Fish Creek Campground

Our site A33 was perfect. Nice and private. The campground was quiet and peaceful. We were there the second week of June.

My husband and I stayed at Fish Creek for our honeymoon and we had a great time! We chose the C loop because it did not allow generators but all of the loops seemed very quiet. They had ranger led programs at the amphitheatre which were really great for all ages. We did have a mix up with someone staying in our site the first night, they were supposed to move sites but did not realize that. It was late and the camp host was super helpful. We didn't want to make someone uproot their whole campsite late at night and Terry the camp host was able to find us a site for the night and the next day it was resolved and we stayed in our booked site. I'm happy we booked Fish Creek because it's off the main road so you don't get any traffic for the going to the sun road.

Feels like the Pacific NW, woodsy with light coming through the trees. Tent area is a bit sloped but not terrible. Bathrooms are a hike - c loop was not fully working while we were there so we walked to D which is a hike. The posted flyer suggested going to the amphitheatre bathroom which is even further. Bathrooms were kind of messy with pools of water and lots of dead bugs. Showers in a loop were also dirty and unpleasant. You can cut through the woods to the lake directly behind the site or walk up to the boathouse on c loop. Our site has trash from previous campers and the shared bear box was too far away to be useful.

Nice campground. My site had a large parking space. I could fit two cars there. Flat and open. Clean vault toilets. Very very quiet. I think it's almost the perfect campground. Road to get here sucks though. Roads doesn't look very maintained.

Absolutely stunning campground. Great location. Not too busy which was nice as it felt more relaxed and quiet. Close to the water. Amazing!

Lovely campground with ample shade, the restroom on our loop was down and they had protolets but this wasn’t an issue for us. Great ranger led programs at the amphitheater. We would absolutely stay here again.

Very nice campground, clean sites, friendly camphosts, bathrooms closed for repairs though.

This was the better choice of the campgrounds I visited nearest the GTTSR. It is a short enough drive from the West Entrance, very heavily wooded, and a lot quieter than others. It is the best choice for me and my style of camping. Apgar was more populated and busy I heard every noise from people and kept me up until 1:30AM, Avalanche (I did not stay at overnight) looked crowded and may be the same experience as Apgar. St. Mary campground was desolate looking, like a wide open prairie. Lots of sun for solar without shade it would be a challenge in the heat with no power. So that is why I vote Fish Creek a 5-star and the best place to stay near the GTTSR. Now with that said you need to be very wise picking your spot here for your equipment. I have a 20’ travel trailer and just happened to notice a comment right before booking the site saying it was very steep and almost no place to securely park a camper. I brushed it off thinking they were exaggerating but found a different site anyway just to be safe. As I was driving through the campground I was surprised by the number of sites that are in fact up a steep incline and would be very hard for travel trailers to park at so check all site reviews before booking! With that said my 3 night stay at this campground was the best in the park again it was heavily wooded, less people noise and no nearby road noise. D-loop seemed to be the most scenic. It had quite a few spots backed up to running water If I stay here again some day I hope to get in the D-loop. Any loop is great though.

The map does not distinguish that spots A19 and A21 have a HUGE trail between them, our group was split up the whole time which made the whole trip feel disconnected. If booking 2 spots, do not book these together. Additionally, on the map, it appears like the spots are right in front of the water in A loop but there are legitimately 2 stories of narrow stairs you have to go down to access the water. Our group had 6 hard shell kayaks we brought with us and it took us 45 minutes to get everything down to the water and even longer to get everything back up, this made it so we only got in the water 1 time due to the extreme effort. The campground as a whole was pleasant, the showers were average, we saw a black bear outside of camp which was cool and still had an okay time.

We wanted to stay 3 nights in Fish Creek and had 2 nights reserved on 2 separate sites. We eventually were able to get the third night booked on line, but had to go to the Apgar visitor center to gain access to the internet, since the Rangers no longer can help with reservations. This was very challenging. In addition, it is very frustrating that camp sites are marked as reserved, but when you drive around at night and early morning, there are about 50% which are empty. People don't show up and then don't cancel to make those sites available. In fact the first site we had to vacate because it was reserved for the following night by someone else, was never used the next nite. But we had to pack up and move to a new site EVERY day, cutting into our time for touring. I would suggest that while no shows lose their fee , there should be an additional fee that gets added on if they don't show up and then also fail to cancel their online reservation, which would allow more people to actually use the sites. This would require the host to take an inventory each night/morning to determine if there was a no show and then check that the site was actually cancelled online. I also was surprised that ONLY 3 rangers work that side of the park. Used to be 13. They need more help! While the campground and programs are clean and great, it would be nice to see more of the official ranger staff be present. It is part of the NPS ambiance.