Canebrake Horse Camp
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 30 of the next 30 nights read 16:24 UTC
- A night
- $27–$54Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 28All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 9 notices
In the agency’s own words
Canebrake Horse Camp lies in the Badin Lake Recreation Area, a hub for outdoor activities in central North Carolina's Uwharrie National Forest. The facility is a scenic and restful overnight spot with both single and double campsites. Canebrake Horse Camp is specifically designed for campers traveling with horses and offers numerous amenities for equestrian camping. If your visit to the Uwharrie National Forest includes camping without horses, please consider one of our other campgrounds: Arrowhead Campground , Badin Lake Campground or Badin Lake Group Camp . Campers will delight in nearly 40 miles of forested horseback riding trails, as well as hiking, mountain biking, off-road vehicle riding, swimming, fishing and boating opportunities in the area. The campground is open year-round. Keep reading
Recreation
The equestrian trail system is extensive, with miles of forested paths wandering through forests, over hills and across streams. The trails can be accessed from Canebrake using the Home Trail, which skirts the campground. Trails range from easy to difficult, accommodating riders of every level. The recreation area also offers many ways to enjoy the lake. Campers can spend the afternoon swimming, boating or fishing for bass, bream, crappie and catfish on the water. Back on land, off-road vehicle enthusiasts have access to 17 miles of trails, and hunters and hikers can explore the surrounding national forest.
Facilities
This campground offers many conveniences for horse campers, including a horse washing station, hitching racks, tack tables, parking spurs for horse trailers and direct access to trails. Campsites are arranged around two loops. Each site is equipped with an electric hookup, picnic table, grill, campfire ring and lantern post, and many sites are shaded. The facility also provides drinking water, showers, flush toilets and a centrally-located dump station.
Natural Features
Canebrake lies in a quiet forest of pine, oak and hickory near the shore of 5,000-acre Badin Lake. Winter temperatures range from the low 30s to upper 50s, while summer brings temperatures in the upper 80s and 90s and high humidity. Weather is pleasant in spring and fall, with high temperatures in the 60s and 70s.
Nearby Attractions
A theme park with a petting zoo, nature center and mini golf course lies just under an hour away and makes a fun day trip for families.
What the agency tells you
Throughout the year the Uwharrie National Forest performs prescribed burns. Some of these burns will be next to and around this recreation facility and may cause smokey conditions during the actual burning and for the days following the burns. Sometimes we do not make a decision until the very morning that we will be able to do the burn due to weather and staffing. If you have questions about the prescribed burning possibility please call the Uwharrie National Forest Ranger District office at 910-576-6391 for updated information.
Rates do not reflect pass discounts. Single Sites = $27/night; Double Sites = $54/night.
For Access or Senior Access Pass card holders, discounts only apply on the campsite fee on single sites. A person with an Access or Senior Access Pass can only get a discount on the actual campsite they are camping in. The pass holder cannot get discounts on multiple sites for the same dates. No discount on double sites. No discount off of electrical surcharge. Electrical hookup surcharges are not discounted. With pass, the total fee with discounts: Single Site $10 campsite fee + $7 surcharge = $17. Campers must pay electric surcharge at all sites with electric hookups, whether or not they use electricity. There are no water or sewer hookups at this campground. There is a dumpstation for potable water fillup and dumping of gray water.
Everything else this campground posts · 6
Sites 9 and 22 are always non-reservable for first come/first serve campers who have to pay camping fees on-site.
Alcohol is Prohibited Fireworks are Prohibited
Off-highway vehicles allowed on designated trails only from Apr. 1 to Dec. 15; trail passes required for these trails. The sites in this campground are specifically designed for horse camping. If you do not have a horse please reserve a campsite at one of the other campgrounds if they are available.
Consideration of fellow campers is appreciated; for safety purposes, please keep off-highway vehicle use (including golf carts, dirt bikes, and other unlicensed vehicles) to designated trails outside of the campground. Keep children and pets under control in the campground. Do Not approach people's campsites, horses or pets without their permission.
Click here to learn more about the National Forests in North Carolina
Don't Move Firewood: Help protect our forests! Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. Moving firewood is illegal in some states. Visit dontmovefirewood.org to learn more.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 28 · 28 equestrian
- Hookups
- 28 electric
- Longest rig
- 85 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed at 8 of 28 sites
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…also provides drinking water, showers, flush toilets and a centrally-located dump station. Natural…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…are shaded. The facility also provides drinking water, showers, flush toilets and a centrally-located…”
- Dump station
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek
- Biking
- Boating
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Swimming
- Water sports
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 69th darkest of 84 in NC
- Bortle 4
Full this Saturdayread 16:24 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
Every one of the 26 sites on offer is taken this Saturday. 25 are free on Tue, Oct 20. read 16:24 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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $27–$54 a night, 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
recreation.gov availability, read 16:24 UTC · 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
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 28 of the 28 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| HORSE CAMP | 001 | equestrian electric | 65 ft | 50 amp | 80 ft | 1,209 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 002 | equestrian electric | 65 ft | 50 amp | 57 ft | 1,131 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 003 | equestrian electric | 65 ft | 50 amp | 57 ft | 1,140 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 004 | equestrian electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | 80 ft | 1,017 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 005 | equestrian electric | 55 ft | 50 amp | 67 ft | 999 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 006 | equestrian electric | 55 ft | 50 amp | 67 ft | 951 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 007 | equestrian electric | 65 ft | 50 amp | 60 ft | 921 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 008 | equestrian electric | 50 ft | 50 amp | 60 ft | 879 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 009 | equestrian electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | 100 ft | 784 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 010 | equestrian electric | 75 ft | 50 amp | 106 ft | 735 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 011 | equestrian electric | 85 ft | 50 amp | 80 ft | 821 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 012 | equestrian electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | 59 ft | 901 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 013 | equestrian electric | 65 ft | 50 amp | 59 ft | 900 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 014 | equestrian electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | 89 ft | 983 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 015 | equestrian electric | 55 ft | 50 amp | 90 ft | 1,076 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 016 | equestrian electric | 65 ft | 50 amp | 90 ft | 1,040 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 017 | equestrian electric | 55 ft | 50 amp | 97 ft | 1,154 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 018 | equestrian electric | 75 ft | 50 amp | 97 ft | 1,198 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 019 | equestrian electric | 55 ft | 50 amp | 99 ft | 1,253 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 021 | equestrian electric | 65 ft | 50 amp | 118 ft | 1,198 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 022 | equestrian electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | 85 ft | 1,099 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 023 | equestrian electric | 75 ft | 50 amp | 78 ft | 1,180 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 024 | equestrian electric | 75 ft | 50 amp | 69 ft | 1,150 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 025 | equestrian electric | 55 ft | 50 amp | 53 ft | 1,124 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 026 | equestrian electric | 50 ft | 50 amp | 53 ft | 1,097 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 027 | equestrian electric | 65 ft | 50 amp | 84 ft | 1,042 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 028 | equestrian electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | 101 ft | 946 ft | $27–$54 |
| HORSE CAMP | 029 | equestrian electric | 75 ft | 50 amp | 106 ft | 990 ft | $27–$54 |
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 28 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Arrowhead CampgroundUwharrie National Forest · 1.2 miUwharrie Hunt CampUwharrie National Forest · 1.5 mi
Badin Lake Group CampUwharrie National Forest · 1.6 mi
Badin Lake CampgroundUwharrie National Forest · 1.8 miArt Lilley CampgroundUwharrie National Forest · 2.6 miWest Morris Mtn. CampgroundUwharrie National Forest · 3.2 miThe address is 616 McLeans Creek Road, Troy, NC 27371. From Troy, North Carolina, take State Highway 109 north for approximately 10 miles. Turn left onto Mullinix Road (State Highway 1154) and travel approximately 1.5 miles to a stop sign and "T" intersection. Turn right, and travel about 0.25 mile to the campground 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 Badin, NC
Typical weather
Typical October night 50°F, day 73°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 31°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 · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Canebrake Horse Camp is in North Carolina’s 8th congressional district. Its representative, Mark Harris (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 moneyMark HarrisU.S. Representative · North Carolina’s 8th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationTed BuddU.S. Senator · North Carolina
- Your senator, on the same appropriationThom TillisU.S. Senator · North Carolina
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 Canebrake Horse Camp, Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina
Dear Mark Harris, I’m a constituent in North Carolina’s 8th district. I tried to camp at Canebrake Horse Camp, Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina, and couldn’t. All 28 sites at Canebrake Horse Camp are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 26 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Canebrake Horse Camp keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Canebrake Horse Camp. 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 Canebrake Horse Camp (Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina) 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 Canebrake Horse Camp, Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina
Dear Ted Budd, I’m a constituent in North Carolina. I tried to camp at Canebrake Horse Camp, Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina, and couldn’t. All 28 sites at Canebrake Horse Camp are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 26 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Canebrake Horse Camp keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Canebrake Horse Camp. 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 Canebrake Horse Camp (Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina) 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 Canebrake Horse Camp, Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina
Dear Thom Tillis, I’m a constituent in North Carolina. I tried to camp at Canebrake Horse Camp, Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina, and couldn’t. All 28 sites at Canebrake Horse Camp are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 26 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Canebrake Horse Camp keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Canebrake Horse Camp. 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 Canebrake Horse Camp (Uwharrie National Forest, North Carolina) via campanac.com