Blackwell Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- FreeNo camping fee
- Sites
- 28All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 2 notices
In the agency’s own words
The camp is located along Tower Ridge Road in the center of the Charles Deam Wilderness area, approximately one mile from Highway 446. The camp also is a trailhead for the Charles C. Deam Wilderness trail system. Keep reading
Recreation
Blackwell is a campground for all types of users. It provides access to the Charles C. Deam Wilderness Trail system with approximately 35 miles of trails. The nearby Hickory Ridge Trail system is also available.
Facilities
There is a picnic shelter at the site, a loading area for people to easily mount horses, including people with disabilities, and hitching racks. Trails from the site link to the trail system in the Charles C. Deam Wilderness. There are 6 vault toilets and one non-potable water hydrant.
Natural Features
The camp is a large grassy area with gravel parking areas on the east and west end. The trailheads are located on the east and west ends of the camp by the parking areas.
What the agency tells you
All campsites are free of charge.
Don't move firewood: To limit the spread of invasive tree-killing pests, firewood from outside the area is not permitted. Some states have quarantines and may confiscate your firewood. Please help protect our forests from invasive species by obtaining your firewood at or near your camping destination and burning it on-site. Visit dontmovefirewood.org for more information.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 28
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 27 of 28 campsite records
- Stay limit
- 28 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- Backpacking
- Hiking
- Horse Camping
- Horseback riding
- Wilderness access
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s own record says there’s no camping fee, 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.
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
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
28 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 28 mapped sitesAll 28 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 28 of the 28 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
| Blackwell Campground | 1 | standard nonelectric | 112 ft | 745 ft | 182 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 10 | standard nonelectric | 68 ft | 517 ft | 721 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 11 | standard nonelectric | 46 ft | 456 ft | 724 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 12 | standard nonelectric | 46 ft | 410 ft | 753 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 13 | standard nonelectric | 41 ft | 370 ft | 762 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 14 | standard nonelectric | 41 ft | 341 ft | 763 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 15 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 324 ft | 756 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 16 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 315 ft | 747 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 17 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 309 ft | 737 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 18 | standard nonelectric | 33 ft | 330 ft | 708 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 19 | standard nonelectric | 33 ft | 355 ft | 680 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 2 | standard nonelectric | 72 ft | 660 ft | 271 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 20 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 393 ft | 642 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 21 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 431 ft | 604 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 22 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 471 ft | 564 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 23 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 532 ft | 504 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 24 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 570 ft | 465 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 25 | standard nonelectric | 42 ft | 612 ft | 424 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 26 | standard nonelectric | 46 ft | 651 ft | 385 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 27 | standard nonelectric | 43 ft | 681 ft | 362 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 28 | standard nonelectric | 43 ft | 711 ft | 343 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 3 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | 594 ft | 330 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 4 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | 648 ft | 347 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 5 | standard nonelectric | 57 ft | 689 ft | 405 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 6 | standard nonelectric | 57 ft | 672 ft | 462 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 7 | standard nonelectric | 61 ft | 633 ft | 523 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 8 | standard nonelectric | 61 ft | 584 ft | 592 ft |
| Blackwell Campground | 9 | standard nonelectric | 61 ft | 555 ft | 653 ft |
25 of 28 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Where it is
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Smithville-Sanders, IN
Typical weather
Typical October night 43°F, day 67°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 21°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
Blackwell Campground is in Indiana’s 9th congressional district. Its representative, Erin Houchin (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →