Spearfish KOA

I know some people don’t like KOAs but we find them affordable and reliable. This KOA is one of the best we have stayed at. The grounds were immaculate, the staff extremely helpful and friendly and the location convenient. Nice perks like an escort to your site, trash pickup at your site and easy access to a nature trail with an off leash area for dogs right along Spearfish Creek. Our dog loved it! We particularly enjoyed the shade trees and grass as we are travelers from the southwest.

The KOA was very easy to find right off I 90 and US 85. Check-in was quick and easy and we were guided to pull in site 65 with FHUs. The utilities are smartly placed in the middle of the pad. Our pad was plenty long enough for our 39 fifth wheel and F450 truck. The staff was super nice and helpful and the campground (CG) was well-maintained. We used their laundry room with 6 washers and 6 dryers for $2 a wash and $2 to dry. A bonus was that the dryers actually dried the clothes in 30 minutes. We were right across from their small fenced dog park. We were also close to the 7.5-mile nature trail entrance from the park to the river, which was great for walking our dogs. The CG has curbside trash pick-up plus firewood & ice for sale. The WiFi was above average for a park this size. We got two bars on Verizon. There are trees in the CG, but not enough to prevent you from getting a satellite shot into the sky. Guests with dogs here do not pick up after their dogs in the dog park and especially along the back side of the CG where we were staying. We saw dog poops all over the place and witnessed several times out our back window, and in the dog park, people not picking up after their dogs. The CG doesn't seem to enforce picking up after your pet. There is a lot to see and do in the area. As we were here in October, the leaves were changing in Spearfish Canyon and we enjoyed a really nice leaf peeper drive, and then visited Deadwood, which was having its Octoberfest.

Basic cabin allows dogs, which is why I rented this one. I paid $80/night for the off season. It’s alright. The biggest thing we missed (compared to the state gfp cabins) is the lack of any shelving to set food/supplies on. We piled everything on top of one of the beds. Bed comfort is ok. Padding didn’t look like much but was surprisingly sleep-able. I think it would be a good campground if we had a camper to pull in. They do provide WiFi campground wide, which was great for downloading hiking maps and the kids to watch a movie.

Given that it’s common to park your tow vehicle at many rv parks at a diagonal at the end of your site, these “deluxe” sites were more cramped than usual. While they had some much longer deluxe sites for the same price, they assigned us to a site that would fit our fifth wheel but not our truck. They knew from the reservation that it was a 42’ fifth wheel with a tow vehicle. There were many others in the same predicament in our row and we were parked in several times by our neighbors because they had no other place to park.