Horsethief Lake Campground
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $30From, per site
- Sites
- 3622 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Located 10 miles south of Hill City, South Dakota, Horsethief Lake Campground is a delightful setting for visitors seeking recreation and relaxation in Black Hills National Forest. This campground is 2 miles from Mount Rushmore National Memorial and adjacent to Horsethief Lake. Sites are tucked into a forest of towering ponderosa and lodgepole pine. Keep reading
Recreation
Black Hills National Forest offers visitors a multitude of recreational opportunites throughout all seasons. Hiking, fishing, horseback riding, mountain biking, and riding off-highway vehicles are popular in summer and early autumn. Winter landscapes are ideal for snowshoeing, skiing and snowmobiling. Hundreds of miles of trails and roads offer a variety of terrain for mountain bikers. Hikers and bikers can access the nearby George S. Mickelson Trail, which traverses over 100 miles through the heart of the Black Hills. The majority of the trail follows an abandoned railroad branch line and includes 4 tunnels, over 100 converted railroad bridges, and 15 established trailheads. The trail surface is packed gravel, traversing mountain, meadow, and forest terrain. The trail is named in honor of the former South Dakota governor who crusaded for the trail. For those seeking higher elevations, a day-long trek to the summit of nearby Black Elk Peak is worth the effort. Black Elk Peak is the highest natural point in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. Most of the summit is bare granite and offers expansive views of the surrounding area. An old stone tower at the top(Harney Lookout Tower), once used as a fire lookout, is still open to hikers.
Facilities
Horsethief Lake Campground has sites able to accommodate tents, trailers, and RVs. There are several tent-only and walk-to tent-only sites. The campground is equipped with picnic tables, campfire rings, vault toilets, and drinking water. Electrical hook-ups are not available. Roads in the campground are paved.
Natural Features
Located in western South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming, Black Hills National Forest encompasses nearly 1.25 million acres of rugged rock formations, canyons and gulches, open grassland parks, tumbling streams, deep blue lakes, and unique caves. Derived from the Lakota language, the words "Paha Sapa," meaning "hills that are black," honor the dark, pine-covered hills rising several thousand feet above the surrounding prairie. Wildlife in the area abounds. Bighorn sheep navigate mountainous terrain, while elk, deer and pronghorn gather in forests and prairies. Bald eagles, hawks, osprey, peregrine falcon, and hundreds of other bird species can be found in the forest, especially along streams, lakes and rivers. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (661) 702-1420.
Nearby Attractions
Explore Mount Rushmore National Memorial, host to almost 3 million visitors a year from across the country and around the world. Visitors may want to inquire about any Independence Day Celebrations taking place on the Mountain. Possible day trips include Custer State Park with its many Buffalo and other wildlife, Crazy Horse Monument and Wind Cave National Park as well as Jewel Cave which is the second longest cave in the world at 159.29 miles. It features sparkling calcite crystals and other rare formations, as well as some of the largest concentrations of passageways in the world..
Charges & Cancellations
No refunds will be given for weather related events.
What the agency tells you
ALERT: There is no water available for the remainder of this season. Please bring all water you will need for the duration of your stay. Thank you.
Vehicles towing trailers of any type and motorhomes over 25 feet in length will not be allowed into the area of Sites 23 through 28
These campsites are non-electric sites. Generators may run from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. only.
Everything else this campground posts · 5
Non-reservable sites may be available on a first come-first serve basis
A pet fee of $2 per pet per night is required upon check in. Pets must be leashed, under control and attended at all times.
In accordance with standard industry practices, ExplorUS will be assessing an additional vehicle fee of $5.00 per night on the second vehicle in each single family campsite, and on the third and fourth vehicle in any double family campsite, provided these vehicles are not joined to the first vehicle by a hitch and towed onto the site. In the case of motorcycles, the first two are considered to be one vehicle and the third and fourth are also considered to be one vehicle. No additional vehicle fees are collected for bicycles.
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing organisms by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
- The Senior and Access discounts are only honored for the site that houses the card holder. - If multiple sites are reserved on one card, the rest of the camping fee will be collected upon arrival unless another card holder occupies the site.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 36 · 6 tent-only, 4 walk-in
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 59 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…with picnic tables, campfire rings, vault toilets, and drinking water. Electrical hook-ups are not…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…campfire rings, vault toilets, and drinking water. Electrical hook-ups are not available. Roads in…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek, Meadow
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 40th darkest of 52 in SD
- Bortle 4
- Fall color · reported 3 days ago, 27 km away
- Peak color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 22 of the 36 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
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.
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 · 14
What you actually pay
“In accordance with standard industry practices, ExplorUS will be assessing an additional vehicle fee of $5.00 per night on the second vehicle in each single family campsite, and on the third and fourth vehicle in any…” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $30 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.
“No refunds will be given for weather related events.” · this campground’s own terms
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 · 7
rules read Oct 1, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
42 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 22 mapped sitesAll 42 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 36 of the 42 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.
| HORS | 007 | standard nonelectric | 58 ft | 90 ft | 598 ft | $30 |
| HORS | 008 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 80 ft | 539 ft | $30 |
| HORS | 009 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 44 ft | 471 ft | $30 |
| HORS | 010 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 44 ft | 448 ft | $30 |
| HORS | 011 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 54 ft | 406 ft | $30 |
| HORS | 012 | standard nonelectric | 46 ft | 47 ft | 343 ft | $30 |
| HORS | 013 | standard nonelectric | 48 ft | 47 ft | 303 ft | $30 |
| HORS | 014 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 59 ft | 249 ft | $30 |
| LKSD | 015 | standard nonelectric | 49 ft | 71 ft | 151 ft | $30 |
| LKSD | 016 | standard nonelectric | 59 ft | 71 ft | 90 ft | $30 |
| LKSD | 017 | standard nonelectric | 48 ft | 86 ft | 43 ft | $30 |
| LKSD | 018 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 104 ft | 154 ft | $30 |
| LKSD | 023 | tent only nonelectric | 52 ft | 220 ft | 76 ft | $30 |
| LKSD | 024 | tent only nonelectric | 23 ft | 48 ft | 59 ft | $30 |
| LKSD | 025 | tent only nonelectric | 34 ft | 48 ft | 34 ft | $30 |
| LKSD | 026 | tent only nonelectric | 34 ft | 42 ft | 39 ft | $30 |
| LKSD | 027 | tent only nonelectric | 28 ft | 42 ft | 51 ft | $30 |
| LKSD | 028 | tent only nonelectric | 29 ft | 44 ft | 56 ft | $30 |
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | 001 | type not stated | 734 ft | $30 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | 002 | type not stated | 743 ft | $30 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | 003 | type not stated | 715 ft | $30 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | 004 | type not stated | 665 ft | $30 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | 005 | type not stated | 675 ft | $30 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | 006 | type not stated | 609 ft | $30 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | 019 | type not stated | 479 ft | $30 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | 020 | type not stated | 544 ft | $30 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | 021 | type not stated | 636 ft | $30 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | 022 | type not stated | 765 ft | $30 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | 033 | type not stated | 137 ft | $30 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | 034 | type not stated | 272 ft | $30 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | 035 | type not stated | 269 ft | $30 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | 036 | type not stated | 173 ft | $30 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX | unnamed record | 99 ft | $30 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 1 | XXX4 | unnamed record | $30 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 2 | XXX41 | unnamed record | $30 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 2 | XXX42 | unnamed record | $30 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 2 | XXX43 | unnamed record | $30 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES 2 | XXX44 | unnamed record | $30 | |||
| WALK | 029 | walk to | 131 ft | 290 ft | $30 | |
| WALK | 030 | walk to | 109 ft | 136 ft | $30 | |
| WALK | 031 | walk to | 131 ft | 245 ft | $30 | |
| WALK | 032 | walk to | 109 ft | 126 ft | $30 |
The agency files 6 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It types every one of them MANAGEMENT rather than a campsite. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
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.
25 of 42 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Grizzly Bear CampgroundNorbeck Wildlife Preserve National Game Refuge · 2.6 mi
Willow Creek Horse CampNorbeck Wildlife Preserve National Game Refuge · 2.6 mi
Sheridan Lake South CampgroundBlack Hills National Forest · 5.0 mi
Iron Creek Horse Camp5.3 mi
Sheridan LakeBlack Hills National Forest · 5.9 mi
Sheridan North Cove Grp CGBlack Hills National Forest · 6.3 miFrom Hill City, take U.S. Rt. 16/385 south 3 miles to State Rt. 244. Turn left onto Rt. 244. Travel 5.9 miles to campground sign. Turn right at sign into campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Keystone, SD
Typical weather
Typical October night 37°F, day 55°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical February night 18°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
Horsethief Lake Campground is in South Dakota’s at-large congressional district. Its representative, Dusty Johnson (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →