CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
The map
U.S. Forest Service · Francis Marion National Wildlife Refuge · SC

Elmwood Recreation Area

2Heads up2 fires, nearest 11 mi
Wildfire
Horse Island fire · 11 mi away · 1,012 acres · 100% contained · updated Oct 2, 2026
Wildfire
Fowler Cemetery fire · 20 mi away · 222 acres · 100% contained · updated Oct 2, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 2, 2026
The agency doesn’t say how you get a siteIts record carries no access type, so treat it as a place to phone before you drive.
Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
OpenThe agency lists it open
A night
FreeNo camping fee
Season
Year-roundOpen year-round
Drawn from the record · 20 ft · 54% tree cover · water within reach · Bortle 4 sky
20 ftElevation
1,096 ftWater · an unnamed streamOcean · 7.3 mi · to the Atlantic Ocean
11.8 miSW of Georgetown, SC
54%Tree cover
Bortle 4Night sky · darkest of 37 in SC
Open year-roundToday

The place

the agency’s own description

In the agency’s own words

Primitive campsite. This recreation area is located in the northeastern portion of the Francis Marion National Forest. It's a popular camp during deer and turkey hunts on the Waterhorn Hunt Unit. The area also serves as a South Carolina Department of Natural Resources game check station during big-game hunting season. Click here for a printable guide.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Phone before you drive

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

Booking window6 months outBooking opens 6 months ahead; today unlocks arrivals through April 16, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
A nightFreeNo camping feethe agency’s fee record
A weekendNothingDerivedFriday and Saturday, everything includedours, from the lines above
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 4

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
Camping feeFree
Free of charge
The booking feerecreation.gov
We hold no recreation.gov booking record for this campground, so we can’t say whether a booking fee applies.
What a stay costs
A night, and a whole weekendDerivedNothing

Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s own record says there’s no camping fee, and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.

How we know this receipt · 5
Sign price: Derived by CAMPANAC from the U.S. Forest Service fee record: a stated per-night amount only · Sep 7, 2026
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate33.19896, -79.47007

Where it is

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Today85°Sunny1% rain
Tonight61°Partly Cloudy2% rain
Saturday67°Slight Chance Rain Showers23% rain
Saturday Night45°Mostly Clear13% rain

NWS forecast for McClellanville, SC

Source: National Weather Service, CHS forecast office · Oct 16, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 58°F, day 76°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 39°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

100°30°

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.

Measured at: MCCLELLANVILLE 7 NE, SC (USW00003728), 7 miles away and at about the same elevation
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

who answers for it

Who answers for this land

Nancy Mace, official portrait

Elmwood Recreation Area is in South Carolina’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Nancy Mace (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: D-. See every public-lands vote →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it open right now.
Season: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.43 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 37 rated federal campgrounds in South Carolina · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the Forest Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest place of any size: McClellanville, SC, 6.6 mi N. Straight line.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026