Jess Judy
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 13 of the next 15 nights read 16:24 UTC
- Sites
- 3All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Jess Judy Group Campground is located on the South Branch of the Potomac River, in West Virginia's eastern panhandle, about 1.5 miles south of Big Bend. Canoeing, fishing and hiking are popular activities. Jess Judy contains three reservable sites that will accommodate up to 40 people each. The campground contains fire rings, picnic tables, lantern posts, and four single-unit vault toilets. There is no electric or drinking water at the group campground although persons camping at Jess Judy Group Campground may obtain water at Big Bend Campground. The group campground is not accessible. About 1.3 million visitors come to the Monongahela National Forest each year, and it's no surprise why. The forest is a drivable distance from cities like Washington D.C. and Pittsburgh, yet the density of flora, fauna and picturesque mountains seem like a world away from any city. Keep reading
Recreation
Visitors enjoy canoeing and fishing on the river, and hiking on local trails. Thirty miles of maintained trails can be found nearby and mountain biking is permitted on most of them. One highly recommended trail for hikers and backpackers is the North Fork Mountain Trail.
Facilities
The campground has three primitive group sites that can accommodate up to 40 people each. No drinking water is available, so please bring your own supply. Accessible vault toilets are provided.
Natural Features
Jess Judy Group Campground is situated in the northern portion of the Monongahela National Forest, on the western banks of the river. The region boasts beautiful old-growth forests that become vibrant with color in fall. The South Branch of the Potomac River runs north through Smoke Hole Canyon, which bears a name of uncertain origin. One theory is Native Americans once used the caves in the canyon for smoking meat, which created "smoke holes." Another is that misty fog often lies along the river and ascends in what looks like smoke from a hole.
Nearby Attractions
Traverse through narrow, steep valleys and over rolling, tree-topped mountains on the Highland Scenic Highway. This 43-mile drive includes highlights like Cranberry Glades Botanical Area, Summit Lake, and the Falls of Hills Creek.
What the agency tells you
Be bear aware; keep all food out of sight in approved containers or locked inside your vehicle and remove all food from the area after eating
A daily fee will be charged for each extra vehicle beginning with the 11th vehicle
No electric site hookups at this facility
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Click here to learn more about the Monongahela National Forest
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.
Access Road Subject to FLOODING – Roads accessing this recreation area may become impassable due to flash flooding. Monitor conditions and expect delays in departing until flood waters recede. YOUR SAFTETY IS YOUR RESPONSIBILTY
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 3 · 3 group
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…lantern posts, and four single-unit vault toilets. There is no electric or drinking water at the…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…can accommodate up to 40 people each. No drinking water is available, so please bring your own supply.…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Mountain biking
Full this Saturdayread 16:24 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot reservable
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 3 are free on Tue, Oct 20. read 16:24 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 · 12
What you actually pay
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 16:24 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
3 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 3 mapped sitesAll 3 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. 3 of the 3 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.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Big Bend (WV)Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area · 0.0 mi
Big Bend CampgroundSpruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area · 0.6 miJess Judy Group CampgroundSpruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area · 1.1 mi
Seneca ShadowsSpruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area · 9.1 miRed Creek CampgroundMonongahela National Forest · 10 miCamp Run CampgroundGeorge Washington National Forest · 13 miFollow 28/55 from Petersburg, WV, for 8 miles. Turn left onto Smoke Hole Road, Route 28/11, and travel for 13 miles to County Route 2. Turn left onto Smoke Hole Road, County Route 2, and follow for approximately 2 miles. Jess Judy Campground will be on the right.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Petersburg, WV
Typical weather
Typical October night 41°F, day 68°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 22°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
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Jess Judy is in West Virginia’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Riley Moore (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 moneyRiley M. MooreU.S. Representative · West Virginia’s 2nd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJames C. JusticeU.S. Senator · West Virginia
- Your senator, on the same appropriationShelley Moore CapitoU.S. Senator · West Virginia
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 Jess Judy, Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, West Virginia
Dear Riley M. Moore, I’m a constituent in West Virginia’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Jess Judy, Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, West Virginia, and couldn’t. All 3 sites at Jess Judy are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Jess Judy keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Jess Judy. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service 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 Jess Judy (Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, West Virginia) 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 Jess Judy, Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, West Virginia
Dear James C. Justice, I’m a constituent in West Virginia. I tried to camp at Jess Judy, Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, West Virginia, and couldn’t. All 3 sites at Jess Judy are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Jess Judy keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Jess Judy. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service 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 Jess Judy (Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, West Virginia) 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 Jess Judy, Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, West Virginia
Dear Shelley Moore Capito, I’m a constituent in West Virginia. I tried to camp at Jess Judy, Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, West Virginia, and couldn’t. All 3 sites at Jess Judy are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Jess Judy keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Jess Judy. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service 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 Jess Judy (Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, West Virginia) via campanac.com