Chestnut Ridge Campground is located in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, about ten minutes from Morgantown. It's right down the road from Cooper's Rock. We stayed three nights here, from Thursday to Sunday. This was our first time camping here. We usually stay at Cooper's Rock State Forest but didn't want to deal with their curfew (see my review). I had made a reservation over the phone based on info from their website. We wanted a campground with a lake for swimming, not too far from Morgantown, and with nice private tent sites.
Upon arrival, I started getting an uneasy feeling. From the road, the sites looked like they were pretty close together. The whole campground has a run-down look to it. When we pulled into the office parking lot to check in, the uneasy feeling got worse. The "lake", one of the main reasons we chose CR, was scummy and about six inches deep in the roped-off swimming area. The swimming area was also VERY small! We checked in and went to our site, which was #1 in Tent Area A.
The roads through CR are dirt/rock and are very rutted with a lot of washouts. Our site had a steep road leading up to it and was also in poor condition. Some of the sites (16-19) are VERY difficult to access, even with our 4x4. The sites have tent pads on them, which are timbers nailed into a square with dirt/sand in the middle. Not all the pads are the same size! The camp office has a list of tent pad sizes at each site...if you have a large tent, it's best to check with them ahead of time. We knew immediately that our 12x11 tent wasn't going to fit on the tent pad. Having it hang over one side wouldn't be a problem, but the side that would have to hang over would hang downhill, as right outside the tent pad is the hillside! I tripped on a tree root setting up the tent and nearly fell down the hill.
Each site has a fire ring surrounded by large rocks. The rings are a little small but adequate. You can't take firewood from the forest, since it's a WVU research forest. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop some jerks from doing it anyway. There were a few people with saws cutting down trees while we were there. You can buy firewood at the office--$6.00 for 12 pieces or $11 for 24 pieces. They even have a wheelbarrow to cart it to your vehicle. It's good wood and it burns a long time, not the cheap stuff some campgrounds sell. You can't bring in your own wood since there's a problem with emerald ash-borers.
The sites are nicely wooded with very tall trees. It rained a bit while we were there and the trees do a great job of blocking most of the rain. We were still able to enjoy the campfire while it was raining. Wildlife is plentiful at CR. We were visited by a raccoon the first night. We left out some equipment totes, forgetting that one held a bottle of popcorn oil. The raccoon took the top off the bottle, spilled some on the picnic table and ran off into the forest HOLDING THE BOTTLE! Don't be as stupid as we were! Lots of very tiny birds running around at the sites, as well as chipmunks. I saw two deer in the campground on the way to the restroom late at night. Beautiful!
Ahhh, the restrooms. There are some outhouses scattered around the campground and also some restrooms with flush toilets and sinks. Avoid the outhouses if you can! Disgusting! The other restrooms were pretty dirty though. Not very pleasant. The shower house isn't much better, although the shower stalls (2) are large and the hot water is plentiful. The shower heads aren't the kind you have to keep pushing the button to stay on, either. They're the "shower massage" type! There are rubber mats on the shower floor but watch out for spiders!
The campground is pretty quiet. We were there during Mountain Fest, which is a motorcycle rally, mostly Harleys. There were a number of Harleys in the campground but the bikers behaved fairly well. Alcohol is prohibited, even at your campsite, but the dumpsters were full of empty beer cases. There was a band performing on Saturday night, playing bluegrass and hillbilly music. It's free to attend. The stage is near the office and everyone sits on the hillside to listen to the band. Apparently they do this often at Chestnut Ridge. The band wasn't terribly loud and they didn't play very late.
If you plan on tent camping here, check out Tent Area B first. The terrain looked more tent-friendly but still not very private.
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