Chavez Crossing
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- OpenThe agency lists it open
- Sites
- 3All of them booked ahead
- Season
- Year-roundOpen year-round
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Chavez Crossing Group Campground is in the picturesque Red Rock district of Arizona, with famous red rock formations and breathtaking painted sunsets. Placed beside a creek and surrounded by sycamore and cypress groves, the campground's location offers a fresh sense of the great outdoors. It's also conveniently close to developed entertainment like golf courses and stylish restaurants in the resort town of Sedona. Drive through Oak Creek Canyon to view majestic red-hued cliffs, buttes, and canyons. At night, relax by the campfire at your site or take advantage of Sedona's trendy shopping and nightlife. Keep reading
Recreation
Go wading or fishing in the crystal clear waters of Oak Creek or take a stroll with your camera to photograph the unique flora, fauna and rock formations. Cathedral Rock and Bell Rock are famous nearby attractions, perfect for exploring or photographing.
Facilities
The campground's location makes it a convenient place to mix outdoors time with shopping trips in the resort town of Sedona. Three group sites are available, and all three can be reserved for a total capacity of 110.
Natural Features
Chavez Crossing is in a high desert region situated at the base of the Mogollon Rim, a 200-mile long slope that ranges between 5,000 and 7,000 ft elevation. The unique landscape creates erosion that has shaped spectacular canyons and buttes that make the region an appealing attraction. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (928) 203-0624.
Nearby Attractions
A variety of hiking trails and swimming holes are a short drive away. Seek out your favorite panoramic views at Munds Mountain Wilderness, or explore the Red Rock/Secret Mountain Wilderness area in the heart of Oak Creek Canyon. Here, you can find abandoned dwellings and rock art from early inhabitants.
What the agency tells you
No radios or amplified devices allowed
Click here to learn more about Coconino 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.
Everything else this campground posts · 7
No cutting, splitting, or chopping wood in campground
No portable showers or toilets allowed.
First come-first serve sites are not available. Reservations ONLY. No walk-ins.
Campsites must be occupied first night of reservation
Campsite cannot be unattended more than 24 hours
Only one Camper, RV or Trailer is allowed per campsite.
The camping stay limit in Red Rock District is limited to 7 days
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 3 · 3 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Night sky · 181st darkest of 262 in AZ
- Bortle 4
Full this Saturdayread 14:45 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot reservable
Every one of the 3 sites on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 14:45 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 · 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 14:45 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
3 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 3 mapped sitesAll 3 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. 3 of the 3 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Cypress | 1 | group standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 128 ft | 90 ft | $108–$136 |
| Ponderosa | 2 | group standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 128 ft | 119 ft | $108–$136 |
| Sycamore | 3 | group standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 171 ft | 128 ft | $108–$136 |
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
Crescent Moon Ranch CabinCoconino National Forest · 1.9 mi
Crescent Moon RamadaCoconino National Forest · 1.9 mi
Manzanita CampgroundCoconino National Forest · 6.2 mi
Manzanita.Coconino National Forest · 7.0 mi
Cave SpringCoconino National Forest · 11 mi
Pine Flat Campground WestCoconino National Forest · 12 mi201 Oak Creek Cliffs Dr. Sedona, AZ 86336 If coming from Flagstaff, take I-17 south to Hwy 89A. Go south on 89A through Oak Creek Canyon to Sedona. Left to State Highway 179. Go South on Hwy 179 approximately 2 miles. Turn right on Oak Creek Cliffs Dr. to the campground on the left hand side adjacent to Poco Diablo Resort. From Phoenix get off on Sedona Exit 298 travel 12.7 miles North on HW 179, turn left on Oak Creek Cliffs Dr. to the campground on the left adjacent to The Poco Diablo Resort along Oak Creek.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Sedona, AZ
Typical weather
Typical October night 51°F, day 79°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 33°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
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
Chavez Crossing is in Arizona’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Eli Crane (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 moneyElijah CraneU.S. Representative · Arizona’s 2nd 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
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 Chavez Crossing, Coconino National Forest, Arizona
Dear Elijah Crane, I’m a constituent in Arizona’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Chavez Crossing, Coconino National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 3 sites at Chavez Crossing are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 3 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. Chavez Crossing keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Chavez Crossing. 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 Chavez Crossing (Coconino National Forest, Arizona) 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 Chavez Crossing, Coconino National Forest, Arizona
Dear Mark Kelly, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Chavez Crossing, Coconino National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 3 sites at Chavez Crossing are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 3 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. Chavez Crossing keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Chavez Crossing. 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 Chavez Crossing (Coconino National Forest, Arizona) 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 Chavez Crossing, Coconino National Forest, Arizona
Dear Ruben Gallego, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Chavez Crossing, Coconino National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 3 sites at Chavez Crossing are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 3 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. Chavez Crossing keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Chavez Crossing. 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 Chavez Crossing (Coconino National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com