Highwater Camp

We came to float from Missouri and leave our car at their campsite. The owner was more than gracious in allowing us to park there. The campgrounds are awesome and the river site is beautiful. Highly recommend this campground to anyone looking for a nice secluded place to stay.

This was an excellent camping experience for our large group. The property, while needing some quality-of-life improvements, is an excellent place to stay for a long weekend. Bringing friends will only improve your experience. The river, both upstream and downstream plays host to a healthy smallmouth bass population. I caught a ~4 pound smallmouth on Memorial Day Weekend 2024, as well as some smaller fish that were turned into fish tacos. The owners are -very- passionate about being great hosts & conscientious about safety issues. Restroom options are primitive and limited to port-a-potties at this time. We all had a great time. I want to put together another trip in the fall. WOKA to Camp, and Camp to Chewey Bridge are both great floats for Kayaks. Pay attention to river gages.

Hate to see a 1-star review on their page from someone who didn't stay there. I stayed there with a group Memorial Day Weekend, camped right on the river. Yes, riverside camping is primitive, but that's exactly what I was looking for. The guys running the place were friendly and were working to address any concerns we had. We were able to put in from camp and float down and did another paddle the next day from upstream back to camp. It's great to have a group site all to yourselves. They are new and are working out some minor pain points but I had a much better experience than the over crowded campgrounds south of Chewy Bridge or further upstream. Yes, if you're looking for a heavily developed campground, this isn't the place but really, but that's why I liked it.

We organized a kayaking group for Memorial Day Weekend 2024 to be Beta Testers at Highwater Camp before their grand opening. This place is perfect for mid to large size groups that don't mind primitive camping and who want to be right on the river bank. Be warned, there is NO shade on the river bank. There is a shaded clearing adjacent to the river bank's gravel bar. There were 16 in our group and we had plenty of room to spread out along the gravel bar. We were able to set up camp on the gravel bar and had the place to ourselves. There are port-a-johns on the property, but a distance from the river bank camping. There were some picnic tables in the shaded camp area, but we opted to camp on the river. A large trash can was made available for our group and trash was picked up several times during our four day stay. Fires on the gravel bar were easily made and we found wood readily available since we were the first group to use the campground. The camp itself is out in the boonies and IF you trust GPS, you will get there. Signage could be better because I had to have help getting to my group at the river bank. You could tell the owners are diligently working to improve the property for campers. Grass had been freshly mowed and shrubs had been cleared. The property was clean and orderly. Camp host checked on us a few times throughout our stay and did come down to inform us of that we were under a tornado warning. He was friendly and informative without being intrusive. Saturday we launched from camp and took out at Chewy Bridge. It was a pleasant paddle. Our group of 16 had the majority of the river to ourselves. We did encounter 3 small groups along the way. Sunday's paddle was from WOKA Take Out to camp. That day we only saw two other paddlers. We did see plenty of bald eagles, a goat, and a calf near the river. Both days of paddling were easy enough given the amount of water from the rains. We did not encounter any serious obstacles along the way. There is a race track north of the camp on Hwy 412 that can be heard during racing, but it wasn't like having partiers blaring their music ALL night long, as I have experienced at other campgrounds. Once the races and fireworks were done, it was a quiet. The current was too strong for us to play in the river in front of our camp, so I missed that part of relaxing I typically get from other campgrounds. Maybe it will be better when the river isn't so high. Be aware that if it rains significantly in west Arkansas, the river may encroach on the gravel bar and threaten your camp sites. We moved our campfire three times and almost packed it in and left; however, the river resided before we broke down our tents, so we stayed. I thoroughly enjoyed our holiday weekend at Highwater Camp. I encourage anyone looking at reserving the camp to bring a canopy for shade if you plan on camping on the river bank. You may want to bring a pop up potty tent, as well. This space can accommodate a large group, which offsets costs.

I live an hour from here and always looking for nice quiet places to solo camp closer to home for the weekend, but honestly, their website makes no sense regarding prices. When you click the "camping" link at the top of the page, it literally says $100 per night, then goes on to say they basically don't have bathrooms, electric, potable water, or anything - it's rough primitive camping - if you need it you better bring it with you, which I can do but not for the $100 a nightt advertised on the Camping link! I can get lake side with a water faucet and pit toilet for $18 at the lake! I guess you can float the river, not sure if you can rent a boat from them I didn't see prices mentioned, but they do not offer shuttle service to take you up river so that's a pain in the butt. Just all around sounds like a very disorganized place with disorganized fees and management. I won't be going there. There's a lot about wanting to be quiet and low key, but also a lot about it's a good place for large group camps and those are anything but quiet or low key. It just seems like their business plan is confused and their vision for the place is blurry. Might be better to just open the place up for $10 a car load for a day pass and $20 a night per camp site to get a following, and grow it from there. Right now it just makes no sense.

We spent the weekend out at Highwater Camp and it was awesome! The gravel bar along the river made for a perfect place to explore, relax, and enjoy the river! The river was flowing strong, the smallmouth bass fishing was on fire, and the overall setting was the best there is! We cant wait to come back and camp again!