Hickory Ridge Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- FreeNo camping fee
- Sites
- 10All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 2 notices
In the agency’s own words
Hickory Ridge is a primitive campground located near the Hickory Ridge Trail system. Keep reading
Recreation
Hickory Ridge Campground provides access to the Hickory Ridge Trail system for horseback riding, mountain biking, and hiking.
Facilities
There is a vault toilet, non-potable water trough for horses, picnic tables, and fire rings, a mounting ramp, and a day use parking area.
Natural Features
A variety of long and short interconnecting trail loops through scenic hardwoods.
What the agency tells you
All campsites are free of charge.
Don't move firewood: To limit the spread of invasive tree-killing pests, firewood from outside the area is not permitted. Some states have quarantines and may confiscate your firewood. Please help protect our forests from invasive species by obtaining your firewood at or near your camping destination and burning it on-site. Visit dontmovefirewood.org for more information.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 10
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…and hiking. Facilities There is a vault toilet, non-potable water trough for horses, picnic…”
- Stay limit
- 28 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- Backpacking
- Hiking
- Horse Camping
- Horseback riding
- Mountain biking
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:47 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
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 · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s own record says there’s no camping fee, 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 15:47 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
10 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 10 mapped sitesAll 10 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 10 of the 10 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
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.
| Hickory Ridge Campground | 1 | standard nonelectric | 73 ft | 1,435 ft | 204 ft |
| Hickory Ridge Campground | 10 | standard nonelectric | 80 ft | 1,268 ft | 71 ft |
| Hickory Ridge Campground | 2 | standard nonelectric | 73 ft | 1,455 ft | 245 ft |
| Hickory Ridge Campground | 3 | standard nonelectric | 101 ft | 1,403 ft | 252 ft |
| Hickory Ridge Campground | 4 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 1,373 ft | 168 ft |
| Hickory Ridge Campground | 5 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 1,337 ft | 122 ft |
| Hickory Ridge Campground | 6 | standard nonelectric | 80 ft | 1,204 ft | 34 ft |
| Hickory Ridge Campground | 7 | standard nonelectric | 104 ft | 1,122 ft | 124 ft |
| Hickory Ridge Campground | 8 | standard nonelectric | 74 ft | 1,100 ft | 160 ft |
| Hickory Ridge Campground | 9 | standard nonelectric | 74 ft | 1,170 ft | 131 ft |
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 Heltonville, IN
Typical weather
Typical October night 43°F, day 67°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
Hickory Ridge Campground is in Indiana’s 9th congressional district. Its representative, Erin Houchin (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →