Buckhorn Campground
- Right now
- Closedrecreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend, read 16:02 UTC
- A night
- $14–$32When it reopens, per site
- Sites
- 35In the agency’s record
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
In the agency’s own words
Buckhorn Campground on Buckhorn Lake, provides the perfect outdoor escape in eastern Kentucky's lush Cumberland Plateau. The campground is packed with activities to entertain all ages, including monthly interpretive programs offered during summer months and convenient access for boating and fishing on Buckhorn Lake. Keep reading
Recreation
Buckhorn Lake welcomes fishing, boating, water skiing, hiking, swimming, hunting and just plain relaxing. The campground provides access to a nature trail and fishing areas as well.
Facilities
Buckhorn is packed with amenities to make your stay comfortable. A basketball court, playground and horseshoe pits will entertain visitors on-shore, while a swimming area and boat ramp, cater to visitors eager to explore the lake. Additional amenities include free wireless internet, electric hookups, laundry facilities, hot showers, vending machines, a dump station and flush toilets.
Natural Features
Buckhorn campground sits near the dam on Buckhorn Lake, surrounded by the beauty of the scenic Appalachian Mountain Range. The rugged plateau landscape is deeply traversed by a series of narrow, winding valleys separated by steep watersheds with branching streams. Fed by the waters of the Kentucky River, Buckhorn Lake extends for 1,230 surface-acres, providing plenty of water recreation opportunities. Buckhorn Campground was also recently recongnized as the location for the largest River Birch Tree in the country by The National Register of Big Trees, the tree measures 205 inches around, 117 feet high and an 85 foot crown on top, making this tree surely a sight to see.
Nearby Attractions
The park is just minutes from attractions like Carr Creek Lake and the Buckhorn Log Church. Rent a pontoon from Buckhorn Lake State Resort Park, explore the Red River Gorge Geological Area or hike through the Daniel Boone National Forest.
What the agency tells you
No alcohol allowed
Off-road vehicles are permitted; restrictions apply
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 35 · 4 tent-only, 2 boat-in
- Hookups
- 28 electric, 29 water, 1 sewer
- Longest rig
- 55 ft
- Paved pads
- 29 of 35
- Accessible sites
- 2
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- FLUSH TOILETS on 3 of 38 campsite records, ACCESSIBLE FLUSH TOILETS on 2 of 38 campsite records
- Showers
- Accessible Showers
- ACCESSIBLE SHOWERS on 2 of 38 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- DRINKING WATER on 1 of 38 campsite records
- Dump station
- Yes
- recreation.gov lists “Dump Station”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek
- Boating
- Swimming
- Night sky · 2nd darkest of 60 in KY
- Bortle 4
- Cell signal · Cell signal · Army Corps says
- Yes
Nothing to book until it reopensread 16:02 UTC
recreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend
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.
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 Buckhorn Campground closed this Friday and Saturday night. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 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.
Open within 60 miles · 4
The agency’s own word that these are open, not our reading of a season.
- Turkey Foot CampgroundDaniel Boone National Forest · 26 mi
- S-Tree CampgroundDaniel Boone National Forest · 33 mi
- Claylick Boat-In CampgroundDaniel Boone National Forest · 49 mi · 2 sites
- Bee Rock CampgroundDaniel Boone National Forest · 52 mi
recreation.gov availability, read 16:02 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
38 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 36 mapped sitesAll 38 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. 34 of the 38 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| BUCK | C01 | type not stated | 55 ft | 50 amp | 962 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | |||
| BUCK | C02 | standard electric | 43 ft | 50 amp | 56 ft | 121 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C03 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | yes | 56 ft | 98 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | $24–$32 |
| BUCK | C04 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | 58 ft | 87 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C05 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 57 ft | 68 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C06 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | yes | 57 ft | 45 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | $24–$32 |
| BUCK | C07 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 71 ft | 63 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C08 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 76 ft | 58 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C09 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | 76 ft | 62 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C10 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 35 ft | 68 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C11 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 26 ft | 72 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C12 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 19 ft | 51 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C13 | standard electric | 50 ft | 50 amp | 27 ft | 65 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C14 | standard electric | 50 ft | 50 amp | 19 ft | 66 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C15 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 58 ft | 69 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C16 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 58 ft | 72 ft | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C17 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 50 ft | 80 ft | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C18 | standard electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | 50 ft | 62 ft | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C19/20 | standard electric | 55 ft | 50 amp | 53 ft | 68 ft | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C21 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 43 ft | 51 ft | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C22/23 | standard electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | 43 ft | 45 ft | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C24 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 52 ft | 45 ft | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C25 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 65 ft | 44 ft | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C26 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 65 ft | 54 ft | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C27 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | 47 ft | 52 ft | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C28 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 47 ft | 53 ft | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C29 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 58 ft | 67 ft | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C30 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 23 ft | 118 ft | $24–$32 | |
| BUCK | C31 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 23 ft | 107 ft | $24–$32 | |
| Buckhorn Campground | closed | day use | yes | 335 ft | 87 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | |||
| Buckhorn Campground | Closed | day use | yes | 130 ft | 233 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | |||
| Buckhorn Campground | Closed | day use | yes | 335 ft | 166 ftMiddle Fork Kentucky River | |||
| PBIB | B01 | boat in | 3918 ft | 77 ftBuckhorn Lake | $14 | |||
| PBIB | B15 | boat in | $14 | |||||
| WALK | P1 | tent only nonelectric | 60 ft | 121 ft | $14 | |||
| WALK | P2 | tent only nonelectric | 52 ft | 133 ft | $14 | |||
| WALK | P3 | tent only nonelectric | 51 ft | 160 ft | $14 | |||
| WALK | P4 | tent only nonelectric | 51 ft | 157 ft | $14 |
The agency files 3 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.
25 of 38 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Confluence Recreation Area3.7 mi
Leatherwood Recreation Area3.7 mi
Trace Branch Campground9.3 miTurkey Foot CampgroundDaniel Boone National Forest · 26 mi
Littcarr Campground30 mi
Koomer Ridge CampgroundDaniel Boone National Forest · 31 miTraveling north from Lexington, take I-64 to the Mountain Parkway. Exit at Slade, take KY 11 South through Beattyville. Continue on Highway 11 to Booneville, continuing past the courthouse to KY 28 West. Follow KY 28 about 23 miles to Buckhorn.
Traveling east From Hazard, take KY 15 North 9 miles to 28 W (left turn) through Chavies. Follow Highway 28 West straight and go 15 miles to Buckhorn.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Buckhorn, KY
Typical weather
Typical October night 44°F, day 71°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 Augusts are colder than the August line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Buckhorn 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 →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
“the agency's own site records list "CELL PHONE SERVICE" on 2 of 38 campsites here”