The campsites are right up against the river but not easy to access the river from the cottonwood loop where we stayed. Camping was spread out nicely and it was pleasant. Cottonwood doesn't have hookups. I saw an equal number of RVs dry camping as tents there. Lots of kids and families. There is a visitor's center that's very educational about the Lewis and Clark expedition and it's free to visit. Highly recommend visiting the visitors center and watching the free movie. read more

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We love the Lewiston area but the state park at Hells Gate has had novmaintenance or improvements for at keast 20 yeaMrs or more. Dark spidery bathrooms, dying trees, brown grass and a $10 dollat dumping fee added to campers in the park after charging a huge fee to out of state campers. I was raised in Lewiston area and will never camp there again until improvements made . we paid almost $75 a night plus a $10 fee to dump for dry grass and ugly dark outdated bathrooms and horrible showers wit lots of spiders. read more

Kinda loud with boats. You can't see the river from any camp site. Just coming from Ponderosa State Park, this was a wah wah wah. Two nights here. One night would've been enough unless you're big into fast boating. On the bright side, no annoying rap or music blaring from any campsite. Nice neighbors. Same with Ponderosa State Park. Just that Ponderosa exceeded expectations. 5 stars. Especially with the miles of beautiful ponderosa pine tree nice trails and bike trails. But mosquitos there now in July. Update: I hear stinkin rap. Stop that nasty stuff. Anyway, this is not a place I would return, sad as it sounds. It's just not that great. read more

Boaters paradise, and that is a great way to explore the canyon! Several boat tour options leave from the state park, so if you are looking for a fun way to explore the park and more, would recommend checking them out. Nice facilities and great access to the Snake River. read more

Beautiful State Park right on the Snake River. Cabin, RV and rent sites. Water and Electric (20/30/50 amp). Also a major marina on the Snake for boat launch. Huge RV campsites. I'm at least 60 feet from my closest neighbor. Lots of space to walk the dog. Nice restrooms (no showers). Also a separate dump site with park. $47 per night is very reasonable for what this park offers read more

Hells Gate State Park - Welcome brochure - Parks Near Me - Lewiston, Idaho

Great place with a lot of history of Lewis and Clark and their expedition. Their is a museum/gift shop with outdoor trails and more history. There are cabins to rent and camping/RV areas. I enjoyed learning more about Lewis and Clsrk and their journey. read more

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A divine spot highlighting the Lewis&Clark expedition of 1805. Over the years, the park has expanded, adding an insightful museum on the Nez Perce, the area's breathtaking geology, and the journey to the Pacific. It's gone from a rustic picnic area to an oasis on the way to Hells Canyon. Idaho is called "The Gem State",and the term applies to this park. Friendly, clean, plenty of facilities, with spectacular scenery. read more

We stayed in Lewiston in May and looked over the RV camping. Came back this week and couldn't be more pleased! We stayed in Aspen #27 next to the camp host. Being newbies, we surely entertained them with our inexperienced ways. But Tammie and Don were definitely the hosts with the most. Helpful and understanding! Park was clean, raked and someone threw in some deer for scenery! read more

NO River Views...but they charge for them. They Do NOT honor Disabled Discount Pass from other states, Good Sam, AARP or AAA. Staff NOT helpful - AVOID THIS PARK! There are only 9 sites with full RV hookups and the young man at the kiosk entrance couldn't tell us if any were available, so we had to drive another 2 miles into the campground to see what was available. Keep driving and find another park you'll thank me. PS: You hear the Highway noise all night, it's across the river (no views of the river, but you can hear the semi's all night) read more

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Best park i visited so far .. so much love .. its very good for barbecue .. gather .. swimming and relax .. read more

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I do not know who named this place but clearly there is no gate to hell. Upon entering this park my eyes were delightfully greeted with green grass tall trees and very clean surroundings. There were people running around but they were not yelling and screaming like a certain state park I had went to recently. It was quite blissful. The RV area is very nice and clean and well organized and not stacked up on each other. There is an archery range a really cool museum lots of places to ride horses and very safe. read more

Great, beautiful location. Has a lovely porch swing on the cabin porch and we enjoyed a lovely fire in the pit outside. But there are spiders in the cabins! I booked two nights and ended up not staying the second night because I just couldn't deal with the yellow spiders all over the place, including ON THE BED! There is no bathroom in the cabin, you have to walk to a public park bathroom and there are lots of mosquitos in the stalls and in the showers. If you stay here, bring bug spray!! read more

The staff greeted us immediately when we arrived. Our checkin was a smooth process and we were grateful after such a long drive. Our site was clean and ready for us. Each loop has their own awesome camp host. We will be back soon! read more

I'm beginning to think it's a State of Idaho thing but their parks check-in people all seem to have a poor customer service attitude. We pulled in about 12:30 pm to inquire if they had openings for us for two nights. We were told they had two spots but that we would not be allowed to check in until after 2:00 pm. We offered to pay to hold a spot and then return after two but they refused. We returned at 1:55 pm and there were three people ahead of us checking in, all before the magic 2 pm. Fortunately we did get the only remaining spot, just ahead of the next person in line. Had we have waited until after 2 as instructed, we would have been out of luck. When I mentioned how upset I would have been to the clerk she asked the other clerk, who had first turned me away, why we weren't allowed to pay and hold the spot. He simply replied that "it's not allowed." There was no further discussion. read more

We had our wedding at Hell's Gate Park just a couple days ago. Some of the park staff were really helpful thank you (Charlie) ... But some other park staff we're completely rude!!! Some of the park hosts were just unbelievably rude!! One of the Night Park Rangers had such an attitude and a chip on his shoulder apparently you are supposed to go to bed at 10 o'clock..... you're not allowed to talk or even go to the bathroom and if you do not comply with the Night Park Ranger Asshole... He has no problems calling the Sheriff to your campsite. Despite his attitude and rudeness my Good buddy Pete wished him a Merry Christmas.. and our wedding and guests was all it could have been!!! ( absolutley beautiful ) P.S. we packed our stuff and left he next morning and I will never return... read more

I've re-visited the visitor center here a couple of times during jaunts to Pullman when it's been too hot up there to sit still. The whole area can get like an unbearable oven, and the only thing left to do is find a place near the river. There are darling looking cabins next to the river, and plenty of RV plugins. The visitor center has a lot of fun souvenirs as well as some movies about Lewis and Clark and the Nez Perce Indians. You can also hook up to a lot of information about day trips into Hell's Canyon, along their route down the river. read more

Stayed a couple of days. Clean, staff was very nice in office!! Not much of a river view from camp sites, trees, bushes and rocky walk. Good swim beach but a bit of a walk from camp sites. Can get jet boat tours from marina adjacent to park. Good mountain bike trails along river and hills. Good walking paths all over park. Lots of people camping.... busy campground but still quiet and nice. read more

As a local, we regularly take our kids to this park. It is beautiful. There are locations for swimming, picnicking, and hiking. They have many campsites and rent cabins. We have not spent the night there, so I am unable to comment on the facilities associated with that. As a day-use user, we have always been pleased with the friendly staff, clean park, and the occasional educational event. The park is a great asset to the area. The kids loved learning about disc golf. They have a great course there. They also have playground equipment for the kiddos. read more

Very nice park with very friendly and helpful camp hosts. The sites are along the river near the swim beach with great bicycle or walking trails. The aroma of flowers is all over the campground when we stayed in April and around memorial day 2015. We will be back! read more

Park is OK, but not good value. Priced in the high end commercial RV park range... $40 - 45 plus tax depending on whether you need to pay $5 daily for tow vehicle pass. That is not included unlike most other western states, Colorado, etc. The Idaho state parks are probably $20 more daily based on my recent (2015) experience. Hells Gate also did not have sewer at the site or wifi as compared to Cherry Creek in Denver for $26 per day with tow. I will look elsewhere next year...do not recommend until they reevaluate pricing their policy. read more

This is the worst campground I've ever stayed at. Please, please do not stay here. If you insist on camping in this region's unbearable heat, go to Chief Timothy in Clarkston, Washington (a few minutes west of Lewiston, with cabins at about $65 a night, plus fees). Everything about Chief Timothy is superior, including the nice breeze from the water. If you just need a cheap place to stay, go to Motel 6 in Clarkston, Washington (~$49 a night for two people). Seriously. It's more expensive than a campsite at Hells Gate ($16-24), but it is cheaper than the cabins (~$65 a night), and you get your very own bathroom. The cabins at both parks have two full beds, one twin bunk and electricity. They don't have toilets, showers, kitchenettes, or water spigots, so they cost too much for what you get. You can stay in a yurt at an Eastern Oregon state park for $37,and there won't be any A/C, but it will be bigger and more comfortable and there will be a clean, comfortable, shared bathroom one minute away by paved path. I don't mind roughing it (I love it, actually, in cooler weather), but I do mind roughing it for $65 a night, plus reservation fees. (If you do decide to stay at Hells Gate, make sure you look at the official map of the campground and pick a site or cabin very near a bathroom, and if you plan to drive out often, pick a site close to the front gate to limit drive time.) Problems at Hells Gate: *The bathrooms are absolutely unacceptable (they smell AWFUL [notes of dog urine on a moldy mattress]; they are at least 10 degrees and 30% humidity higher than the outdoors; at one point during our trip there was no toilet paper at all; there are no soap dispensers or soap; the shower stall walls are about 5' tall [yes, Virginia, you can look right over them]; the showers don't have a shelf or bench or anything to put your clothes on; and the water gets extremely hot and extremely cold, suddenly and randomly) *The bathrooms are a five-minute walk from the cabins and many of the campsites *When you walk 5 minutes to the bathroom, you will have to decide whether to add two minutes by walking on the poorly planned path, or cutting through other people's campsites to get there more quickly. That means you're walking through sharp, dead plant material which will get into your sandals and make your feet bleed (the bleeding and limping also add to the commute) *The cabin parking is a few hundred feet away from the cabins, or further, if you use the path, so you have to haul all your stuff a great distance over the sharp, dead plant material (if you aren't wearing sandals, it sticks to your socks) *The mattress pads are about 2" of sad foam inside a waterproof case. It's basically like sleeping on the floor. My hurt-back friend had to take the twin mattress and put that on top of the full bed for a double layer *The cabins cost about $20 more than a room at Motel 6 (hotel rooms have A/C, bathrooms, AND showers--in the room!) *The picnic tables near the cabins are made of a dark metal that gets up to about EIGHT THOUSAND DEGREES in the Idaho sun *The signage is not welcoming (DO NOT do this! If you do THIS you will be ASKED TO LEAVE! If you DAMAGE anything you will PAY! No COOKING! No COFFEE MAKERS! No LEAVING CABIN WITH A/C ON!) *The place looks like an RV park. There is basically a huge lawn with parking pads on it, and some trees and manicured flower plots, and then a whole lot of people stuffed in, too close to each other. It looks like a dog park with a bunch of cars parked on it *The park is located more or less in the industrial area of the town of Lewiston. It is like 5 minutes from their downtown (this was a problem for us) In short, we hated nearly every minute of our stay here. I am so thankful we didn't reserve more nights than we did. We did have fun making up slogans for the park, though! It was too hot to go outside, so we had a lot of time to work on them. Here are two of my favorites: *Hells Gate State Park: You gotta laugh, or you'll cry! (But don't laugh too hard or you might pee and there is no toilet paper.) *Once you go to Hells Gate State Park, you never go back! read more

I have never met more unprofessional and such rude people ever! Last summer while I was on a very long road trip (military transfer) from Alaska to Maine, I stopped in to visit my brother who worked there at the time. After visiting for a short while we decided we wanted to head into town for lunch. I was towing a camper trailer and asked my brother if there was a place where I could top off my water tank before we left. He led me down to the RV park thinking it would be ok to get some water from there, boy were we wrong!! As soon as I pulled in some lady ran up to my truck and without even introducing herself started chewing me out , wondering who I was, what I was doing there, who did I think I was just rolling up into "her" campground and on and on. This was all from the passenger side of my truck were my wife was sitting and in front of my young children in the back seat who were now crying and scared to death. When I finally got a word in and explained what my intentions where and that I would be out of there in 5 minutes, she very loudly stated that I was not allowed to be there and the she was calling the park ranger and stormed off to her "Volunteer spot". We were in a state of shock wondering what the heck just happened and decided it was probably best to just leave. On the way out we were cornered by the park ranger who asked what was going on, my brother explained the incident. The ranger pointed at me and said "Have a good day sir, get the heck out of here". So I just left and later met up with my brother in town after he was told to leave for the day. All of this over some water... Nice way to treat your Veterans passing through. read more

We stopped and stayed in a cabin for a couple nights on our way back from MT to OR. Very clean cabins, clean showers and bathrooms. Close to town, lots of wildlife moves through this campground. Swimming area and playground were well kept. read more

I have only been the beach here. It is a very large sized beach for the river but most of it has gravel sized rocks all over it which makes very hard to walk on unless you are always wearing flip flops or shoes. The beach area also has bathrooms which are nothing you want to go into to. There is also a volleyball court and a playground for the kids. You do have to pay $5 per vehicle to get there however. Is a great place to take the kids for the day as there is plenty of stuff for them to do there not some place I would recommend relaxing on the river though between all the kids running and screaming everywhere. read more