Wild River Campground — Hotel in New England

I parked my car at the hiker parking lot at Wild River Campground Oct 1 -3, 2022 I did a backpacking trip into the Wild River Wilderness and up to Mt. Moriah. Since I didn't actually camp here or use any other facilities (except the bathroom, which was fine/clean/typical) I can only say of the campground itself that it looked very clean and nicely laid out, with attractive and large sites. However I want to share a few updates others may find helpful: a. A sign at the start of the gravel rd around 5 miles N of the campground says there is no potable water at the campground. b. At the time I'm writing this review, google maps shows the road ending near where Bull Brook meets the Wild River, about 0.7 mi north of the campground's location (down near Blue Brook meets the Wild. This is not true. The road actually continues all the way to the campground. c. The cable-suspended wooden walking bridge shown in Jim Armstrong's review from 3 years ago is no longer there. That bridge used to go over the Wild River, connecting the Campground side to the Moriah Brook Trail. Alas it has been washed away, and the only way to get from the east side of the river to the west down at the campground is to ford the river (walk through it). That was easy to do with care in early Oct 2022, but I can imagine it might be quite dangerous or impossible in higher water. Cross at your own risk! d. Nadja Mayumi's review says "There is no hiking from the parking lot to the spot." That may be related to my comment b above, as google maps makes it look like you have to take a trail from the end of the road to reach the campground. But, just to be clear, there is tons of beautiful hiking in the area, on many trails that start there, or pass right by. The Basin Trail heads SE from there, and the Wild River Trail SW, both on the east side of the Wild River. And if can ford the wild river, the Moriah Brook, High Water, and Shelburne trails...

I hate to talk this place up and get more people going, but here I am. The campground is beautiful. You can hear the river in the distance from any campsite, and on clear nights you can damn near see the Milky Way. Plenty of walking trails and even some nice but cold places to swim if you can find them - be careful, some fast moving and deep areas! There are 14 campsites in a big are, all pretty far from each other with decent privacy. The campgrounds also have a single male/female vault bathroom and a water faucet outside. The stench of the "bathrooms" is miserable, but it beats squatting and burying in front of others.

A park ranger/camp manager is always on site in season, and usually has firewood to sell; although I'm sure you can find plenty of fallen debris from the winter season - bring wood feom NH to burn. $20 for a stay with one car per day, I think $10 for an additional car. There's plenty of room at each site for two or three tents if you squeezed them in, and a picnic table and fire pit with a grill ready for use - 8 people to a site. If you go in May or early June there will be a ton of mosquitos, so be prepared. Also be prepared for rain and no cell service (on site, you can get some down the road a few miles), its the White Mountains after all.

Please keep food in cars, in air tight containers - the site is notorious for some bear spotting, but I've never encountered them - only the occasion large piles of destinct bear droppings. You can be fined a lot of money for not storing food and waste properly, leave no trace.

All in all, if you want an off the grid and well prepped trip, with lots of nature to see, this is a great place. The drive there is so beautiful, with a lovely lake at another campground you can stop at on the way. Bring enough food and clean water to...

After 10 hours hicking on the. Mooriah, lost on the mountain, we arrived at this campground at 10 pm, exhausted, almost unable to walk, weat, hungry and around 30 miles away of our car. Impossible to even make a call to join our friends and family, we were receive the worst possible way by the host: no compassion, no ethical sens for someone living by the forest and hickers, he never got out of his camping car, refuse to even drive us to a point where we could have catch a cell phone network signal (maybe ten minutes of his Life!). The only responses we received was: Go sit at a free camp site!!! So we tried to sleep in the cold, in a rainy night, staying alert because of Bears warnings: we left the place at 6 am, in hypothermia and walk 5 miles in pain before a Fantastic and careful couple gave us a lift to a restaurant near our car. By chance, there is still peoples with human values in our society, wich compensate for the shameful and unhuman manners of others, like this...