National Forest Campground’s website
Virginia's Shenendoah Valley Location (on Googlemaps)
Reviewer's name: adam North River, VA
Date(s) of visit: June 2011 888 265 0019 (ntnl forest)
Information about the campground’s location and business:
Getting there (proximity to a major road, signage, etc.)
not near anything but forest, had to drive down dirt roads: get a good map of virginia
Attractions (what's nearby for a daytrip?)
just forest
Campground Staff (helpful, non-existent, mean?)
ranger drove by a few times in the evening
Other (cell phone reception, etc.)
no cell phone reception for about 3 miles
Information about the campground as a place
Facilities (bathrooms, store, etc.)
bathrooms with showers, seemed new, definitely clean
Water (lake, creek, swimming, fishing, etc.)
dammed pond, i wouldn't swim in it for the apocalyptic number of salamanders and tadpoles
Hiking Trails (variety, length, difficulty, etc.)
the map showed lots, we had time for 1 short hike (to the pond) very nice.
Views (what can you see here that is amazing?)
didn't go on any longer trails, hard to imagine anything more amazing than the number of salamanders.
Information about the campground’s tent sites
Beauty (if you sit at your site all day)
site is just a gravel pad, but its border makes a kind of picture-window of the woods behind the site.
Privacy (how close do you feel to other sites)
not crowded, but not extremely private. sites are separated by space more than barriers
Facilities (table, fire ring, tent pad, water, etc.)
everything seemed new and worked well. running water spigot near site.
Convenience (ease of setting up, close to bathrooms?, etc.)
gravel pad let you choose where to put your vehicle and tent. and, no roots and great water drainage
Reviewer’s narrative
Our stay was cut pretty short by solid heavy rain that lasted about 8 hours and got through our tent’s rain guard. The gravel pad drained well enough to keep rain from getting in from the floor of our tent, so that was a relief. It looks like this place is pretty new and there were no other campers there while we were (maybe they checked the weather?) but I’d bet the place could go at least 50% capacity before it started feeling crowded. Maps indicated a fair number of trails of varying length and difficulty, but we only had time to walk down to the dammed pond. The woods are beautiful (they are, after all, woods) and the pond was weird...as far as I could tell, there was a salamander per 6 cubic inches of water as far out into the pond as I could see. I’m no amphibian expert so my brain is still concocting stranger and stranger theories about that.
Todd lake is fantastic. A great site for the family. The facilities seem like they are recently renovated and have showers and toilets. The lake has a sand beach with a concrete wheelchair ramp down to the water. They don't stock the pond so the salamanders were everywhere. It was quiet and isolated.
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