Eagle Ridge Group Campground
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 15 of the next 16 nights read 16:21 UTC
- Sites
- 2All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Eagle Ridge Group Campground sits within a tall ponderosa pine forest of Prescott National Forest. The site lies in the Bradshaw Mountains along Lynx Lake and is convenient to the historic town of Prescott, Arizona. Summer visitors seeking relief from the hot weather in Phoenix frequent the recreation area to camp, fish, picnic, hike and mountain bike. To make reservations click on the availability button to the right to book this site or call 1 (877) 444-6777. For general campground questions contact the Bradshaw Ranger District at 1 (928) 443-8000. Keep reading
Recreation
The Lynx Lake Recreation Area is a popular fishing spot, with crappie, trout, bluegill, bass and catfish available, and anglers have the convenience of a boat ramp (motor boats less than 10 horsepower allowed). Swimming and wading are not allowed, though campers can rent canoes, kayaks, paddle boats and electric row boats at the campground concessionaire. Trails in the area allow for a variety of uses, including hiking and mountain biking. An easy, family-friendly, two-mile trail loops around the lake. The Bradshaw Mountains are known for their history of mineral mining. Visitors can still pan for gold in Lynx Creek, and many historic mining sites lie in the area.
Facilities
Two group campsites, Osprey and Peregrine, are located adjacent to each other and provide plenty of space for church groups, family reunions and other social gatherings. Osprey holds 26 to 75 people, while Peregrine can accommodate 15 to 25. Access to Peregrine is via Osprey and one group may reserve both sites. The sites are equipped with campfire rings and picnic tables. Group facilities are accessible, and the lake recreation area can be easily access by car or foot. An on-site host is available to assist campers with visitor information and gates. A small store at the north end of the lake offers boat rentals, firewood and a restaurant.
Natural Features
At an elevation of 5,700 feet, Eagle Ridge offers visitors pleasant summer temperatures and cool breezes. It is surrounded by a dense ponderosa pine forest mixed with juniper and oak. Lynx Lake covers 55 acres and is just 0.25 mile. The area's animal residents include the osprey, coyote, deer, javelina, squirrel, fox, badger and mountain lion. Temperatures are pleasant during the camping season, though the area experiences a monsoon season from late June through mid-September that may result in afternoon thunderstorms.
What the agency tells you
Maximum stay limit is 14 days within 30 consecutive days in Prescott National Forest including stays in dispersed sites.
No hookups available
Pets are welcome but must be on a 6 foot leash or in a cage and never unattended.
Everything else this campground posts · 7
All vehicles must park in a centralized parking area
Please respect the check-in and check-out times of 2:00 P.M. and 12:00 P.M., respectively. This two hour window allows for reoccurring maintenance to be performed.
Boats with motors restricted to 10 horsepower or less on Lynx Lake
Fireworks, including sparklers, are prohibited at all times on National Forest Lands.
Fire restrictions may be imposed due to dry conditions, at which time smoking, wood and charcoal fires may be prohibited.
OHV'/ATVs are not permitted to be driven in the campground
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
- 2 · 2 group
- Hookups
- 2 electric
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- 2
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Store
- Nearby
- Firewood
- Mentioned
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Night sky · 227th darkest of 262 in AZ
- Bortle 4
- Fall color · reported 3 days ago, 8.2 km away
- Patchy color
Full this Saturdayread 16:21 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
1 campground has sites open within 30 miles, read 16:55 UTC. See them
OpenBookedClosed
Every one of the 2 sites on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 2 are free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:21 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.
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
Open within 30 miles this weekend · 1
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 16:55 UTC
- Potato Patch CampgroundPrescott National Forest · 19 mi · 1 of 72 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 16:21 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
2 sites · the site map
All 2 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 2 of the 2 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 2 of the 2 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Hilltop Campground (AZ)Prescott National Forest · 0.3 mi
Lynx CampgroundPrescott National Forest · 0.5 mi
Groom Creek SchoolhousePrescott National Forest · 3.9 mi
Groom Creek Horse CampPrescott National Forest · 4.4 mi
White Spar CampgroundPrescott National Forest · 5.2 mi
Upper Wolf Creek GroupPrescott National Forest · 5.3 miFrom Phoenix, Arizona: Traveling Northbound on I-17 take Exit 262 onto Hwy 69 North to Prescott and cointnue on Hwy 69 for 30 miles to S Walker Rd. Turn left and proceed South on S. Walker Rd. (by Costco, Petsmart, and AM/PM gas station). Go approximately 3.5 miles to the Lynx Lake Southshore Day Use Area turn-off and turn left (east). Entry to Eagle Ridge Group Campground is about 230 feet from Walker Road on the left (north) side of the road.
Alternate route from Flagstaff, Arizona: Traveling Southbound on I-17 take Exit 278 onto Westbound Highway 169 and continue for 15 Miles until reaching the junction of Hwy 69, turn right onto Northbound Hwy 69 and continue for 12 miles to S. Walker Rd. Turn left and proceed South on S. Walker Road (by Costco, Petsmart, and AM/PM gas station). Go approximately 3.5 miles to the Lynx Lake Southshore Day Use Area turn-off and turn left (east). Entry to Eagle Ridge Group Campground is about 230 feet from Walker Road on the left (north) side of the road.
From Arizona Highway 69 in Prescott, turn south on Walker Road (by Costco, PetSmart and the gas station). Go approximately 3.5 miles to the Lynx Lake Southshore Day Use Area turn-off and turn left (east). Entry to Eagle Ridge Group Campground is about 230 feet from Walker Road on the left (north) side of the road.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Prescott, AZ
Typical weather
Typical October night 40°F, day 73°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 24°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
Eagle Ridge Group Campground 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 Eagle Ridge Group Campground, Prescott National Forest, Arizona
Dear Elijah Crane, I’m a constituent in Arizona’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Eagle Ridge Group Campground, Prescott National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 2 sites at Eagle Ridge Group Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 2 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Eagle Ridge Group Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Eagle Ridge Group Campground. 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 Eagle Ridge Group Campground (Prescott 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 Eagle Ridge Group Campground, Prescott National Forest, Arizona
Dear Mark Kelly, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Eagle Ridge Group Campground, Prescott National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 2 sites at Eagle Ridge Group Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 2 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Eagle Ridge Group Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Eagle Ridge Group Campground. 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 Eagle Ridge Group Campground (Prescott 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 Eagle Ridge Group Campground, Prescott National Forest, Arizona
Dear Ruben Gallego, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Eagle Ridge Group Campground, Prescott National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 2 sites at Eagle Ridge Group Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 2 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Eagle Ridge Group Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Eagle Ridge Group Campground. 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 Eagle Ridge Group Campground (Prescott National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com