Hancock Campground — Hotel in Lincoln

We camped here Wednesday-Friday on one of the riverfront tent sites. We arrived around 11:15 am and got the last site on the river, which had a nice little opening to the water and had a bit more tree coverage to separate us from our neighbors; the only remaining sites otherwise were a bit small and clustered together or tandem so that we’d have lots of foot traffic through and around our site. These sites were carry-in only, which wasn’t convenient, and it was a lot of work to carry all of our gear from the parking lot to the site (the main part of the path was a hill).||Big negative: Our site was completely swarmed with bees. We checked a few vacant sites to see if maybe it was just our site, but we found them all around, including all over the cars in the lot. They calmed down in the evening once it got chilly, but otherwise, they were constant. They were the worst on our last day; we planned to hang out, make breakfast, enjoy the river, and take our time packing up. But they were unbearable and we had a couple stings, so we rushed to pack up and left early, which was very disappointing and felt like a waste.||The river access was great, though the water was very low. We appreciated having a bear box on our site, especially since we couldn’t keep anything in our car. It was big enough to fit our grill, cooler, trash, and bag of groceries. The campground also has flush toilets, which was a big plus, since most other campgrounds in the area only have vault toilets. There were vault ones near our site, but I preferred to walk a bit further to the flush ones. They were near the campsites by the main road; the traffic was loud in this area and the sites didn’t have near boxes, but there were no bees to be found.||We’d likely stay here again if something was done about the swarms of bees, and would probably bring some sort of cart to get our stuff from the car...

Some pros and lots of cons. We stayed at a walk-in site by the river.

I am used to NF camping in remote areas but I guess never fully appreciated just how much camp hosts do. There was no ranger and no host. We arrived early on a Thursday, hopeful we could get a spot by the water. There are only two spots that are truly private in any way. They were both taken- fine. However, one of the groups had not registered and stayed until 4 or 5pm until everyone else had already set up for the day...then they left! So uncool. The site went unused because at that point, no one was going to move all their stuff. Maybe a camp host would've noticed?

The sites were FILTHY with trash, dog poop and food waste. Pretty crazy considering this was supposed to be a bear area. There was also a bad smell wafting around, hmm...maybe because of the trash and dog poop? Stepping in dog poop and trying to clean off your boots is a significant bummer. The site we were stuck at also had ashes and chunks of wood all over the picnic table. Cleaning up this much in order to feel comfortable really sucked.

There was no running water at any of the pumps and the pit toilets were quite full.

There is a bridge nearby but the river covered any vehicle noise very well. It was also nice to be right off the highway and five minutes from town, yet it felt like a proper national forest experience.

There's an upper loop with drive in sites. They didn't seem very private and you could see the road. I wouldn't stay up there.

Being by the river was beautiful. I would possibly stay here again, but with more preparation for the campground's limitations and lack of...

Hancock is my fav go to get away campground! The site manager Nicole is absolutely wonderful very attentive to the campground and campers needs! There was an out of the normal loud group of people that wrote a bad review I want to assure everyone reviewing reviews that that bad review left that specific group of campers had absolutely no respect for other around blaring music at 7 am running a generator 24/7 till told to turn off. It's not about "quite hours" it's having a level of respect for hiker campers enjoy themselves too.,they played music till 10 and started it back up at 7 playing for home at 11 at night all everyone can hear is bean bag slapping a board. The only complaint was that group of campers having no respect for other around.

Nicole did not wave her hands in anyone face she was speaking with her hands to turn the volume down and they inch the volume down testing her because they did not know she was the site manager to clear that up

I had amazing time with my family made a lot of friends I feel like will be life long friendships I can't wait to plan my next adventure here!

The bathrooms are so clean and always stocked with TP! Nicole is just amazing and cares so much all around I can't say enough...