French Creek
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 13 of the next 30 nights read 15:33 UTC
- A night
- $12From, per site
- Sites
- 20All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
In the agency’s own words
French Creek Cove Campground offers a secluded quiet campground that is located on the Southwest side of Marion Reservoir. Keep reading
Recreation
Popular activities include camping, boating, fishing and hunting. Anglers will find an abundance of channel catfish, walleye, white bass and wipers, and a boat ramp is provided at the campground for convenient access to the lake.
Facilities
This campground has 20 campsites with electric, 18 camping sites include a canopy shelter (Sites 13-14 do not include canopy shelters), with 6 community water hydrants, all sites include fire rings and a grill, a boat ramp with a loading dock is located on the northwest portion of the campground, a playground, and two vault restrooms.
Natural Features
Completed in 1968, Marion Reservoir encompasses 6,200 acres of water surrounded by 6,000 acres of public lands. The surrounding expanse of forest provides visitors with endless recreational activities, set against the backdrop of the sparkling lake.
Nearby Attractions
The nearby communities of Hillsboro and Marion offer additional tourist attractions. Both cities have a nationally recognized Art and Crafts show, as well as a variety of restaurants and shops.
What the agency tells you
Three tents or two tents and one RV permitted per campsite
Off-road vehicles not permitted
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 20
- Hookups
- 20 electric
- Longest rig
- 55 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…of the campground, a playground, and two vault restrooms. Natural Features Completed in 1968, Marion…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…canopy shelters), with 6 community water hydrants, all sites include fire rings and a grill, a boat…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, Creek
- Boating
- Fishing
- Water access
- Night sky · 34th darkest of 57 in KS
- Bortle 4
37 of 40 site-nights open this Friday and Saturdayread 15:33 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
OpenBookedClosedNot yet released
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.
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 rate for this season, $12 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 15:33 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
20 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 20 mapped sitesAll 20 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. 20 of the 20 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.
| Main | 1 | standard electric | 45 ft | 30 amp | 81 ft | 448 ft | $12 |
| Main | 10 | standard electric | 40 ft | 30 amp | 68 ft | 86 ft | $12 |
| Main | 11 | standard electric | 40 ft | 30 amp | 78 ft | 161 ft | $12 |
| Main | 12 | standard electric | 30 ft | 30 amp | 78 ft | 156 ft | $12 |
| Main | 13 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 85 ft | 205 ft | $12 |
| Main | 14 | standard electric | 45 ft | 30 amp | 72 ft | 170 ft | $12 |
| Main | 15 | standard electric | 40 ft | 30 amp | 72 ft | 99 ft | $12 |
| Main | 16 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 100 ft | 48 ft | $12 |
| Main | 17 | standard electric | 25 ft | 30 amp | 123 ft | 49 ft | $12 |
| Main | 18 | standard electric | 30 ft | 30 amp | 77 ft | 120 ft | $12 |
| Main | 19 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 77 ft | 111 ft | $12 |
| Main | 2 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 61 ft | 461 ft | $12 |
| Main | 20 | standard electric | 40 ft | 30 amp | 117 ft | 85 ft | $12 |
| Main | 3 | standard electric | 30 amp | 54 ft | 423 ft | $12 | |
| Main | 4 | standard electric | 25 ft | 30 amp | 54 ft | 397 ft | $12 |
| Main | 5 | standard electric | 55 ft | 30 amp | 100 ft | 278 ft | $12 |
| Main | 6 | standard electric | 45 ft | 30 amp | 41 ft | 180 ft | $12 |
| Main | 7 | standard electric | 45 ft | 30 amp | 41 ft | 147 ft | $12 |
| Main | 8 | standard electric | 40 ft | 30 amp | 78 ft | 75 ft | $12 |
| Main | 9 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 68 ft | 52 ft | $12 |
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 phone number
Where it is
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Hillsboro, KS
Typical weather
Typical October night 47°F, day 70°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 21°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
Who answers for this land
French Creek is in Kansas’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Derek Schmidt (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →