Badin Lake Group Camp
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- OpenThe agency lists it open
- Sites
- 3All of them booked ahead
- Season
- Year-roundOpen year-round
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Badin Lake Group Camp offers a fun, relaxing place for clubs, families and other groups to rest and play in the Uwharrie National Forest of central North Carolina. The recreation area is a hub for outdoor activities such as hiking, off-road vehicle riding, hunting, horseback riding, mountain biking, fishing and boating. The group campground is open year-round and can accommodate groups of up to 50 people per site. Keep reading
Recreation
Groups have easy access to many recreational opportunities at Badin Lake Recreation Area. The lake shore is the perfect place to watch the sunset or enjoy an afternoon picnic. The lake has plenty of calm water for swimming, boating or fishing for bass, bream, crappie and catfish. King's Mountain Point, just 1 mile from the group camp, has four accessible fishing piers, miles of shoreline and a nice swimming area. A boat ramp is located 2 miles from the campground. Back on land, about 40 miles of non-motorized trails are available for horseback riding, mountain biking and hiking, as well as 17 miles of motorized trails for off-road vehicle riding. The surrounding land offers both big and small game hunting.
Facilities
Badin Lake Group Camp offers three campsites for up to 50 people each, organized around a single loop. Each site has tables, grills and tent pads. The facility is equipped with flush toilets, vault toilets, showers and drinking water. The facility does not offer electrical hookups or a dump station.
Natural Features
The campground lies in a dense forest of pines and hardwoods near the shore of 5,000-acre Badin Lake. Winter temperatures range from the low 30s to upper 50s, while summer brings temperatures in the upper 80s and 90s and high humidity. The weather is pleasant in spring and fall, with high temperatures in the 60s and 70s.
Nearby Attractions
A theme park with a petting zoo, nature center and mini golf course lies just under an hour away and makes a fun day trip for families.
What the agency tells you
Throughout the year the Uwharrie National Forest performs prescribed burns. Some of these burns will be next to and around this recreation facility and may cause smokey conditions during the actual burning and for the days following the burns. Sometimes we do not make a decision until the very morning that we will be able to do the burn due to weather and staffing. If you have questions about the prescribed burning possibility please call the Uwharrie National Forest Ranger District office at 910-576-6391 for updated information.
For customers seeking group sizes larger than 50, there are three group sites for a total capacity of 150 people that can be reserved (Sites A, B & C). There is one administrative camping site that is not reservable and is not marked. During the year there may be crews working or volunteering with the Uwharrie National Forest that will be camping at this administrative campsite nearest to the gate and using the facilities. No electrical, water or sewer hookups available. There is a bathhouse with flush toiltets and showers and separate vault toilets. There is some power in the bathhouse. There are hydrants for potable water at each of the reservable campsites. There are two trash dumpsters. For Badin Lake Group Camp there is No Discount with any of the Interagency Passes (Access or Senior Access, etc.).
Alcohol is Prohibited. Fireworks are Prohibited.
Everything else this campground posts · 5
Off-highway vehicles allowed on designated trails only from Apr. 1 to Dec. 15; trail passes required for these trails. Unlicensed vehicles must be trailered to the motorized trail trailheads to access these trails. Consideration of fellow campers is appreciated; for safety purposes, please keep off-highway vehicle use (including golf carts, dirt bikes, and other unlicensed vehicles) to designated roads and trails outside of the campground. Keep children and pets under control in the campground.
Park vehicles at your designated group campsite. No Vehicles allowed in the central field near the bathhouse. Direct acces to the Badin Lake Hiking Trail by a short connector trail between Site B and the wellhouse across from the bathhouse.
No walk-in camping allowed; by reservation only.
Click here to learn more about the National Forests in North Carolina
Don't Move Firewood : Help protect our forests! Obtain your firewood near your destination to avoid the spread of pests. Using firewood from outside the area can threaten native trees and forests. Firewood from outside the area is not recommended as some states have quarantines in effect and firewood movement is illegal. Visit don'tmovefirewood.org to learn more. Use of dead and downed wood for your firewood is allowed. NO cutting of live or standing or leaning trees.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 3 · 3 group
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets · Vault Toilets
- “…tent pads. The facility is equipped with flush toilets, vault toilets, showers and drinking water. The…”
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “The facility is equipped with flush toilets, vault toilets, showers and drinking water.”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…toilets, vault toilets, showers and drinking water. The facility does not offer electrical hookups or…”
- Dump station
- Yes
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Beach
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Swimming
- Water sports
- Wildlife viewing
Full this Saturdayread 16:32 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
Every one of the 3 sites on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 3 are free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:32 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.
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 16:32 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
3 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 3 mapped sitesAll 3 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 3 of the 3 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 3 of the 3 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Badin Lake CampgroundUwharrie National Forest · 0.4 mi
Arrowhead CampgroundUwharrie National Forest · 0.9 mi
Canebrake Horse CampUwharrie National Forest · 1.6 miArt Lilley CampgroundUwharrie National Forest · 3.0 miUwharrie Hunt CampUwharrie National Forest · 3.1 miWest Morris Mtn. CampgroundUwharrie National Forest · 4.7 miFrom Troy, North Carolina, take State Highway 109 north for approximately 10 miles. Turn left onto Mullinix Road (County Highway 1154), and travel approximately 1.5 miles to a stop sign and "T" intersection. Turn right, and go approximately 2 miles to another stop sign and "T" intersection. Turn right, then make a quick left, following signs to the Badin Lake Group Camp.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Badin, NC
Typical weather
Typical October night 50°F, day 73°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 31°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
Badin Lake Group Camp is in North Carolina’s 8th congressional district. Its representative, Mark Harris (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 moneyMark HarrisU.S. Representative · North Carolina’s 8th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationTed BuddU.S. Senator · North Carolina
- Your senator, on the same appropriationThom TillisU.S. Senator · North Carolina
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 Badin Lake Group Camp, Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina
Dear Mark Harris, I’m a constituent in North Carolina’s 8th district. I tried to camp at Badin Lake Group Camp, Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina, and couldn’t. All 3 sites at Badin Lake Group Camp are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 3 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Badin Lake Group Camp keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Badin Lake Group Camp. 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 Badin Lake Group Camp (Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina) 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 Badin Lake Group Camp, Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina
Dear Ted Budd, I’m a constituent in North Carolina. I tried to camp at Badin Lake Group Camp, Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina, and couldn’t. All 3 sites at Badin Lake Group Camp are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 3 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Badin Lake Group Camp keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Badin Lake Group Camp. 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 Badin Lake Group Camp (Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina) 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 Badin Lake Group Camp, Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina
Dear Thom Tillis, I’m a constituent in North Carolina. I tried to camp at Badin Lake Group Camp, Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina, and couldn’t. All 3 sites at Badin Lake Group Camp are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 3 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Badin Lake Group Camp keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Badin Lake Group Camp. 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 Badin Lake Group Camp (Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina) via campanac.com