Hells Gate State Park

We stopped and stayed in a cabin for a couple nights on our way back from MT to OR. Very clean cabins, clean showers and bathrooms. Close to town, lots of wildlife moves through this campground. Swimming area and playground were well kept.

As a local, we regularly take our kids to this park. It is beautiful. There are locations for swimming, picnicking, and hiking. They have many campsites and rent cabins. We have not spent the night there, so I am unable to comment on the facilities associated with that. As a day-​use user, we have always been pleased with the friendly staff, clean park, and the occasional educational event. The park is a great asset to the area. The kids loved learning about disc golf. They have a great course there. They also have playground equipment for the kiddos.

Very nice park with very friendly and helpful camp hosts. The sites are along the river near the swim beach with great bicycle or walking trails. The aroma of flowers is all over the campground when we stayed in April and around memorial day 2015. We will be back!

I’m beginning to think it’s a State of Idaho thing but their parks check-​in people all seem to have a poor customer service attitude. We pulled in about 12:30 pm to inquire if they had openings for us for two nights. We were told they had two spots but that we would not be allowed to check in until after 2:00 pm. We offered to pay to hold a spot and then return after two but they refused.
We returned at 1:55 pm and there were three people ahead of us checking in, all before the magic 2 pm. Fortunately we did get the only remaining spot, just ahead of the next person in line. Had we have waited until after 2 as instructed, we would have been out of luck. When I mentioned how upset I would have been to the clerk she asked the other clerk, who had first turned me away, why we weren’t allowed to pay and hold the spot. He simply replied that «it’s not allowed.» There was no further discussion.

This is the worst campground I’ve ever stayed at.
Please, please do not stay here. If you insist on camping in this region’s unbearable heat, go to Chief Timothy in Clarkston, Washington (a few minutes west of Lewiston, with cabins at about $ 65 a night, plus fees). Everything about Chief Timothy is superior, including the nice breeze from the water. If you just need a cheap place to stay, go to Motel 6 in Clarkston, Washington (~$ 49 a night for two people). Seriously. It’s more expensive than a campsite at Hells Gate ($ 16 – 24), but it is cheaper than the cabins (~$ 65 a night), and you get your very own bathroom.
The cabins at both parks have two full beds, one twin bunk and electricity. They don’t have toilets, showers, kitchenettes, or water spigots, so they cost too much for what you get. You can stay in a yurt at an Eastern Oregon state park for $ 37,and there won’t be any A/​C, but it will be bigger and more comfortable and there will be a clean, comfortable, shared bathroom one minute away by paved path. I don’t mind roughing it (I love it, actually, in cooler weather), but I do mind roughing it for $ 65 a night, plus reservation fees.
(If you do decide to stay at Hells Gate, make sure you look at the official map of the campground and pick a site or cabin very near a bathroom, and if you plan to drive out often, pick a site close to the front gate to limit drive time.)
Problems at Hells Gate:
*The bathrooms are absolutely unacceptable (they smell AWFUL [notes of dog urine on a moldy mattress]; they are at least 10 degrees and 30% humidity higher than the outdoors; at one point during our trip there was no toilet paper at all; there are no soap dispensers or soap; the shower stall walls are about 5′ tall [yes, Virginia, you can look right over them]; the showers don’t have a shelf or bench or anything to put your clothes on; and the water gets extremely hot and extremely cold, suddenly and randomly)
*The bathrooms are a five-​minute walk from the cabins and many of the campsites
*When you walk 5 minutes to the bathroom, you will have to decide whether to add two minutes by walking on the poorly planned path, or cutting through other people’s campsites to get there more quickly. That means you’re walking through sharp, dead plant material which will get into your sandals and make your feet bleed (the bleeding and limping also add to the commute)
*The cabin parking is a few hundred feet away from the cabins, or further, if you use the path, so you have to haul all your stuff a great distance over the sharp, dead plant material (if you aren’t wearing sandals, it sticks to your socks)
*The mattress pads are about 2″ of sad foam inside a waterproof case. It’s basically like sleeping on the floor. My hurt-​back friend had to take the twin mattress and put that on top of the full bed for a double layer
*The cabins cost about $ 20 more than a room at Motel 6 (hotel rooms have A/​C, bathrooms, AND showers – in the room!)
*The picnic tables near the cabins are made of a dark metal that gets up to about EIGHT THOUSAND DEGREES in the Idaho sun
*The signage is not welcoming (DO NOT do this! If you do THIS you will be ASKED TO LEAVE! If you DAMAGE anything you will PAY! No COOKING! No COFFEE MAKERS! No LEAVING CABIN WITH A/​C ON!)
*The place looks like an RV park. There is basically a huge lawn with parking pads on it, and some trees and manicured flower plots, and then a whole lot of people stuffed in, too close to each other. It looks like a dog park with a bunch of cars parked on it
*The park is located more or less in the industrial area of the town of Lewiston. It is like 5 minutes from their downtown (this was a problem for us)
In short, we hated nearly every minute of our stay here. I am so thankful we didn’t reserve more nights than we did. We did have fun making up slogans for the park, though! It was too hot to go outside, so we had a lot of time to work on them. Here are two of my favorites:
*Hells Gate State Park: You gotta laugh, or you’ll cry! (But don’t laugh too hard or you might pee and there is no toilet paper.)
*Once you go to Hells Gate State Park, you never go back!

I’ve re-​visited the visitor center here a couple of times during jaunts to Pullman when it’s been too hot up there to sit still. The whole area can get like an unbearable oven, and the only thing left to do is find a place near the river. There are darling looking cabins next to the river, and plenty of RV plugins. The visitor center has a lot of fun souvenirs as well as some movies about Lewis and Clark and the Nez Percé Indians. You can also hook up to a lot of information about day trips into Hell’s Canyon, along their route down the river.