Hellbender Campground Ohio May 2026

She explained that the campground, named not for a demon but for the Cryptobranchus alleganiensis —the Eastern hellbender salamander—sat at the epicenter of one of the most successful amphibian recovery projects in state history. By the 1990s, pollution from abandoned coal mines had turned Sunday Creek orange with acid runoff. Hellbenders, which breathe entirely through their skin and need fast, clean, oxygenated water, had vanished.

When I finally visited last September, the leaves were just beginning to turn. Roy, now in his seventies, met me at the gate. He was wearing a baseball cap that read “Hellbender Hugger.” hellbender campground ohio

I first heard about it from a retired herpetologist named Dr. Marian Ellis. I’d met her at a diner in Athens, Ohio, where she was nursing a cup of coffee and dissecting a stack of topographic maps. When I mentioned I was writing about unusual roadside attractions, she laughed—a dry, rattling sound. She explained that the campground, named not for

“Only one way to know.”