Camp Rucker Group Site
Reservable everywhere but bookable nowhere.Ask the agency →
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $15From, per site
- Sites
- 1None on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Camp Rucker Group Site is not available for reservations at this time for site re-design and facility improvements . The group camp area is now open to individual party walk-in camping. Individual sites are $15 per night; cash payment on-site. Camp Rucker sits in the beautiful and remote Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona. Keep reading
Recreation
The Rucker and Tex Canyon scenic drive takes visitors over the southern reaches of the Chiricahua Mountains through beautiful canyon country, several forest campgrounds and a number of trails into the Chiricahua Wilderness. History buffs might want to stop at the historic Rucker Military Camp and Ranch, a remnant of the region's warring between U.S. Cavalry and Chiricahua Apaches.
Facilities
Camp Rucker has one spacious group campsite that includes eight picnic tables, two large serving tables, campfire rings with grills, bear-proof trash containers and vault toilets. The site was designed for groups. However, if the area has not been reserved by a group, individuals are permitted to camp.
Natural Features
Located at an elevation of 5,533 feet, Camp Rucker is situated in a grassy area with plenty of open space between the oak, juniper and Arizona walnut trees that provide welcome shade on a summer day. A short distance from the camp, Rucker Creek runs intermittently throughout the year. Monte Vista Peak to the northeast and a number of other minor peaks and foothills provide a scenic backdrop.
Nearby Attractions
Campers can take a day trip to Chiricahua National Monument. The monument protects some of the most scenic areas of the Chiricahua Mountains, a wonderland of rocks and forests with many opportunities for hiking and photography. Click here for more about the Chiricahua National Monument.
What the agency tells you
No drinking water available; please bring your own
No reservations accepted for Easter weekend, Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend; during these times, the group site is used as an overflow campsite for the area
No cell phone service available at the site
Everything else this campground posts · 5
No hookups
Pack and saddle stock not permitted in the campground
Bears live in the area; make sure all food is secure and trash disposed in trash cans provided
Click here to learn more about Coronado National Forest
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 41 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…grills, bear-proof trash containers and vault toilets. The site was designed for groups. However, if the…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Visitor center
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 42nd darkest of 262 in AZ
- Bortle 2
Nothing on the booking system
recreation.gov lists none of the 1 campsites the agency files here. Whatever these sites are, a reservation isn’t how you get one.
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.
Every line of the receipt · 11
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($15), 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
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
| CAMP RUCKER GROUP SITE | 1 | type not stated | 41 ft | 265 ft |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Walnut Grove CampgroundCoronado National Forest · 0.8 mi
Sycamore CampgroundCoronado National Forest · 7.5 mi
Herb Martyr CampgroundCoronado National Forest · 11 mi
Rustler Park CampgroundCoronado National Forest · 11 mi
Sunny Flat CampgroundCoronado National Forest · 14 miIdlewilde CampgroundCoronado National Forest · 15 miFrom Douglas, Arizona, take Leslie Canyon Road north to Rucker Canyon. Stay on the main road, which becomes Forest Road 74. Turn left on Forest Road 74E and left again to the Camp Rucker Group Site.
From Tucson, Arizona, take I-10 east for 72 miles to U.S. 191. Turn right and drive 29 miles to the turnoff for Rucker Canyon. Turn left and continue 17 miles to the national forest boundary. Continue on FR 74, then turn left on FR 74E and left again to the Camp Rucker Group Site.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Sunizona, AZ
Typical weather
Typical October night 41°F, day 75°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 Junes are colder than the June 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
Camp Rucker Group Site is in Arizona’s 6th congressional district. Its representative, Juan Ciscomani (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
The agency’s own record marks Camp Rucker Group Site reservable, and recreation.gov lists none of its campsites. The draft asks why, and what it would take to fix it.
- The member who votes the moneyJuan CiscomaniU.S. Representative · Arizona’s 6th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMark KellyU.S. Senator · Arizona
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRuben GallegoU.S. Senator · Arizona
No contact form we could verify, so that link is their own site. Contact is inside it. Washington office: 202-224-4521.
Read the draft, or change the wording
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Camp Rucker Group Site is reservable and not bookable
Dear Juan Ciscomani, I’m a constituent in Arizona’s 6th district. Camp Rucker Group Site, Coronado National Forest, Arizona is a federal campground the U.S. Forest Service records as reservable, and recreation.gov lists none of its 1 campsites, in any month asked. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why isn’t Camp Rucker Group Site on the booking system, and what would it take to put it there? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Camp Rucker Group Site (Coronado National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Camp Rucker Group Site is reservable and not bookable
Dear Mark Kelly, I’m a constituent in Arizona. Camp Rucker Group Site, Coronado National Forest, Arizona is a federal campground the U.S. Forest Service records as reservable, and recreation.gov lists none of its 1 campsites, in any month asked. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why isn’t Camp Rucker Group Site on the booking system, and what would it take to put it there? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Camp Rucker Group Site (Coronado National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Camp Rucker Group Site is reservable and not bookable
Dear Ruben Gallego, I’m a constituent in Arizona. Camp Rucker Group Site, Coronado National Forest, Arizona is a federal campground the U.S. Forest Service records as reservable, and recreation.gov lists none of its 1 campsites, in any month asked. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why isn’t Camp Rucker Group Site on the booking system, and what would it take to put it there? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Camp Rucker Group Site (Coronado National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com