Below Dam South Carolina
This place has sites and nobody may sleep in them.Ask for camping here →
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Below Dam South Carolina Recreation Area is a popular park just below J. Strom Thurmond Lake Dam along the Savannah River. The park is located on Power Plant Road just off South Carolina State Highway 221 near the Visitor Center. The Savannah River offers excellent fishing and boating opportunities. Keep reading
Recreation
The 70,000 acre Thurmond Lake provides some of the best fishing, hunting, and water sports in the southeastern United States. Anglers fish for largemouth bass, bream, crappie, catfish and striped bass. The large lake offers endless boating, water skiing, jet skiing, canoeing and swimming opportunities.
Facilities
Below Dam South Carolina Recreation Area is a wooded day-use area with several group picnic shelters. One shelter has electrical hookups. Other amenities include flush toilets, drinking water, a boat ramp, fishing pier, hiking trail and playground. There is no swimming at this park.
Natural Features
Hot, humid summers and mild, pleasant winters characterize this heavily wooded area on the shore of Thurmond Lake. A mixed pine and hardwood forest covers the site, providing summer shade and fall color. Elevation is 235' above sea level. Wildlife is abundant around the lake. Visitors regularly see southern bald eagles, osprey, migratory waterfowl, wild turkeys and whitetail deer.
Nearby Attractions
Numerous parks and recreation areas lie around Thurmond Lake, providing additional boating, swimming, hunting and hiking opportunities. Nearby cities house 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. - 8:30 p.m.
Caution: strong currents in river; absolutely no swimming or wading
Pets permitted on leash
Everything else this campground posts · 4
Alcoholic beverages are prohibited allowed
Fires are only permitted in grills
For shelter reservations: Please bring your confirmation letter to the park; it is required for check-in Shelter must be occupied by 2pm Park amenities are available for the reserving group as well as to the general public
Don't Move Firewood: Protect your forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. Visit Dontmovefirewood.org for further information.
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…hookups. Other amenities include flush toilets, drinking water, a boat ramp, fishing pier, hiking…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…Other amenities include flush toilets, drinking water, a boat ramp, fishing pier, hiking trail and…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Picnicking
- Wildlife viewing
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 16:41 UTC
The agency files 7 records here and marks every one of them day use, not overnight. On its own record there’s nothing here to spend the night in.
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.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
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 16:41 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
7 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 7 mapped sitesAll 7 records
| GROUP SITES | 01 | day use | 94 ft | 135 ftNixon Branch | $10 | |
| GROUP SITES | 02 | day use | 55 ft | 41 ftNixon Branch | $10 | |
| GROUP SITES | 03 | day use | 48 ft | 35 ftNixon Branch | $10 | |
| GROUP SITES | 04 | day use | 48 ft | 35 ftNixon Branch | $10 | |
| GROUP SITES | 05 | day use | 71 ft | 39 ftNixon Branch | $10 | |
| GROUP SITES | 06 | day use | 98 ft | 76 ftNixon Branch | $10 | |
| GROUP SITES | 1 | day use | 15 amp | 341 ft | 203 ftNixon Branch | $75 |
The agency files 7 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
West Dam0.6 mi
Lake Springs1.3 mi
Clarks Hill1.5 mi
Petersburg3.0 mi
Ridge Road3.2 mi
Modoc4.3 miThe day use area is located just outside Clarks Hill, SC, west off US 221, just below the dam
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Clarks Hill, SC
Typical weather
Typical October night 58°F, day 78°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 40°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 · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Below Dam South Carolina 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 →
Who can change it · 3
The agency’s own record files sites here and marks every one of them day use. The draft asks whether any could open to overnight camping, and if not, why.
- The member who votes the moneyRick W. AllenU.S. Representative · Georgia’s 12th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJon OssoffU.S. Senator · Georgia
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRaphael G. WarnockU.S. Senator · Georgia
Read the draft, or change the wording
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Below Dam South Carolina has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Rick W. Allen, I’m a constituent in Georgia’s 12th district. Below Dam South Carolina, Georgia carries 7 records on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Below Dam South Carolina (Georgia) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Below Dam South Carolina has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Jon Ossoff, I’m a constituent in Georgia. Below Dam South Carolina, Georgia carries 7 records on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Below Dam South Carolina (Georgia) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Below Dam South Carolina has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Raphael G. Warnock, I’m a constituent in Georgia. Below Dam South Carolina, Georgia carries 7 records on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Below Dam South Carolina (Georgia) via campanac.com