Amity Recreation Area
- Right now
- Closedrecreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend, read 14:46 UTC
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Amity Recreation Area is one of the most popular parks on J. Strom Thurmond Lake. The large, 70,000-acre lake and its 1,000 miles of shoreline provide excellent boating, water skiing, swimming, fishing, hiking and picnicking. Keep reading
Recreation
Thurmond Lake provides some of the best fishing, hunting and water sports in the southeastern United States. Anglers will find largemouth bass, bream, crappie, catfish and striped bass. The large lake offers endless boating, waterskiing, jet skiing, canoeing and swimming opportunities. Amity Recreation Area provides a boat ramp and swimming area.
Facilities
This facility is a wooded day-use area on the lake shore. There are three reservable group picnic shelters that can each accommodate up to 92 guests. A boat ramp, fishing pier, swimming area, ball field and playground provide additional recreation opportunities.
Natural Features
Hot, humid summers and mild, pleasant winters characterize this wooded area. A mixed pine and hardwood forest covers the site, providing summer shade and fall color. Wildlife is abundant around the lake. Visitors might spot bald eagles, migratory waterfowl, osprey, wild turkeys and white-tailed deer.
Nearby Attractions
Augusta, Georgia, about 20 miles away, offers museums, art galleries, zoos, restaurants and shopping areas. The Augusta National Golf Club hosts the Masters Golf Tournament annually the first week of April.
What the agency tells you
Park hours are 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
All users must pay the $7 entry fee by using the credit card machine prior to the gatehouse. Pass must be displayed with the time and date visable during your visit. Acceptable passes are the USACE Annual Pass and the America the Beautiful – the National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Passes.
Pets permitted on leash
Everything else this campground posts · 5
Alcoholic beverages are prohibited
Glass and Pets are prohibited on designated swimming beaches
Fires are prohibited
Nets, volleyballs, and hareseshoes are not provided
For shelter reservations: Please bring your confirmation letter to the park; it is required for check-in Shelter must be occupied by 2pm Users are not exempt from the entrance fee The beach area and other park amenities are available for the reserving group as well as to the general public
Facilities
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Beach
- Boating
- Fishing
- Picnicking
- Softball Fields
- Swimming
- Wildlife viewing
Nothing to book until it reopensread 14:46 UTC
recreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
Tell me when it reopens
Watch for it to come back
One email when the agency reopens it, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check the agency’s own record once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time it stops saying closed.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Every line of the receipt · 11
What you actually pay
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 4
Why this page can’t say why
recreation.gov lists every site at Amity Recreation Area closed this Friday and Saturday night. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has published no closure notice we hold, so this page can’t say why, and it won’t fill the gap with a guess. A closed night isn’t a sold-out one: the reservations its record still carries were taken before the sites were closed.
There’s no notice to quote and no reason to argue with, so this page offers you the watch and the list below, and no letter.
Open within 60 miles · 1
The agency’s own word that these are open, not our reading of a season.
- Lick Fork Lake Recreation AreaSumter National Forest · 26 mi
recreation.gov availability, read 14:46 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
3 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 3 mapped sitesAll 3 records
| Bass Alley | 2 | day use | 15 amp | yes | 503 ft | 79 ft | $75 |
| Blue Gill Way | 3 | day use | 15 amp | yes | 516 ft | 55 ft | $75 |
| Catfish Cove | 1 | day use | 15 amp | 503 ft | 104 ft | $75 |
The agency files 3 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It files them as day use. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Winfield2.9 mi
Bussey Point Campground12 mi
Leroys Ferry Campground12 mi
Petersburg12 mi
Ridge Road13 mi
Lake Springs14 miFrom Thomson, Georgia, take U.S. Highway 78 west for 6 miles. Turn right on State Route 43 and continue for about 7.5 miles. The park is on the right (look for signs). The park is located on the McDuffie/Lincoln County line.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Appling, GA
Typical weather
Typical October night 52°F, day 75°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 34°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
Amity Recreation Area is in Georgia’s 12th congressional district. Its representative, Rick Allen (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →