Apache Maid Cabin
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 23 of the next 26 nights read 16:42 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 9 notices
In the agency’s own words
This rustic forest cabin is located at the eastern base of Apache Maid Mountain, just two hours north of Phoenix and near the popular red rock canyons and outdoor recreation opportunities of Sedona, in central Arizona. The cabin provides several amenities, providing a comfortable stay for up to six people. It can be accessed by vehicle. Guests are responsible for their own travel arrangements and safety, and must bring several of their own amenities. Keep reading
Recreation
The area is a hub for outdoor recreation. Although there are no trails immediately around the cabin, countless hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding trails are located within an hour drive. Closer to the cabin, anglers can fish for northern pike, yellow perch and sunfish at nearby Stoneman Lake, one of the few natural lakes in Arizona. Bird watchers can delight in watching for migratory waterfowl and summer songbirds from the shoreline, and families can enjoy an afternoon of picnicking.
Facilities
The facility is a small, 520 square-foot cabin that can accommodate up to six overnight visitors. It has one bedroom with bunk beds and a roll-away bed, a living room with a futon couch, and a kitchen and dining room. All the beds have mattresses. The kitchen has a propane stove with dishes, pots and pans, but no refrigerator. The building is also equipped with a propane heater and has limited solar-supplied overhead lighting system with wall switches in each room. The cabin does not have any available outlets. Visitors must bring their own food and potable water for drinking, cooking and cleaning, bedding (sheets, blankets, pillows and/or sleeping bags), towels for the kitchen, weather appropriate clothing, dish soap, flashlights and an axe for splitting wood at the outdoor fire pit. Users must clean the cabin and pack out all food and trash before leaving.
Natural Features
The facility was originally constructed in 1909 by Charles Babbitt and served as a ranch house for cattlemen, then later as a U.S. Forest Service ranger station. It has been restored to its historic character. The cabin is surrounded by the shade of a ponderosa pine forest and is just south of the Mogollon Rim, a 200-mile slope that ranges between 5,000 and 7,000 feet in elevation. The cabin sits at 6,382 feet and has summers that are characteristically sunny, warm and dry, with the occasional afternoon thunderstorm.
Nearby Attractions
Nearby Stoneman Lake, Beaver Creek and Sedona offer numerous recreation activities and cultural attractions.
What the agency tells you
No drinking water provided; visitors must bring their own drinking water
Reservation dates are subject to weather conditions
Roads leading into this cabin are passable by passenger car, but high-clearance vehicles are recommended; four-wheel drive is required during inclement weather
Everything else this campground posts · 6
Pets are allowed, renters must clean up after their pets and kennel indoors
Off-road vehicles allowed on designated roads and trails only
A variety of wildlife makes its home in the area; visitors should secure food and trash indoors or lock it in a hard-sided vehicle
All smoking only allowed in an enclosed vehicle or if outside, a 6' area is cleared of all flammable material
Click here to learn more about Coconino National Forest
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 20 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Yes, the record doesn't say what kind
- Toilet on all 1 of this campground's campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…Visitors must bring their own food and potable water for drinking, cooking and cleaning, bedding…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek, Beach
- Biking
- Fire Lookouts/Cabins Overnight
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 96th darkest of 262 in AZ
- Bortle 3
Full this Saturdayread 16:42 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedClosed
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday, and on the one midweek night after it that the agency has released as well. read 16:42 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
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.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
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 · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 16:42 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 1 of the 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| APACHE MAID CABIN | Apache Maid Cabin | cabin nonelectric | 20 ft | 2,872 ft | $75 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Double SpringsCoconino National Forest · 16 mi
Dairy SpringsCoconino National Forest · 17 mi
Long Valley Group CampgroundCoconino National Forest · 17 miChavez CrossingCoconino National Forest · 17 mi
Crescent Moon Ranch CabinCoconino National Forest · 18 miFrom Phoenix, travel north on Interstate 17 to exit 306 (Stoneman Lake Road/Forest Road 213). Go east on Stoneman Lake Road for approximately 6.5 miles, to the junction with Forest Road 229. Turn right onto Forest Road 229 and go 4.5 miles to Forest Road 230. Veer right, continuing on Forest Road 229 and continue approximately a quarter-mile to the intersection of Forest Road 229 and Forest Road 620 (to the Apache Maid Lookout). Veer right; the gate to the cabin is at this intersection, on the left side of the road. Look for the small sign for Apache Maid Cabin. Note: the cabin is not on the mountain; if you are driving uphill toward the mountain, you have missed the cabin entrance gate.
Access to the cabin is through a locked gate. The gate has a combination lock, and a house key is located in a lock box on the kitchen door. Combination codes for the gate and the lock box are given in the reservation confirmation letter. High-clearance vehicles are recommended, and four-wheel drive is required during inclement weather.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Village of Oak Creek (Big Park), AZ
Typical weather
Typical October night 31°F, day 66°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 16°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
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 · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Apache Maid Cabin is in Arizona’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Eli Crane (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyElijah CraneU.S. Representative · Arizona’s 2nd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMark KellyU.S. Senator · Arizona
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRuben GallegoU.S. Senator · Arizona
No contact form we could verify, so that link is their own site. Contact is inside it. Washington office: 202-224-4521.
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Apache Maid Cabin, Coconino National Forest, Arizona
Dear Elijah Crane, I’m a constituent in Arizona’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Apache Maid Cabin, Coconino National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Apache Maid Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Apache Maid Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Apache Maid Cabin. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Apache Maid Cabin (Coconino National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Apache Maid Cabin, Coconino National Forest, Arizona
Dear Mark Kelly, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Apache Maid Cabin, Coconino National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Apache Maid Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Apache Maid Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Apache Maid Cabin. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Apache Maid Cabin (Coconino National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Apache Maid Cabin, Coconino National Forest, Arizona
Dear Ruben Gallego, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Apache Maid Cabin, Coconino National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Apache Maid Cabin are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Apache Maid Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Apache Maid Cabin. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Apache Maid Cabin (Coconino National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com