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National Park Service · Lake Meredith National Recreation Area · TX

Bugbee Canyon

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Information
Application for Special Use Permit Each applicant is required to complete a new "Application For Special Use Permit" prior to any new permit being issued
Information
Road Construction Work to begin May 4-October 24 Road construction work to occur Monday thru Friday between the hours of 7:00 am and 8:00 pm, weather permitting. Expect delays of up to 30 minutes during active construction periods.
Information
Roadwork to Begin at Sanford Yake Campground Monday, July 13th The National Park Service announces that Federal Highway Administration contractors will begin roadway and pavement maintenance at Sanford Yake Campground starting Monday, July 13, 2026. This project will include chip seal, micro seal…
Information
Condition of Turkey Creek Trail The South Turkey Creek Trail, located near the Harbor Bay Campground Area, is currently open for hiking for the first mile; however, the remainder of the trail is underwater and cannot be safely accessed.
Alerts: National Park Service alerts API · Oct 17, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: all 10 sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
A night
FreeNo camping fee
Sites
1010 of them walk-up
2,920 ftElevation
under 10 ftWater · Lake Meredith
4.6 miN of Fritch, TX
10Walk-up sites
n/aTree cover · water-masked cell

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

This area is located near the Bugbee community off FM 3395. Shoreline fishing is popular and there are a number of shoreline birds to view. There is no drinking water or flush toilets; vault-evaporator toilets only.

Source: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets - year round
Drinking water
None, bring your own
Source: National Park Service and agency records

Around the campground

On the water
Beach
Night sky · 54th darkest of 154 in TX
Bortle 4
Source: Stated in the agency description
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate · Sep 8, 2026

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and it costs nothing at all. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe agency’s record
A nightFreeNo camping feethe agency’s fee record
A weekendNothingDerivedFriday and Saturday, everything includedours, from the lines above
Runs itNational Park Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 4

What you actually pay

The sign priceNational Park Service
Camping feeFree
Camping Fees$0
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
A night, and a whole weekendDerivedNothing

Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s own record says there’s no camping fee, and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.

How we know this receipt · 5
Sign price: Derived by CAMPANAC from the National Park Service fee record: a stated per-night amount only · Sep 7, 2026
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 2026

record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Coordinate35.72481, -101.59015
The phone8068573151

Where it is

Source: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Tonight32°Clear then Widespread Frost
Saturday63°Widespread Frost then Sunny
Saturday Night38°Mostly Clear
Sunday70°Areas Of Frost then Sunny

NWS forecast for Sanford, TX

Source: National Weather Service, AMA forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 43°F, day 75°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.

110°32°10°

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.

Measured at: SANFORD DAM, TX (USC00418040), 3 miles away and at about the same elevation
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

who answers for it

Who answers for this land

Ronny Jackson, official portrait

Bugbee Canyon is in Texas’s 13th congressional district. Its representative, Ronny Jackson (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: National Park Service publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate: the number below is the only way to be sure.
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.4 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 154 rated federal campgrounds in Texas · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the Park Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest place of any size: Sanford, TX, 3.4 mi WNW. Straight line.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026