Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site
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 14:25 UTC
- Sites
- 3All of them booked ahead
The place
what’s there · 5 notices
What the agency tells you
Each reservation includes 10 designated parking spaces. These spaces can be used at your discretion for what you bring, however, you may not exceed 10 vehicles per reservation and you may not encroach on the roadway or leave the asphalt with any vehicle or equipment. For example if you have a trailer that exceeds the length of a single parking space, you may "pull through" multiple parking spaces. However, that will limit the amount of other vehicles that can fit properly in those 10 parking spaces. If you have more than 10 vehicles, extra vehicles may park in the Pebble Beach Recreation Site, but they are required to have a separate Tonto Pass. Total parking area dimensions are approximately 20 feet deep by 100 feet wide
Each vehicle with the group needs to have a copy of the reservation placed on their dash.
Groups of 75 or more people will require a separate Special Use Authroization. Please contact the Mesa Ranger Station ahead of time for further details.
Everything else this campground posts · 2
Gate security is the responsibility of reservation holders. Gate must be locked and secured after each entry to keep access limited to those holding a current reservation. Gate combinations may not be shared with anyone outside of your reservation.
Trash services are not provided at this site. Pack it in, Pack it out or use the dumpsters at the Pebble Beach Recreation Site.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 3 · 3 group
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Full this Saturdayread 14:25 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 3 are free on Mon, Oct 19. read 14:25 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 14:25 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
3 sites
All 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.
| A | Larry Forbis Group Site- A | group standard nonelectric | $75 |
| B | Larry Forbis Group Site- B | group standard nonelectric | $75 |
| C | Larry Forbis Group Site- C | group standard nonelectric | $75 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Where it is
Tortilla CampgroundTonto National Forest · 10 miRiverside Campground (AZ)Tonto National Forest · 18 mi
Burnt Corral CampgroundTonto National Forest · 22 miIndian PointTonto National Forest · 24 miThe weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Mesa, AZ
Typical weather
Typical October night 56°F, day 90°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 38°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
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
Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site is in Arizona’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, David Schweikert (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 moneyDavid SchweikertU.S. Representative · Arizona’s 1st district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMark KellyU.S. Senator · Arizona
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRuben GallegoU.S. Senator · Arizona
No contact form we could verify, so that link is their own site. Contact is inside it. Washington office: 202-224-4521.
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 Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site, Tonto National Forest, Arizona
Dear David Schweikert, I’m a constituent in Arizona’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site, Tonto National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 3 sites at Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site 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. Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site. 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 Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site (Tonto National Forest, Arizona) 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 Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site, Tonto National Forest, Arizona
Dear Mark Kelly, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site, Tonto National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 3 sites at Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site 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. Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site. 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 Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site (Tonto National Forest, Arizona) 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 Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site, Tonto National Forest, Arizona
Dear Ruben Gallego, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site, Tonto National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 3 sites at Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site 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. Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site. 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 Larry Forbis Overnight Group Site (Tonto National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com