Bird Creek Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $10–$45Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 9All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 4 notices
In the agency’s own words
Bird Creek Recreation Area is located in the Duck Creek Basin, high on the Schell Creek Range. It sits at an elevation of 8,200 feet, approximately 25 miles from the small city of Ely. Hiking, mountain biking and off-road vehicle riding are popular activities enjoyed by visitors to the area. Keep reading
Recreation
The Ranger Trail can be accessed from this campground. The Ranger Trail is a designated OHV trail that also accommodates hiking and mountain biking use as well. The 30-mile Success Loop Scenic Drive is also in the area, with views of high desert and mountain terrain.
Facilities
The campground has 10 sites. Site A is a day-use group stie, site 5 is a mult-family site, sites 1, 3, 4, 6, and 7 are single sites, sites 8 and 9 are double sites requiring a short walk from the parking area, on one to two bridges over Bird Creek. All sites have picnic and serving tables, campfire rings and grills. Vault toilets and drinking water are provided seasonally. This is a "pack it in, pack it out" facility.
Natural Features
Bird Creek flows perennially through the campground. A mixed forest of juniper, pinyon pine and alder trees covers the area, but provides only limited shade. Contact Info This location is unstaffed. To speak with our main office for general information, please call: (775) 289-3031.
Nearby Attractions
Cave Lake State Park and Ward Charcoal Ovens State Park are a few miles from Ely. Interesting historic stone ovens and an interpretive trail are available there. The Northern Nevada Railway in Ely has a museum and offers train rides.
Charges & Cancellations
All change and cancellation requests should be done through Recreation.gov.
What the agency tells you
Group site is available for day-use only
Utility hookups are not available
Click here for more information on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest
Everything else this campground posts · 1
Don't Move Firewood: Help prevent the spread of tree-killing pests in our national forests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 9 · 2 walk-in, 2 group
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- 8
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- 4 of 9 sites
Facilities
- Toilets
- Pit Toilets
- ACCESSIBLE PIT TOILETS on 7 of 10 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- WATER (SEASONAL) on 7 of 10 campsite records
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Mountain biking
- Off Road Vehicle Trails
- Wildlife viewing
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 16:34 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
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 · 16
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $10–$45 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
“All change and cancellation requests should be done through Recreation.gov.” · this campground’s own terms
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 · 6
recreation.gov availability, read 16:34 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
10 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 6 mapped sitesAll 10 records
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 7 of the 10 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. 8 of the 10 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Bird Creek Recreation Area | 5 (MULTI-FAMILY) | standard nonelectric | yes | 179 ft | 36 ft | 362 ft | $10–$45 |
| Bird Creek Recreation Area | 8 | group walk to | yes | 136 ft | 28 ft | 758 ft | $20 |
| Bird Creek Recreation Area | 9 | group walk to | yes | 152 ft | 54 ft | 893 ft | $20 |
| Bird Creek Recreation Area | Group Site A | day use | yes | 65 ft | 1,116 ft | $60 | |
| BIRD CREEK RECREATION AREA | 1 | standard nonelectric | yes | $10–$45 | |||
| BIRD CREEK RECREATION AREA | 2 | standard nonelectric | yes | $10–$45 | |||
| BIRD CREEK RECREATION AREA | 4 | standard nonelectric | yes | 303 ft | 32 ft | 66 ft | $10–$45 |
| BIRD CREEK RECREATION AREA | 6 | standard nonelectric | yes | 173 ft | 73 ft | 482 ft | $10–$45 |
| BIRD CREEK RECREATION AREA | 7 | standard nonelectric | yes | 136 ft | 93 ft | 654 ft | $10–$45 |
| BIRD CREEK RECREATION AREA | B | type not stated |
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.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
East Creek CampgroundHumboldt National Forest · 2.3 mi
Timber Creek CampgroundHumboldt National Forest · 4.6 mi
Cleve Creek CampgroundBristlecone Field Office · 18 mi
Ward Mtn. Campground (Murray Summit)Humboldt National Forest · 24 mi
Wheeler Peak CampgroundGreat Basin National Park · 36 mi
Upper Lehman Creek CampgroundGreat Basin National Park · 38 miFrom Ely, travel north on Highway 93 to the town of McGill. From McGill, go north 3 miles on Highway 93, to the Duck Creek Basin turnoff. Proceed east on Duck Creek Basin Road and turn left at the sign for Bird Creek Recreation Area.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for McGill, NV
Typical weather
Typical October night 25°F, day 61°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 7°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
Bird Creek Campground is in Nevada’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Mark Amodei (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →