Boat Gunnel Group Campground
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 16 of the next 16 nights read 16:48 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Boat Gunnel Group Campground is located in the Daniel Boone National Forest on Cave Run Lake. Widely known for its scenic beauty and varied outdoor recreation opportunities, Cave Run Lake is home to Kentucky's state record Muskie. This 8,270-acre lake is jointly operated and managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Forest Service. Keep reading
Recreation
Nearby Twin Knobs Campground offers a boat ramp and beach. Scenic foot trails in the area include the Boat Gunnel Shoreline Trail, the Oak Ridge Trail and the Wildlife Trail.
Facilities
Boat Gunnel Group Campground offers a bathhouse with flush toilets and showers, picnic shelter, horseshoe pit and drinking water. The camping area accommodates large groups of up to 100 people and is available by reservation only. The picnic shelter is equipped with a grill, serving table and electricity.
Natural Features
The Daniel Boone National Forest embraces some of the most rugged terrain west of the Appalachian Mountains. The forest lies within the Cumberland Plateau, where steep forested slopes, sandstone cliffs and narrow ravines characterize the land in this region. Cave Run Lake is in the Cumberland District in the northernmost part of the forest. The lake is surrounded by the rolling hills of northeastern Kentucky.
Nearby Attractions
The Morehead Office Visitor Center offers information about the Daniel Boone National Forest in addition to interpretive exhibits. A popular attraction within the Daniel Boone National Forest is the Red River Gorge Geological Area, which features more than 100 natural sandstone arches.
What the agency tells you
Additional fee for extra vehicles will be collected at the campground. This fee only pertains to personal vehicles; more than 4 recreational vehicles are not permitted.
No ATV's or ORV's allowed.
Reserved Sites will be held until check out time (11 AM) the day following your arrival date. Sites must be occupied by the checkout time of that following day to hold a reservation or the site will be forfeited and released to other guests. Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
Everything else this campground posts · 3
The Twin Knobs CG & Zilpo CG dump stations, boat ramps and beach areas are available for use at an additional cost. The cost of using these amenities is NOT included in your Boat Gunnel reservation.
A maximum amount of 100 people are permitted.
A maximum amount of 4 RVs are permitted.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 group
- Hookups
- 1 electric
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…Group Campground offers a bathhouse with flush toilets and showers, picnic shelter, horseshoe pit and…”
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “Facilities Boat Gunnel Group Campground offers a bathhouse with flush toilets and showers, picnic shelter, horseshoe pit and drinking water.”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…picnic shelter, horseshoe pit and drinking water. The camping area accommodates large groups of up…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Beach
Full this Saturdayread 16:48 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Wed, Oct 21. read 16:48 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
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 16:48 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 1 of the 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| BOAT GUNNEL GROUP CAMPGROUND | Boat Gunnel | group standard electric | 30/50 amp | 93 ft | $175 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Twin Knobs CampgroundDaniel Boone National Forest · 0.9 mi
Zilpo - Daniel Boone Nat. For.Daniel Boone National Forest · 1.7 miZilpo Recreation AreaDaniel Boone National Forest · 1.8 mi
Cave Run Dam Tailwater2.2 miFrom Lexington, Kentucky, on I-64, take exit 133. Turn right at the top of the exit ramp to proceed south on KY-801. Proceed 8.4 miles on 801. The campground entrance is on the right.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Farmers, KY
Typical weather
Typical October night 45°F, day 68°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 25°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 · a letter you can send
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Boat Gunnel Group Campground is in Kentucky’s 5th congressional district. Its representative, Hal Rogers (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
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyHarold RogersU.S. Representative · Kentucky’s 5th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMitch McConnellU.S. Senator · Kentucky
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRand PaulU.S. Senator · Kentucky
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Boat Gunnel Group Campground, Daniel Boone National Forest, Kentucky
Dear Harold Rogers, I’m a constituent in Kentucky’s 5th district. I tried to camp at Boat Gunnel Group Campground, Daniel Boone National Forest, Kentucky, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Boat Gunnel Group Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Boat Gunnel Group Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Boat Gunnel Group Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Boat Gunnel Group Campground (Daniel Boone National Forest, Kentucky) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Boat Gunnel Group Campground, Daniel Boone National Forest, Kentucky
Dear Mitch McConnell, I’m a constituent in Kentucky. I tried to camp at Boat Gunnel Group Campground, Daniel Boone National Forest, Kentucky, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Boat Gunnel Group Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Boat Gunnel Group Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Boat Gunnel Group Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Boat Gunnel Group Campground (Daniel Boone National Forest, Kentucky) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Boat Gunnel Group Campground, Daniel Boone National Forest, Kentucky
Dear Rand Paul, I’m a constituent in Kentucky. I tried to camp at Boat Gunnel Group Campground, Daniel Boone National Forest, Kentucky, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Boat Gunnel Group Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Boat Gunnel Group Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Boat Gunnel Group Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Boat Gunnel Group Campground (Daniel Boone National Forest, Kentucky) via campanac.com