Bessey Recreation Complex
- Right now
- Closedrecreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend, read 15:21 UTC
- A night
- $15–$20When it reopens, per site
- Sites
- 50In the agency’s record
- Season
- Year-roundOpen year-round
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices
In the agency’s own words
Bessey Recreation Complex and campground is located in central Nebraska, adjacent to Middle Loup River, offering visitors opportunities to enjoy the scenery, relax, and recreate. Download the Recreation.gov app from your app store to pay online for first-come, first-serve sites. Keep reading
Recreation
Waterfront activities are popular and plentiful at this facility. Adjacent to the campground, Middle Loup River is shallow and steady flowing, providing good conditions for tubing and canoeing. A seven acre pond stocked with largemouth bass, blue gill, trout and catfish offers great fishing for the whole family. There is also an accessible fishing pier.
Facilities
Bessey Recreation Complex has camping sites able to accommodate tents, trailers, and RVs, including one group site and several tent-only sites. The campground is equipped with picnic tables, campfire rings, seasonal flush toilets and drinking water. Electric hookups are available at the group site and several of the standard sites. A group picnic area is also available for use. Restaurants, gas stations and a grocery store are available in Thedford, Nebraska, 16 miles to the west. Halsey also has a restaruant, and Dunning 10 miles east has a gas station with groceries.
Natural Features
The Nebraska National Forest, Bessey Ranger District is located in western Nebraska. The campground within the Bessey Recreation Complex is located next to the Charles E. Bessey Nursery, oldest tree nursery in the Forest Service. Wildlife in the area abounds. Prairie chicken, sharp-tailed grouse, mule-deer, whitetailed deer, pronghorn antelope, prairie dogs, turkeys, coyotes, bobwhite quail, eagles, hawks and falcons all find habitat in surrounding ecosystems.
Nearby Attractions
Drive or hike to the Scott Lookout Tower for a fantastic panoramic view of Nebraska's sand hills and prairies.
What the agency tells you
The main restroom facilities and showers will be closed seasonally. Vault toliets are available year round.
Only 1 trailer per site. A camper is considered a trailer. Additional trailers may be parked in the large day use parking lot. The group area is the exception.
Keep off-road vehicles, cars and trailers on gravel.
Everything else this campground posts · 8
Off-road vehicles can only be ridden to the trailhead and back within the campground.
Double camping in sites is prohibited. No more than two tents per site. The group area is the exception.
Only 2 cars may park at one campsite. The group area is the exception.
Some sites are tent only. If you have a camper, please make sure you reserve a camper site.
Campsite must be occupied the first night.
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing organisms by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Horse corrals not available at the Bessey Recreation Complex. Horses are allowed and corrals are available at Natick and Whitetail Campgrounds.
Click here for more information about the Nebraska National Forests and Grasslands.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 50 · 14 tent-only, 1 group
- Hookups
- 29 electric
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Paved pads
- 10 of 50
- Accessible sites
- 8
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- 36 of 43 sites
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- FLUSH TOILETS on 1 of 51 campsite records, FLUSH TOILETS (SEASONAL) on 1 of 51 campsite records, ACCESSIBLE FLUSH TOILETS on 1 of 51 campsite records
- Showers
- Accessible Showers
- ACCESSIBLE SHOWERS on 2 of 51 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- DRINKING WATER (PEAK SEASON) on 1 of 51 campsite records
- Dump station
- Yes
- recreation.gov lists “Dump Station”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- River
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Visitor center
- Water sports
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 6th darkest of 17 in NE
- Bortle 2
- Cell signal · Cell signal · Forest Service says
- Yes
Nothing to book until it reopensread 15:21 UTC
recreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend
OpenBookedClosed
Tell me when it reopens
Watch for it to come back
One email when the agency reopens it, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check the agency’s own record once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time it stops saying closed.
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.
Every line of the receipt · 13
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 · 4
Why this page can’t say why
recreation.gov lists every site at Bessey Recreation Complex closed this Friday and Saturday night. The U.S. Forest Service has published no closure notice we hold, so this page can’t say why, and it won’t fill the gap with a guess. A closed night isn’t a sold-out one: the reservations its record still carries were taken before the sites were closed.
There’s no notice to quote and no reason to argue with, so this page offers you the watch and the list below, and no letter.
recreation.gov availability, read 15:21 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
51 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 48 mapped sitesAll 51 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 50 of the 51 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| All | S&P Electric | type not stated | $15–$20 | |||||
| All | S&P Nonelectric | type not stated | $15–$20 | |||||
| BESSEY RECREATION | BESSEY PICNIC SHELTER | day use | 20 amp | yes | 253 ft | 342 ft | ||
| BESSEY RECREATION | GRP01 | group standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | yes | 235 ft | 873 ft | $125 |
| CEDR | 002 | standard electric | 45 ft | 30 amp | 118 ft | 634 ft | $20 | |
| CEDR | 003 | standard electric | 27 ft | 30 amp | 34 ft | 543 ft | $20 | |
| CEDR | 004 | standard electric | 40 ft | 30 amp | 34 ft | 512 ft | $20 | |
| CEDR | 005 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 119 ft | 431 ft | $15 | ||
| CEDR | 006 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 92 ft | 560 ft | $20 | |
| CEDR | 007 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 121 ft | 552 ft | $20 | |
| CEDR | 008 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 153 ft | 667 ft | $20 | |
| CEDR | 009 | standard electric | 30 ft | 30 amp | 53 ft | 824 ft | $20 | |
| CEDR | 010 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 71 ft | 892 ft | $20 | |
| CEDR | 011 | standard electric | 30 ft | 30 amp | 53 ft | 830 ft | $20 | |
| CEDR | 012 | standard electric | 30 ft | 30 amp | 61 ft | 821 ft | $20 | |
| CEDR | 013 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 119 ft | 715 ft | $20 | |
| CEDR | 036 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | 102 ft | 89 ft | $20 | |
| CEDR | 037 | standard electric | 30 ft | 30 amp | 99 ft | 363 ft | $20 | |
| CEDR | 037A | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 99 ft | 451 ft | $15 | ||
| CEDR | 038 | tent only nonelectric | 30 ft | 92 ft | 499 ft | $15 | ||
| CEDR | 041 | tent only nonelectric | 65 ft | 540 ft | $15 | |||
| CEDR | 042 | tent only nonelectric | 65 ft | 475 ft | $15 | |||
| CEDR | 043 | tent only nonelectric | 61 ft | 419 ft | $15 | |||
| CEDR | 044 | tent only nonelectric | 61 ft | 358 ft | $15 | |||
| FSPD | 039 | tent only nonelectric | 192 ft | 243 ft | $15 | |||
| FSPD | 040 | tent only nonelectric | 192 ft | 169 ft | $15 | |||
| HRWD | 014 | standard electric | 45 ft | 50/30 amp | 219 ft | 855 ft | $20 | |
| HRWD | 015 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 106 ft | 724 ft | $20 | |
| HRWD | 016 | tent only nonelectric | 35 ft | 67 ft | 739 ft | $15 | ||
| HRWD | 017 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 67 ft | 805 ft | $15 | ||
| HRWD | 018 | tent only nonelectric | 25 ft | 69 ft | 762 ft | $15 | ||
| HRWD | 019 | tent only nonelectric | 69 ft | 742 ft | $15 | |||
| HRWD | 020 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 89 ft | 739 ft | $15 | ||
| HRWD | 021 | tent only nonelectric | 25 ft | 69 ft | 720 ft | $15 | ||
| HRWD | 022 | tent only nonelectric | 35 ft | 82 ft | 775 ft | $15 | ||
| HRWD | 023A | tent only nonelectric | 69 ft | 655 ft | $15 | |||
| RVLP | 023 | standard electric | 30 amp | 73 ft | 319 ft | $20 | ||
| RVLP | 024 | standard electric | 30 ft | 30 amp | 68 ft | 340 ft | $20 | |
| RVLP | 024A | standard electric | 45 ft | 73 ft | 395 ft | $20 | ||
| RVLP | 025 | standard electric | 30 ft | 30 amp | 68 ft | 283 ft | $20 | |
| RVLP | 026 | standard electric | 25 ft | 50/30 amp | 38 ft | 213 ft | $20 | |
| RVLP | 027 | standard electric | 27 ft | 30 amp | 60 ft | 149 ft | $20 | |
| RVLP | 028 | standard electric | 45 ft | 50/30 amp | yes | 38 ft | 192 ft | $20 |
| RVLP | 029 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 60 ft | 112 ft | $15 | ||
| RVLP | 030 | standard electric | 50 ft | 50 amp | yes | 53 ft | 180 ft | $20 |
| RVLP | 031 | standard electric | 50 ft | 50 amp | yes | 49 ft | 142 ft | $20 |
| RVLP | 032 | standard electric | 50 ft | 50 amp | yes | 49 ft | 96 ft | $20 |
| RVLP | 033 | standard electric | 40 ft | 30 amp | yes | 56 ft | 117 ft | $20 |
| RVLP | 034 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | yes | 56 ft | 116 ft | $20 |
| RVLP | 035 | standard electric | 27 ft | 30 amp | yes | 59 ft | 102 ft | $20 |
| S&P | New S&P Electric | type not stated | 40 ft | 50 amp | $15–$20 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It files it as day use. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t 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.
25 of 51 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
From Interstate 80, travel north from North Platte, Nebraska on U.S. Hwy 83 for 65 miles to Thedford, Nebraska. Continue East for 16 miles on Nebraska Hwy 2, then South .05 miles from Hwy 2 on State Spur 86B.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Halsey, NE
Typical weather
Typical October night 37°F, day 67°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 15°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
Who answers for this land
Bessey Recreation Complex is in Nebraska’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Adrian Smith (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
“the agency's own site records list "CELL PHONE SERVICE" on 1 of 51 campsites here”