Lock A
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 15 of the next 15 nights read 15:59 UTC
- A night
- $24–$28Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 4544 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
The relaxing yet activity-rich Lock A Campground has something to offer everyone from horseshoe pits to volleyball courts and hiking opportunities, plus a plethora of lake activities as well. Keep in mind, staff will hold a campsite until the check-out time (2:00 pm) on the day following the arrival date. However, if you're arrving late, we highly recommend you call the campground to notify the Park Attendant. If arrival does not occur before check-out time on the day following the arrival date, the reservation will be canceled. Keep reading
Recreation
The temperate climate here allows for a lengthy recreation season including boating, swimming, canoeing and fishing. For hikers, the Cumberland River Bicentennial Trail is a rails-to-trails project, which runs 6.5 miles long and crosses Sycamore Creek on a historic abandoned railroad trestle.
Facilities
Both RV and tent sites have 50 amp electric hookups. Additional amenities include hot showers, a dump station, boat launch, playground, picnic shelter and swimming area. A beach and additional playgrounds are available in the adjacent Cheatham Dam Right Bank Recreation Area.
Natural Features
Lock A is on the north bank of the lake, just upstream from Cheatham Lock and Dam along the Cumberland River in north-central Tennessee.
Nearby Attractions
The Pardue Pond and Dyson Ditch Wildlife Refuges are on the other side of Cheatham lake. Both are excellent places for bird watching and exploring.
What the agency tells you
Please be aware that falling branches are a natural hazard at this campground
Motorized, including electric vehicles: Golf carts, Scooters & ATV’s are permitted on roadways in Corps operated recreation areas. However, these type of vehicles shall be operated in accordance with applicable Federal, state and local laws, which shall be regulated by authorized enforcement officials. Must be 16 years or older to drive motorized vehicle. Prohibited items include: battery operated scooters/cars, hover-boards, non compliant golf carts and ATV's.
Don't Move Firewood: Protect your forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. Visit Dontmovefirewood.org for further information.
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Keep in mind, staff will hold a campsite until the check-out time (2:00 pm) on the day following the arrival date. However, if you're arrving late, we highly recommend you call the campground to notify the Park Attendant. If arrival does not occur before check-out time on the day following the arrival date, the reservation will be canceled.
Two tents or one tent and one RV are permitted per campsite.
Lock A campground has reservable sites only. No walk-up sites.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 45 · 7 tent-only
- Hookups
- 44 electric, 45 water
- Longest rig
- 40 ft
- Paved pads
- 24 of 45
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “Additional amenities include hot showers, a dump station, boat launch, playground, picnic shelter and swimming area.”
- Dump station
- Yes
- recreation.gov lists “Dump Station”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek, Beach
- Hiking
- Water sports
- Night sky · 80th darkest of 95 in TN
- Bortle 4
8 of 88 site-nights open this Friday and Saturdayread 15:59 UTC
recreation.gov lists 44 of the 45 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
OpenBooked
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 · 15
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $24–$28 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
recreation.gov availability, read 15:59 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
45 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 44 mapped sitesAll 45 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. 44 of the 45 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.
| LOCK A | 01 | type not stated | 34 ft | 50 amp | 45 ft | ||
| LOCK A | 02 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 68 ft | 52 ft | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 03 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 68 ft | 73 ft | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 04 | standard electric | 20 ft | 50 amp | 60 ft | 159 ft | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 05 | standard electric | 36 ft | 50 amp | 60 ft | 208 ft | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 06 | standard electric | 20 ft | 50 amp | 75 ft | 312 ft | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 07 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 75 ft | 369 ft | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 08 | standard electric | 36 ft | 50 amp | 68 ft | 250 ft | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 09 | standard electric | 28 ft | 50 amp | 41 ft | 323 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 10 | standard electric | 32 ft | 50 amp | 41 ft | 309 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 11 | standard electric | 32 ft | 50 amp | 53 ft | 299 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 12 | standard electric | 28 ft | 50 amp | 70 ft | 313 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 13 | standard electric | 24 ft | 50 amp | 62 ft | 255 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 14 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 62 ft | 267 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 15 | standard electric | 32 ft | 50 amp | 65 ft | 255 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 16 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 53 ft | 240 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 17 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 53 ft | 218 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 18 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 61 ft | 214 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 19 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 57 ft | 223 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 20 | standard electric | 34 ft | 50 amp | 36 ft | 225 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 21 | standard electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | 36 ft | 228 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 22 | standard electric | 25 ft | 50 amp | 43 ft | 220 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 23 | standard electric | 24 ft | 50 amp | 57 ft | 215 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 24 | standard electric | 26 ft | 50 amp | 65 ft | 179 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 25 | standard electric | 38 ft | 50 amp | 65 ft | 141 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 26 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 74 ft | 129 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 27 | standard electric | 36 ft | 50 amp | 89 ft | 125 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 28 | standard electric | 38 ft | 50 amp | 89 ft | 127 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 29 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 81 ft | 118 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 30 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 46 ft | 128 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 31 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 46 ft | 136 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 32 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 43 ft | 136 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 33 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 32 ft | 141 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 34 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 32 ft | 157 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 35 | standard electric | 32 ft | 50 amp | 32 ft | 165 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 36 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 42 ft | 188 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 37 | standard electric | 22 ft | 50 amp | 66 ft | 131 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 38 | standard electric | 18 ft | 50 amp | 66 ft | 103 ftCumberland River | $24–$28 |
| LOCK A | 39 | tent only electric | 50 amp | 72 ft | 95 ftCumberland River | $24 | |
| LOCK A | 40 | tent only electric | 50 amp | 72 ft | 73 ftCumberland River | $24 | |
| LOCK A | 41 | tent only electric | 50 amp | 93 ft | 63 ftCumberland River | $24 | |
| LOCK A | 42 | tent only electric | 50 amp | 93 ft | 68 ftCumberland River | $24 | |
| LOCK A | 43 | tent only electric | 50 amp | 94 ft | 66 ftCumberland River | $24 | |
| LOCK A | 44 | tent only electric | 50 amp | 97 ft | 59 ftCumberland River | $24 | |
| LOCK A | 45 | tent only electric | 50 amp | 97 ft | 94 ftCumberland River | $24 |
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 45 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Right Bank Recreation Area0.5 mi
Harpeth River Bridge Campground (TN)3.2 mi
Old Hickory Beach29 mi
Rockland Recreation Area30 mi
Shutes Branch35 mi
Anderson Road Campground36 miFrom Ashland City, Tennessee, take US 12 and go eight miles west to Cheap Hill. Turn left on Cheatham Dam Road traveling west four miles. Turn left into the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Ashland City, TN
Typical weather
Typical October night 47°F, day 73°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 28°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
Lock A is in Tennessee’s 7th congressional district. Its representative, Matt Van Epps (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: D-. See every public-lands vote →