Loft Mountain Campground

T-Mobile was ~1 Mbps download and about 1 Mbps upload. Some marginal AT&T coverage worse than T-Mobile. Starlink worked as intended but it would be heavily dependent on the site's tree cover. T-Mobile speeds taken with a roof mounted Pepwave MIMO antenna. AT&T via phone.

We picked this campground as it was the only one with FCFS sites and some sites without complete tree cover for solar/Starlink. Some sites would get full production, most won't. The one we ended up in generated less and half of our normal solar production.

We arrived on a Monday morning and there were a lot of FCFS sites to choose from. That was consistent all week until Thursday evening when it filled up. Most of the campground was empty even though the sites were booked in typical fashion. The only access is via Skyline Drive which wasn't too bad with a 30 ft Airstream. There are a lot of low hanging branches and branches hanging into the road though, so we couldn't avoid some pinstripes. The campground road is in good shape. 

Our site was unlevel and we needed to max out our hitch jack and Anderson blocks to get it usable. There was also an encroaching tree that prevented us from using our awning. Lot spacing where we were in the loop was very good with lots of privacy. 

Some construction was going on during the day in the picnic/day use area that generated a fair amount of noise. 

Laundry, dump, potable water fill, and a camp store are all available.

We camped here with family while we were on a cross country trip. Holy cow, the sunset. Seriously one of the most amazing I have ever seen. Ask a ranger for info to see it. We also did the waterfall hike.

We did not have a reservation, which was not a good idea (even in late September). First site/night we couldn't get our truck camper level at all. We moved to an inner loop site (D124) which was great but did back up to the bathroom (which was convenient with the toddlers).

For those on a road trip - they had recycling! The showers were clean but coin operated. Camp shop was well equipped.

The above rate reflect the 50% Senior Pass discount.
This is a typical national park campground. Large enough (some level, some not so much) driveways and ample sitting areas which offer a good to excellent degree of privacy. The largest of rigs can be accommodated here with proper care while choosing a site. While most sites offer excellent shade, you can still get ample sun for solar as I was able to at most sites, even those with lots of shade. Cell coverage with Verizon is completely hit or miss. The most bars I ever saw were 2 and the signal was there and then gone constantly, seemingly everywhere I went near Loft Mtn. campground.
No hookups here, though there is a dump station with a potable water fill. The showers at the camp store (I was told they are open 24-7) are certainly adequate for a fee of $5 for 10 ten minutes. Would have been nice if more than 2 of the 4 on the men's side were in working order. The laundry is second to none. 3 washers (1 was out of order) and six dryers. Washers are $1 and you can do a pretty hefty sized load. The dryers are a quarter for 10 minutes and I can't image having to use more than 50 cents to thoroughly dry even the largest and heaviest load. I did three huge loads (sheets, blankets, clothes, etc) for a total of $4.50.
I had no reservations and was able to easily find a first-come first-serve (FF) site on Wednesday the week before July 4th. There is, however, a new reservation system which I have not seen before. There is a color-coded map laying this out. For 2023, there are a total of 27 RV/tent sites in the A Loop which are FF (site numbers printed in black). There are 37 FF sites for tent-only. Then, there are 74 "red" sites for RV/Tent and 9 red sites for tent-only. These sites can be reserved 6 months in advance. Then there are 40 "green" RV/Tent sites which can be reserved 2 weeks in advance. Finally, a total of 15 RV/Tent sites and 5 tent-only sites are shaded in "blue" which are eligible to be reserved only 4 days ahead of time.
While I would most definitely prefer all sites to be FF, I guess this is an attempt at a happy medium so folks who want/need to reserve can do so without having to make plans 6 months ahead of time.
Meh!

I wanted A loop which is FCFS. We arrived on a Tuesday evening and found 2 great outside sites left on A loop. Plus additional inner loop sites. We chose A59.
While we didn’t have a direct view, we just had to walk a few feet behind our site on to the Appalachian Trail to get a great view!
Quiet and peaceful (our neighbor did run a generator but not often). Some of the best mountain camping we’ve done in a while.

The site next to us, A60 had a Little Rock terrace behind their site with an amazing sunset view!

There is a lot of shade but several people had solar panels. If your able to manage the location, you should be ok.

It’s not next to the main visitors center, but in good proximity to what we wanted and loved the campground!

We were there June 2023 and there is road construction working it’s way up skyline drive. If you are driving mid day, be prepared for stops up to an hour. We hit the construction on our way back going south and had a hilarious conversation with the construction worker. Had to wait about 30 mins.

I travelled here with a 35’ 5th wheel, long bed pickup and parked in the site #F175, a dry, PT site for $15/night with an America the Beautiful Sr. Pass. Roads and sites are asphalt. As with most NP’s the road was on the narrow side, but it was okay as I went slow. This site had clear sky overhead which was good for my solar panels. The picnic area was to the back of the site though. Some sites angled the wrong way off the access road which limits them to tent campers or small rigs. The website says there is no cell service in the CG, but I randomly got up to 2 bars LTE with Verizon. I could make calls, check my email (without opening links) and do some basic web search. Brown Mountain Overlook between MM 76 and 77 had a pretty good signal. Sometimes the parking lot at the CG store was good as well. This site was very spacious and quiet. Being on a no generator loop helped with noise. Many sites were sloped. Since this was a pull through site parallel to the road, the rig was sloped back to front. I ended up with my front jacks being almost fully extended which I did not like. Bathrooms were heated and clean. Showers were only available at the camp store for $.25 for 4 minutes. Laundry was $1W/$.25 for 10 minutes of drying. Great deal. Other sites to consider for a larger rig include: A70, A78, B86, D111, D129, E158, E160, and F170 (I took slope, size, access and solar compatibility into account.) I also scoped Big Meadows – lots of shade here so 190 was the best if you rely on solar. 222 may get some sun. Lewis CG was more appropriate for smaller rigs but 30 and 31 might be possible. Good hiking all around and the fall colors were lovely. I would stay here again.

Loft Mountain Campground is located in the southern portion of Shenandoah National Park. In this video, I provide a walking tour of Loft Mountain Campground in Shenandoah National Park and show the best campsites. T-Mobile cellular service clocked in at 0.06 Mbps download speed and 0.05 Mbps upload speed. Both Verizon and AT&T cellular service was one bar LTE and a speed test failed due to poor connectivity.

We spent a night at Loft Mountain CG while taking a leaf peeping trip down Skyline Dr./Blueridge Pkwy. The staff were nice and friendly. It's a good backup to Big Meadows CG (which I would rate a bit better) a bit to the north. The bathrooms are very clean and well kept, as you would expect in a NP. Being mid-late Oct the CG wasn't at all crowded, which was welcome as the sites are fairly close together. Most of the site I saw were not very level, I think ours was off by about 8" so expect to sleep on an incline or come prepared for serious leveling. The park itself is well known for it's outstanding scenery and never disappoints.

Large campsites with good space between sites. Most are First Come, First Serve, which I love. I'm sure it fills up at times but when I was there it wasn't close to full. It's a bit pricey for a National Park. Close to Appalachian Trail. Bathroom was clean. Coin operated showers are available at $2.50 for 5 minutes at the store which also has a laundry. Check in was easy and they let me pick my own site.

After staying in some fantastic state parks, my initial impression of Loft Mt Campground was quite negative. I reminded myself that this is a NP campground and that I should adjust my expectations. OK so I tried. Eventually, I figured out that the decrepit picnic table was overdriving my impression. It was in really bad shape and should be replaced. Once I decided to ignore the picnic table, I gave this campground four stars (on the National Park scale).

The Verizon coverage was variable, jumping to 2 LTEs at times and then fading to nothing. AT&T was consistently "no service".