Canyon Country Campground

UNFRIENDLY Campground Owners. I took my 4 year old son to tour the campground and was extremely disappointed in the treatment at the office. If you want a great camping experience… this is not the place to get it. Don’t waste your time or money here. There are many nicer campgrounds in the area.

We love the Wellsboro area, and this was our third visit to Canyon Country Campground.
The campground is small, rustic, and privately-​owned, which is nice since you get personalized attention from owners Jim and Lindy and their dog Misty. The whole campground is heavily wooded, which increases the sense of privacy, although (as with most campgrounds) you cannot reserve a specific site and you are placed on the smallest site that will accommodate your rig, even if larger sites are available.
This time around we were placed on site 3, which accommodated our 26′ travel trailer well enough, but required creative parking in order to fit my truck on the site as well. We wound up having to squeeze the truck in along the front edge of the trailer and at the very edge of the woods, which didn’t leave us any room to walk around the entire truck (we had to squeeze around the passenger side and some trees in order to get into our camper). I saw other campers park their tow vehicles perpendicularly at the rear of their sites.
The sewer pipe is the non-​threaded type, so you will need either a rubber sewer hose seal, or use some of the plentiful rocks to weigh down the fitting end. Also, the sewer hose is mid-​site, and my RV drain is at the rear of my rig, and this particular site is un-​level enough that my sewer hose had to run uphill from my camper to the pipe. I remedied this by placing more rocks under my sewer hose support to get the hose more level, but I still had to manually lift the hose along its length as I was emptying the tanks.
There is no cable tv here, our antenna didn’t pick up any channels, and we had very weak cellular service (although there is a pay phone by the office!). WiFi is available only in close proximity to the office, and the network is password protected. The rate chart says that only the first hour is free, but Jim told us that the policy is in place just to keep kids from hogging all the bandwidth, and that he wouldn’t charge us if we went over an hour (we wound up not using it anyway).
Speaking of kids, there is very little for them to do here… except to actually, you know, CAMP. The «playground» is very small, and the game room houses only a pool table and an air hockey table. But there is a nice trail that you can use to hike to Leonard Harrison State Park and the edge of the «Grand Canyon» which we love taking our dogs on (takes us about 15 – 20 minutes).
We didn’t use the bathrooms or showers, but I did check them out and they looked very clean. There is also a laundry and dish washing station available.
This is our go-​to place when we visit the area, and we look forward to returning.

Firstly, I called to make a reservation at this campground but had to leave a message on their voicemail– not a problem. When my phone call was returned, the woman on the other line was kind of rude; it was off-​putting. Her tone was condescending when I asked for a «permit» instead of a «reservation»; slip of the tongue. She immediately went on a diatribe about how they didn’t have those there and if I wanted a permit, I’d have to call the state park, etc. and she wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise. She sounded about ready to hang up before I was able to correct myself and say that I was sorry and that I meant to say I wanted a reservation. So afterwards, I reserved a spot and I was told it would cost about $ 30 down payment over the phone and then about $ 30 when we arrived to the site.
So we get to the site after the office had closed on the day of our arrival, but there was a Late Arrivals board with our name on it. Most noticeably, each site is VERY open with little privacy. There isn’t much brush or thick trees around each site; you’re on display for everyone else in the surrounding sites or passers by to see. Also the sites are on on top of each other; there is very little space between each site. If you have kids, this is probably great for you in terms of keeping an eye on them. But we were a small group of a few adults who came out to the Grand Canyon of PA to enjoy nature and not be up other people’s ying yangs as we are forced to be in our everyday lives as it is. There were also a lot of families with loud children there, and there was no separation to even muffle a little of the sound. Again, probably a great spot if you have kids, but not if you want peace, quiet, and privacy. They do however have quiet hours starting at 10pm.
Because we arrived after hours and in the dark, we settled in the wrong site and were asked to move the next morning. We had no problem with this and moved our tents and equipment quickly and without any issues. Then we had to register in the office during business hours. We were charged close to $ 100 for our single tent site. Now we’ve stayed at the Leonard Harrison State Park camp site before and paid about $ 12 total for our stay. The price alone is a reason not to stay here. The people at the front desk were very rude and demanding, not at all welcoming. They had a lot of attitude and hostility toward us, I think because we accidentally set up in the wrong spot (which was not reserved) but we moved our things when they asked without a problem. Also we heard one of the workers at the site yelling, «Look what they did!!!» when they were emptying our recycling bin because we had put cans AND bottles in our recycling bin instead of just cans. Apparently, it was ‘Cans Only’, but the writing on our bin was rubbing off/​covered up with dirt. Sorry for recycling! How dare we. Also, what are you supposed to do with the plastic bottles then? Just toss them? We ended up taking our bottles home to recycle them.
Also at night, one of the men who works at the site drives around on a golf cart and shines his flashlight into your campsite and will actually get off the golf cart and walk around with his flash light and check out your site multiple times per night. What is this, an NSA-​run campsite? Again, we came out here for privacy and a peaceful weekend, which we did not get.
I will say the bathrooms were maintained very well and were extremely clean compared to other sites at which we have camped. Also the Grand Canyon of PA was a relatively short hike away, which was convenient and nice.
So I would say this campsite is best for you if you have children; you don’t mind paying a lot of money for things; you don’t care about privacy or tranquility in your campsite; you’re a neat freak/​germophobe when it comes to bathrooms (but keep in mind that you’re camping. Outside. In the woods. Really.)