Bessey Recreation Complex

Great place to camp and ride ATVs. Staff has always been fantastic! Campground is well maintained and mowed. Middle Loup River runs right by campground. You can tube the river, its short trip, about hour or so but you can always go again. You can also fish from river or the fishing pond with a real nice fishing peer. Hiking, bike riding, ATVing, River tubing, fishing, star gazing, take a drive to just enjoy the sand hills are all things you can do. Horse riding (bring your own horse) is also available, there are 2 separate primitive campgrounds that are setup for horses. We have been going to Bessey Campground for years. I would recommend it. We are heartbroken that the 2 fires have really changed the forest, many, many trees destroyed. So please always be careful with campfires, have spark arresters on exhausts and carry a fire extinguisher on your ATVs, just be mindful of anything that would lead to an out of control fire. Especially when dry conditions exist.

Workers were very rude. One heavy set blonde gal in particular. Instead of trying to have a conversation with us, she straight up yelled at us. You never know what someone may be going through so ALWAYS be kind. We couldn't go on the trails for 2 days because of down trees from a storm. All 10 plus workers were in the camp ground cutting down 1 downed tree in a campsite that had no occupants or any occupants coming in that day. The employees drove through camp well over the 10 mph speed limit. We've been going there for years, Bessy & whitetail have ALWAYS been packed with campers. We were there 8 days, 4 of those days were weekend days. There was hardly a soul ANYWHERE. There's very little for trails to ride the way it is. We won't be coming back until you decide to reopen some trails. Bubba/Ranger Bob didn't have 9 other workers helping him. He did it all and still made sure he rode the trails. 100 percent disappointed...

Beautiful park!! Stopped here on way
to South Dakota. Would definitely come here and stay again!

Beautiful, quiet (except for our nephew and his wife, the place was nearly empty while we were there), floating the river in tubes was fun (dang, no feed tanks like in the Visit NE commercials!). Nephew took us all over the place in his UTV. A lot of the area had burned, but there's still a lot of forest.

Absolutely a beautiful, clean and quiet park. Shower houses are nice. Trails offer beautiful sites!! Family voted this needs to be an annual event!!

Nice walking trails. We were car camping and the bathrooms were a little bit far. But I liked that the bathrooms were very clean.

The weather was not as nice as we hoped, but that is all on mother nature. The trails and campground were great and we hope to go back again in the spring!

Beautiful quiet location!

The sandhills area of NE is interesting to see. Except for this planted forest, there are few trees. The complex has an informative visitor center, sports court, dump station, and large clean private showers. They raise millions of seedlings every year to replant parks and national monuments all over the US. There are some hiking trails. The area experienced a devastating fire last year which is evident near the Scott lookout tower. There is excellent 5G cell coverage from Verizon in the campground. The sites are located in full shade. There is electricity at the sites, but water is from hydrants. I recommend the area for its interesting history. One caution is that it isn't far from the railroad tracks and coal trains rubble by day and night. They aren't noticeable during the day but at night you may want earplugs.