Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN)
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 14 of the next 14 nights read 15:26 UTC
- A night
- $22From, per site
- Sites
- 14All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
The relaxing family friendly atmosphere at Harpeth River Campground will have campers wanting to return as often as possible. Harpeth River Bridge Campground is located about 10 miles northwest of Ashland City, TN and is a 30 minute drive to Nashville. Keep in mind, staff will hold a campsite until the check-out time (2:00 pm) on the day following the arrival date. However, if you're arrving late, we highly recommend you call the campground to notify the Park Attendant. If arrival does not occur before check-out time on the day following the arrival date, the reservation will be canceled. Keep reading
Recreation
The temperate climate here allows for a lengthy recreation season, including boating, canoeing, and fishing. There is a large playground for the children and horseshoe pits for the adults. A large pavillion will be great for big family get togethers.
Facilities
Weather you plan on using a tent or an RV, all sites have water and 50-amp electric hookups. Additional amenities include hot showers, new boat ramp, large picnic shelter, playground, concreted sites and a dump station.
Natural Features
Harpeth River Bridge Campground is located on the right bank of the Harpeth River. The water wraps almost all the way around the campground so that every site can be considered a water site. Beautiful old trees litter the area and provide cool shade on even the hottest days.
Nearby Attractions
Nearby attractions include Cheatham Lake Wildlife Management Area, Doziers Dock, and Pardue Recreation Area. All the sights and sounds of Nashville, TN are just a 30 minute drive away.
What the agency tells you
Keep in mind, staff will hold a campsite until the check-out time (2:00 pm) on the day following the arrival date. However, if you're arrving late, we highly recommend you call the campground to notify the Park Attendant. If arrival does not occur before check-out time on the day following the arrival date, the reservation will be canceled.
Motorized, including electric vehicles: Golf carts, Scooters & ATV’s are permitted on roadways in Corps operated recreation areas. However, these type of vehicles shall be operated in accordance with applicable Federal, state and local laws, which shall be regulated by authorized enforcement officials. Must be 16 years or older to drive motorized vehicle. Prohibited items include: battery operated scooters/cars, hover-boards, non compliant golf carts and ATV's.
Please be aware that falling branches are a natural hazard at this campground
Everything else this campground posts · 3
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.
Two tents or one tent and one RV are permitted per campsite.
Harpeth River Bridge campground has reservable sites only. No walk-up sites.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 14
- Hookups
- 14 electric, 14 water
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- 14
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “Additional amenities include hot showers, new boat ramp, large picnic shelter, playground, concreted sites and a dump station.”
- Dump station
- Yes
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River
- Night sky · 81st darkest of 95 in TN
- Bortle 4
Full this Saturdayread 15:26 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
2 campgrounds have sites open within 30 miles, read 15:33 UTC. See them
OpenBooked
Every one of the 14 sites on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Wed, Oct 21. read 15:26 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 · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $22 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
Open within 30 miles this weekend · 2
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 15:33 UTC
- Lock ACheatham Lock and Dam · 3.2 mi · 2 of 44 site-nights open
- Right Bank Recreation AreaCheatham Lock and Dam · 3.6 mi · 1 of 5 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 15:26 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
14 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 14 mapped sitesAll 14 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. 14 of the 14 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| HARPETH RIVER BRIDGE CAMPGROUND (TN) | 02 | standard electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | yes | 58 ft | 262 ft | $22 |
| HARPETH RIVER BRIDGE CAMPGROUND (TN) | 03 | standard electric | 50 ft | 50 amp | yes | 57 ft | 252 ft | $22 |
| HARPETH RIVER BRIDGE CAMPGROUND (TN) | 04 | standard electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | yes | 50 ft | 224 ft | $22 |
| HARPETH RIVER BRIDGE CAMPGROUND (TN) | 05 | standard electric | 50 ft | 50 amp | yes | 50 ft | 212 ft | $22 |
| HARPETH RIVER BRIDGE CAMPGROUND (TN) | 06 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | yes | 85 ft | under 10 ft | $22 |
| HARPETH RIVER BRIDGE CAMPGROUND (TN) | 07 | standard electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | yes | 85 ft | under 10 ft | $22 |
| HARPETH RIVER BRIDGE CAMPGROUND (TN) | 08 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | yes | 91 ft | under 10 ft | $22 |
| HARPETH RIVER BRIDGE CAMPGROUND (TN) | 09 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | yes | 72 ft | under 10 ft | $22 |
| HARPETH RIVER BRIDGE CAMPGROUND (TN) | 10 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | yes | 58 ft | under 10 ft | $22 |
| HARPETH RIVER BRIDGE CAMPGROUND (TN) | 11 | standard electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | yes | 58 ft | under 10 ft | $22 |
| HARPETH RIVER BRIDGE CAMPGROUND (TN) | 12 | standard electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | yes | 66 ft | under 10 ft | $22 |
| HARPETH RIVER BRIDGE CAMPGROUND (TN) | 13 | standard electric | 50 ft | 50 amp | yes | 60 ft | under 10 ft | $22 |
| HARPETH RIVER BRIDGE CAMPGROUND (TN) | 14 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | yes | 42 ft | 13 ft | $22 |
| HARPETH RIVER BRIDGE CAMPGROUND (TN) | 15 | standard electric | 25 ft | 50 amp | yes | 42 ft | 20 ft | $22 |
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
Lock A3.2 mi
Right Bank Recreation Area3.6 mi
Old Hickory Beach27 mi
Rockland Recreation Area28 mi
Shutes Branch32 mi
Anderson Road Campground33 miFrom Ashland City, Tennessee, head northwest on S Main Street toward Cumberland Street. Take the first left on TN-49W/ Cumberland Street and continue to follow TN-49W for 5 miles. Campground will be on your right directly before the Harpeth River Bridge.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Ashland City, TN
Typical weather
Typical October night 47°F, day 73°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 28°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
Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN) is in Tennessee’s 7th congressional district. Its representative, Matt Van Epps (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 moneyMatt Van EppsU.S. Representative · Tennessee’s 7th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationBill HagertyU.S. Senator · Tennessee
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMarsha BlackburnU.S. Senator · Tennessee
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 Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN), Tennessee
Dear Matt Van Epps, I’m a constituent in Tennessee’s 7th district. I tried to camp at Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN), Tennessee, and couldn’t. All 14 sites at Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN) are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 14 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. Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN) keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN). I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 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 Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN) (Tennessee) 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 Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN), Tennessee
Dear Bill Hagerty, I’m a constituent in Tennessee. I tried to camp at Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN), Tennessee, and couldn’t. All 14 sites at Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN) are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 14 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. Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN) keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN). I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 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 Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN) (Tennessee) 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 Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN), Tennessee
Dear Marsha Blackburn, I’m a constituent in Tennessee. I tried to camp at Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN), Tennessee, and couldn’t. All 14 sites at Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN) are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 14 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. Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN) keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN). I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 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 Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN) (Tennessee) via campanac.com