Bear Canyon Lake and Camping Area
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- OpenInside the published season, our reading
- A night
- FreeNo camping fee
- Season
- April 15Opens April 15. No closing date published.
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
A beautiful, narrow, canyon-bound lake, accessible by foot trail only, Bear Canyon Lake is one of several in a series of fishing lakes built by Arizona Game and Fish Department. Despite being several miles down a dirt road and having few amenities, it draws many visitors. The partially developed campground which is set among the mixed conifer, oak and aspen, has only limited amenities. Bear Canyon Lake is a "Pack it in - Pack it out" area. There is NO GARBAGE SERVICE. Please be good stewards of the land and leave the area better than how you found it. Keep reading
For purposes of fire restrictions, this campground is considered to be an 'undeveloped' campground. No fires will be permitted when fire restrictions are in effect for the Apache-Sitgreaves Forest. At an elevation of 7,560, Bear Canyon Lake consists of 60 surface acres with a maximum depth of 50 feet. Because of its depth, this lake has no water quality problems. The Arizona Department of Game and Fish stocks it with catchable-sized rainbow trout about six times each year. Arizona fishing regulations apply. Please refer to the current year fishing regulations brochure produced by the Arizona Game and Fish Department for further details on licensing requirements, daily bag limits, and other restrictions. Boat motors are restricted to electric motors only.
Facilities
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…Because of its depth, this lake has no water quality problems. The Arizona Department of Game…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and it costs nothing at all. 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 · 4
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s own record says there’s no camping fee, 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
Knoll Lake CampgroundCoconino National Forest · 5.3 miSpillway Group CampgroundSitgreaves National Forest · 6.2 miThe weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Christopher Creek, AZ
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
Bear Canyon Lake and Camping Area 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 →