Black Hills area campgrounds and my Big Pine comments
Chad said
12:51 PM Feb 1, 2007
Lets hear it, the good, bad and ugly on campgrounds in the Black Hills, Custer, Badlands and Rapid City area.
I'll be headed out there this June for 9 days. We last were out there 4 years ago and stayed the majority of our time in Big Pine Campground.
While Big Pine was a nice, shaded campground in the middle of the tourism area a mile or two west of Custer and was HEAVILY touted as the best campground in the area, I am one of the only people that ever encountered a problem there.
I reserved with them in early March 2003. Picked out 2 campsites (one for our camper and one for my in-laws camper) one had nice level camp space so my sister in law and her husband could tent camp on our spot and the other was a general camp space right next to ours. The problem came as we arrived at Big Pine. We were given our spot tags and I noticed they were the sites I had reserved. I questioned why, and he said someone without reservations came in the last week and he let them pick out the camp spot they wanted, even knowing I had reserved a specific spot. He gave me the option to have them move to another site, but they were out touring around at the time.
Of course I wasn't going to make someone move, I'll be the nice guy. He said the spots he had is in now were just as nice. WRONG. While the camp spots were in fact nice, the ones we were in were fairly rocky and not as large. My sister in law couldn't find a spot to setup their tent and ended up staying in our camper. To make matters worse, the people who had "our" site ended up coming back in around 11pm. They were loud (maybe drunk) and didn't stop until it started to rain at 2am. We put up with them every night until we left a week later.
Now, Big Pine as a whole is a nice campground, with possibly too gracious of hosts. the bathrooms were clean and the game room was nice for kids. No pool, but still nice. Someone came around every morning and cleared out our fire ring at 10am.
I am probably the only person who had had a problem at Big Pine, but we will not be staying there this coming year. We have many options, care to share your experiences?
-- Edited by Chad at 12:52, 2007-02-01
Workinrvers said
02:09 PM Feb 1, 2007
Sorry to hear about your troubles on your prior trip. We went to the "Hills" in 05 and stayed at Rafter Bar J in Hill City. It was recomended by friends and was very nice. I will stay there again next time we are in that area.
Niles and Deb said
05:53 PM Feb 1, 2007
Here is the web site for the campground that Phil-Bob was talking about.
www.rafterj.com
It's the ONLY place we stay when we are in THE HILLS.
We started going out in 1992 and have missed very few years, since then. We go for BIKE WEEK in August. ENJOY your trip and stay at the RAFTER J. It's like a 5 star hotel.
Niles and Deb
tatkinson said
04:09 PM Feb 2, 2007
We, too, are sorry to hear you had problems at Big Pine....we stayed there for a week in the summer of 2005 and had an absolutely wonderful time and experience. It would have been perfect if my husband hadn't gotten a very painful sinus infection. But, we were treated well and loved our spot. It's a little far from Rapid City if you want to go into the "big city", but it was worth the drive for us. We would stay there again in a heartbeat.
I'll be headed out there this June for 9 days. We last were out there 4 years ago and stayed the majority of our time in Big Pine Campground.
While Big Pine was a nice, shaded campground in the middle of the tourism area a mile or two west of Custer and was HEAVILY touted as the best campground in the area, I am one of the only people that ever encountered a problem there.
I reserved with them in early March 2003. Picked out 2 campsites (one for our camper and one for my in-laws camper) one had nice level camp space so my sister in law and her husband could tent camp on our spot and the other was a general camp space right next to ours. The problem came as we arrived at Big Pine. We were given our spot tags and I noticed they were the sites I had reserved. I questioned why, and he said someone without reservations came in the last week and he let them pick out the camp spot they wanted, even knowing I had reserved a specific spot. He gave me the option to have them move to another site, but they were out touring around at the time.
Of course I wasn't going to make someone move, I'll be the nice guy. He said the spots he had is in now were just as nice. WRONG. While the camp spots were in fact nice, the ones we were in were fairly rocky and not as large. My sister in law couldn't find a spot to setup their tent and ended up staying in our camper. To make matters worse, the people who had "our" site ended up coming back in around 11pm. They were loud (maybe drunk) and didn't stop until it started to rain at 2am. We put up with them every night until we left a week later.
Now, Big Pine as a whole is a nice campground, with possibly too gracious of hosts. the bathrooms were clean and the game room was nice for kids. No pool, but still nice. Someone came around every morning and cleared out our fire ring at 10am.
I am probably the only person who had had a problem at Big Pine, but we will not be staying there this coming year. We have many options, care to share your experiences?
-- Edited by Chad at 12:52, 2007-02-01
Here is the web site for the campground that Phil-Bob was talking about.
www.rafterj.com
It's the ONLY place we stay when we are in THE HILLS.
We started going out in 1992 and have missed very few years, since then. We go for BIKE WEEK in August. ENJOY your trip and stay at the RAFTER J. It's like a 5 star hotel.
Niles and Deb