Carden Point
This place has sites and nobody may sleep in them.Ask for camping here →
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 4 notices
In the agency’s own words
Carden Point Day Use Park sits along the shores of Nimrod Lake and Dam, cradled between Arkansas' Ouachita and Ozark Mountains. Keep reading
Recreation
Fishing is one of the most popular activities at the lake, with an abundance of catfish, bluegill, bass and crappie available. Boating, water skiing and tubing are also popular, with 11 boat ramps conveniently located around the lake, however, skiing and tubing are only allowed from the tip of Carden Point eastward toward the dam because areas west of there are too hazardous. Visitors are likely to spot white-tailed deer, eastern wild turkey, bobwhite quail, squirrel, rabbit, fox, mink, black bear, dove and waterfowl in the area. Seasonal hunting is also permitted throughout the lake, except in or near recreation areas.
Facilities
Carden Point features a large day use group picnic shelter, with drinking water, grills and tables. A playground, horseshoe pit and swimming beach make the area ideal for large parties or family functions.
Natural Features
Nimrod Dam was completed in 1942 as part of a comprehensive plan for flood control and development of water resources in the Fourche LaFave River. Although recreation was not part of the initial mission of the dam project, the lake and surrounding 21,000 acres of pristine land have now become a recreational oasis for outdoor enthusiasts.
Nearby Attractions
Nimrod Lake is conveniently located adjacent to State Highway 7, a National Scenic Byway and other nearby points of interest like Petit Jean State Park, Mount Nebo State Park and Hot Springs National Park.
What the agency tells you
Off-road vehicles not permitted. Highway legal transportation only.
Picnic shelter users must pay the day use fees to swim or use the boat launch
Group Shelters are Day Use Only. Camping is not allowed at group shelters.
Everything else this campground posts · 1
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.
Facilities
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…large day use group picnic shelter, with drinking water, grills and tables. A playground, horseshoe pit and…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Hot springs, Lake, River, Beach
- Boating
- Fishing
- Swimming
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 16:14 UTC
The agency files 1 record here and marks it day use, not overnight. On its own record there’s nothing here to spend the night in.
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.
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.
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 16:14 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 records · the site map
All 1 records
| Carden Point | GS01 | day use | 30 amp | 2,289 ft | $40 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It files it as day use. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t 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.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Quarry Cove1.6 mi
River Road2.4 mi
Carter Cove2.7 mi
Sunlight Bay6.4 miSouth Fourche Recreation Area8.2 miFourche Mountain Recreation AreaOuachita National Forest · 12 miFrom Plainview, Arkansas, take Route 60 east for 5.5 miles to the Access Road, then follow signs into campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Ola, AR
Typical weather
Typical October night 51°F, day 76°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
Carden Point is in Arkansas’s 4th congressional district. Its representative, Bruce Westerman (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 files sites here and marks every one of them day use. The draft asks whether any could open to overnight camping, and if not, why.
- The member who votes the moneyBruce WestermanU.S. Representative · Arkansas’s 4th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJohn BoozmanU.S. Senator · Arkansas
- Your senator, on the same appropriationTom CottonU.S. Senator · Arkansas
Read the draft, or change the wording
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Carden Point has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Bruce Westerman, I’m a constituent in Arkansas’s 4th district. Carden Point, Arkansas carries 1 record on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? 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 Carden Point (Arkansas) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Carden Point has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear John Boozman, I’m a constituent in Arkansas. Carden Point, Arkansas carries 1 record on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? 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 Carden Point (Arkansas) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Carden Point has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Tom Cotton, I’m a constituent in Arkansas. Carden Point, Arkansas carries 1 record on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? 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 Carden Point (Arkansas) via campanac.com