had to drive 10 min to lost canoe store to get WiFi.|Make sure you have your directions...

This place is amazing. It has clean bathrooms and it has clean campsites they are very close together but that's all you're going to find if you want to see the beautiful Bluffs and water of the Buffalo River. You can come here and use it as a day use for free to swim and take trails and just look at the Bluffs. If you want to camp it's going to be $20 a night for one Camp spot and your neighbors are going to be right beside you. There are other Camp spots around that area that are free but if you want to stay in the park by the Bluffs where it's beautiful it's going to be $20.At night the stars are so worth the $20 just to see it because you can see the Milky Way and the Stars so beautifully. It is a beautiful place to at least see once in your life it's definitely worth it. Everyone around with super nice the employees were very nice and helpful. And the trails are awesome and the views are awesome. And there's a beautiful big clear swimming hole back behind all the camps. A beautiful place...