Ellsworth AFB Famcamp

Good info about Ellsworth I am also planning on a visit next summer July 2008 with my family. Sounds like there is movement in the campground. My only question is how far in advance do the bikers show up 1 week,2 weeks or more before the start of bike week. Trying to plan the trip as to miss bike week. I don't have the dates in front of me but I think it starts 4 Aug 08.

Thanks

Bike Week is the first week of August. We had some bikers in and out during the whole two weeks before. We left on Thursday before Bike Week. At that point the campground was full, the overflow was full and they were parking rigs in between regular campsites in the main campground. (Each site has 50, 30 and 20 amp. They let the extra's plug into the 30 or 20 amp plug with no water or sewer, the same as they would get in the overflow.)

Although we saw a lot of bikers all over the blackhills in the two weeks we were there the serious bikers don't really show up until the weekend just prior to bike week. We drove over to Sturgis on the Wednesday before we left and, although there were a bunch of bikers there, it was not crowded. We were even able to park the car on main street. Three or four days later and that would not have happened.

It does not appear that there is any full time personnel assigned to the campground. Base Public Works people (or whatever the AF calls the base maintenance folks) do the mowing and edging. There is a volunteer host and an assistant volunteer host. They take care of everything and live on site in their RV's. Since they are RVer's they work very hard at trying to meet everyones needs. The Host is a retired Navy CB Chief. The assistant is the wife of a retired AF guy who previously had been a host at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas.

I would recommend that if you don't want to be there when the bikers arrive that you schedule to leave by Wednesday or so prior to Bike Week.

Thanks, we will plan accordingly.

We visited the FamCamp in June,08. Unfortunately we have no pictures to offer, but here is an update on conditions.

If you have a rig longer than 22 feet, don't, don't try to enter the Main/Patriot gate. There are closwely spaced intrusion barriers that prevent trucks and larger rigs from entering. Use the Commercial gate at all times. The policy is still no reservations. The camp host has a tendency to crowd late comers on grass between the existing hardstands, a condition I found detrimental to the FamCamp envirionment. We chose to stay at the overflow area, located a mile from base center and any facilities. Staying out there beyond the runway was a lesson in solitude. The "hardstand" is a big, treeless parking lot divided into 10 side-by-side sites. Electric at 30 amps is provided out there, but nothing else. Bring blocks,because leveling can be challenging. The upside was getting to see some B1B touch-and-go exercises.

Back to the FamCamp: the shower and laundry facilities have been rebuilt and are a pleasure to use. $1.25 to wash, $1.00 to dry. Otherwise, the base facilities haven't changed much - lots of new housing, the movie is open Thursday and Sunday nights only.

Interesting. We stayed there on July 6th and since we were only going to be there one night, we asked to stay in the overflow lot. We were told by the camp host that it was closed for renovation and we would have to take one of the regular spots in the campground. Of course, we had to drive out to the overflow later to see what they were doing -- which was nothing at all. Oh well, had to settle for full hook-ups.

Bottom line on the campground is that it is really nice.