Kyles Landing Campground
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 30 of the next 30 nights read 15:45 UTC
- A night
- $20From, per site
- Sites
- 33All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 13 notices
In the agency’s own words
Kyles Landing Campground is situated along the Buffalo River under towering and picturesque bluffs. The campground offers 33 walk-in tent sites. All sites are available by reservation only. Kyles Landing Campground is located about 5 miles west of Jasper, off of Highway 74. The approximately 3-mile gravel road to get down to Kyles Landing is very steep and only recommended for 4WD vehicles. Keep reading
Recreation
Paddling conditions in the upper (westernmost) district of Buffalo National River are extremely dependent upon rainfall. On an average year, the upper river is only navigable by boat in the spring and early summer when consistent rainfall feeds into the watershed. Some sections on the upper end of the river are technical and should not be attempted by novices. For current paddling conditions, please check with an outfitter (visit our Guided Services web page ), call the Tyler Bend Visitor Center at 870-439-2502, or check the Buffalo National River Float Guide Dashboard Facilities Kyles Landing has 33 tent only sites (maximum of 6 people per site). All sites are available by reservations only. There are no electrical amenities or water hookups, but flush restrooms and water spigots are available from approximately March 15 through November 15 each year.
Natural Features
The Buffalo National River flows free over swift running rapids and quiet pools for its 135-mile (217 km) length. One of the few remaining rivers in the lower 48 states without dams, the Buffalo cuts its way through massive limestone bluffs traveling eastward through the Arkansas Ozarks and into the White River.
Nearby Attractions
The Buffalo River Trail runs through Kyles Landing and offers great day hiking or overnight backcountry opportunities. Visit the park's Hiking Trails web page for more information.
What the agency tells you
The gravel road to get down to Kyles Landing is very steep and only recommended for 4WD vehicles.
All sites at Kyles Landing are available by reservation only.
All campers must register at the registration station, located near the restroom, upon arrival.
Everything else this campground posts · 10
Kyles Landing is only available to tent campers. RVs, trailers, pop-up campers, motorhomes, campervans and any other type of recreation vehicle on wheels is prohibited in this campground.
Water is turned off from approximately November 15th to March 14th each year.
The facility is available for free of charge for first-come, first-served camping outside of the reservation season, generally November 15th to March 15th every year.
Generators are only allowed to operate from 8:00 am - 8:00 pm.
Climbing and/or diving from the bluffs is dangerous and highly discouraged.
Do not swim alone during high water.
Don't Move Firewood: Help protect our forests! Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. Moving firewood is illegal in some states.
All park trails are closed to pets with the exception of the Buffalo River Trail, only on the section of trail between Ponca and Steel Creek, the Villines Homestead Trail at Ponca, the Mill Creek Trail, the Tyler Bend Campground trails (Spring Hollow, Buck Ridge, and Rock Wall in the Middle District), and all three Buffalo Point Campground trails (Forest Trail, Overlook Trail, and Campground Trail in the Lower District). Visit the park's hiking page for more information and maps of these trails.
Please be aware that some special events held at the pavilions or anywhere in the park (such as weddings, press receptions, concerts, et al) require a Special Use Permit in addition to the pavilion reservation. To obtain a Special Use Permit or additional information, please contact the Commercial Services office at (870) 365-2724. For more information visit the Special Park Uses page on the park website.
Please be advised that providing business services within an NPS unit is prohibited per CFR 5.3 without a written Authorization or Permit approved by the Superintendent. This includes services such as RV or tent delivery & set-up, firewood sales and delivery, shuttle (transportation) services, and guided hikes, floats, etc. For a list of approved visitor services and to learn more about working with Buffalo National River, please visit the Doing Business with the Park page on the park website.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 33
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets · Pit Toilets
- FLUSH TOILETS (SEASONAL) on 33 of 33 campsite records / PIT TOILETS on 33 of 33 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- WATER (SEASONAL) on 33 of 33 campsite records
- Stay limit
- 30 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- River
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Kayaking
- Picnicking
- Stargazing
- Swimming
Full this Saturdayread 15:45 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
6 campgrounds have sites open within 30 miles, read 16:10 UTC. See them
OpenBooked
Every one of the 33 sites on offer is taken this Saturday. 31 are free on Tue, Oct 20. read 15:45 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, $20 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 · 6
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first; the nearest 5 of 6. read 16:10 UTC
- Erbie CampgroundBuffalo National River · 3.8 mi · 6 of 62 site-nights open
- Steel Creek CampgroundBuffalo National River · 3.9 mi · 18 of 78 site-nights open
- Ozark CampgroundBuffalo National River · 6.8 mi · 2 of 62 site-nights open
- Rush CampgroundBuffalo National River · 14 mi · 6 of 24 site-nights open
- Carver CampgroundBuffalo National River · 21 mi · 2 of 16 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 15:45 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
34 records
All 34 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. 33 of the 34 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Kyles Landing | Host Site | host pad | |
| Kyles Landing | Site 1 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 10 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 11 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 12 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 13 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 14 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 15 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 16 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 17 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 18 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 19 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 2 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 20 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 21 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 22 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 23 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 24 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 25 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 26 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 27 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 28 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 29 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 3 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 30 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 31 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 32 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 33 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 4 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 5 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 6 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 7 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 8 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
| Kyles Landing | Site 9 | standard nonelectric | $20 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It names it a host pad. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
25 of 34 listed
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 Ponca, AR
Typical weather
Typical October night 48°F, day 71°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 27°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
Kyles Landing Campground is in Arkansas’s 4th congressional district. Its representative, Bruce Westerman (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 moneyBruce WestermanU.S. Representative · Arkansas’s 4th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJohn BoozmanU.S. Senator · Arkansas
- Your senator, on the same appropriationTom CottonU.S. Senator · Arkansas
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 Kyles Landing Campground, Buffalo National River, Arkansas
Dear Bruce Westerman, I’m a constituent in Arkansas’s 4th district. I tried to camp at Kyles Landing Campground, Buffalo National River, Arkansas, and couldn’t. All 33 sites at Kyles Landing Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 33 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. Kyles Landing Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Kyles Landing Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the National Park 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 Kyles Landing Campground (Buffalo National River, Arkansas) 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 Kyles Landing Campground, Buffalo National River, Arkansas
Dear John Boozman, I’m a constituent in Arkansas. I tried to camp at Kyles Landing Campground, Buffalo National River, Arkansas, and couldn’t. All 33 sites at Kyles Landing Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 33 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. Kyles Landing Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Kyles Landing Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the National Park 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 Kyles Landing Campground (Buffalo National River, Arkansas) 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 Kyles Landing Campground, Buffalo National River, Arkansas
Dear Tom Cotton, I’m a constituent in Arkansas. I tried to camp at Kyles Landing Campground, Buffalo National River, Arkansas, and couldn’t. All 33 sites at Kyles Landing Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 33 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. Kyles Landing Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Kyles Landing Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the National Park 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 Kyles Landing Campground (Buffalo National River, Arkansas) via campanac.com