Barkshed Recreation Area
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- OpenListed open; its database flags it not open
- A night
- $5From, per site
- Season
- Year-roundOpen year-round
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
4/7/25: Closed until further notice due to flooding. Barkshed is a primitive camp near a clear mountain stream. It was the old "Barkshed Forest Camp" and was the show-off place for visitors to the forest. The picnic pavilion at the top of the hill was used for many such events. Campground and Day-Use Area Rules
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and a night costs $5 with nothing added. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.
recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.
Every line of the receipt · 5
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($5), and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
How we know this receipt · 5
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Barkshed CampgroundOzark National Forest · 0.0 mi
Gunner Pool CampgroundOzark National Forest · 2.7 miGunner Pool Recreation AreaOzark National Forest · 2.7 mi
Blanchard Springs Recreation AreaOzark National Forest · 5.1 miBlanchard Springs CampgroundsOzark National Forest · 5.1 mi
Dam - Quarry17 miThe weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Fifty-Six, AR
Typical weather
Typical October night 45°F, day 71°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 25°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
what threatens it · who answers for it
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Barkshed Recreation Area is in Arkansas’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Rick Crawford (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →