Mahogany Grove
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- OpenThe agency lists it open
- Sites
- 86 on recreation.gov
- Season
- April 1 – November 30Open April 1 through November 30
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Mahogany Grove Campground is set in the beautiful Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, just 40 miles from downtown Las Vegas. Visitors enjoy hiking, horseback riding and scenic driving in this forested desert oasis. Keep reading
Recreation
The North Loop-Mt. Charleston National Recreation Trail begins less than a mile away. Robber's Roost Trailhead is nearby as well. The Spring Mountains Visitor Center is a short drive from the campground, offering guided hikes and educational programs.
Facilities
The campground was reconstructed and now contains six group sites, picnic and serving tables, grills, campfire circles, and tent pads. The sites are tent only, with lot-style parking. This means there are short distances to carry equipment to the campsites. Vault toilets are provided. Roads and parking areas are paved.
Natural Features
The Spring Mountains National Recreation Area is a beautiful island in the desert, brimming with breathtaking scenery and diverse flora and fauna. The Bristlecone pine, the world's oldest organism, and the rare Mount Charleston blue butterfly are both found within the Spring Mountains. More than 100 springs create the namesake for the mountain range, making it an ideal place to escape the heat of the city. The campground is situated so campers are awarded sweeping views of the Spring Mountains. Stands of juniper and mountain mahogany forest the site, providing privacy from the highway but only limited shade.
Nearby Attractions
More than 60 miles of hiking and horseback riding trails crisscross the area; two trails allow mountain biking. Rock climbing, picnicking and scenic driving are popular activities.
What the agency tells you
Water is not available on site. Bring all the water you will need for your stay including water for drinking, washing, dousing fires, etc.
These sites were primarily constructed with tent camping in mind. Parking is very limited. The parking lots will not accommodate RVs or trailers. Tent trailers and cab-over campers can be accommodated. Tent trailers, depending on size, may take up two spaces so plan the number of vehicles accordingly. There is no overflow parking
Sites may be available on a first-come, first-served basis outside the reservation season. You must find a U.S. Forset Service employee to pay while you are on site.
Everything else this campground posts · 4
Campsite must be occupied first night of reservation. Contact host or employee if you do not plan to stay any other night of reservation after first night.
Please call (702)-872-5486 to check current fire restrictions
Click here for more info about the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forests
Don't Move Firewood: Help prevent the spread of tree-killing pests in our national forests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 8 · 6 tent-only, 6 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 15 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 1 of 8 campsite records
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- Night sky · 49th darkest of 65 in NV
- Bortle 4
Full this Saturdayread 14:40 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot reservable
Every one of the 5 sites on offer is taken this Saturday. 6 are free on Tue, Oct 20. read 14:40 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 14:40 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
8 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 6 mapped sitesAll 8 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 6 of the 8 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 8 of the 8 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.
| MAHO | CCC | group tent only area nonelectric | 15 ft | 157 ft | 1,151 ft | 943 ft | $67–$130 |
| MAHO | FDR | group tent only area nonelectric | 15 ft | 202 ft | 659 ft | 576 ft | $67–$130 |
| MAHO | McNutt | group tent only area nonelectric | 15 ft | 255 ft | 1,049 ft | 1,035 ft | $67–$130 |
| MAHO | Scrugham | group tent only area nonelectric | 15 ft | 255 ft | 837 ft | 979 ft | $67–$130 |
| MAHO | Smith | group tent only area nonelectric | 15 ft | 141 ft | 997 ft | 808 ft | $67–$130 |
| MAHO | Young | group tent only area nonelectric | 15 ft | 141 ft | 859 ft | 696 ft | $67–$130 |
| S&P | Group Tent Nonelectric (McNutt) S&P | type not stated | 15 ft | $67–$130 | |||
| S&P | Group Tent Nonelectric S&P | type not stated | 15 ft | $67–$130 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
HilltopSpring Mountains National Recreation Area · 0.5 mi
Spring Mountains Visitor Gateway Group Picnic SitesSpring Mountains National Recreation Area · 3.2 mi
Fletcher ViewSpring Mountains National Recreation Area · 3.4 mi
McWilliamsSpring Mountains National Recreation Area · 3.7 miCampsite 11Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area · 18 mi
Red Rock Canyon CampgroundRed Rock Canyon National Conservation Area · 18 miFrom Las Vegas, Nevada, take Highway 95 north to the junction with Highway 157/Kyle Canyon. Turn left and travel approximately 18 miles to junction with Highway 158/Deer Creek. Turn right and travel approximately 6 miles to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Mount Charleston, NV
Typical weather
Typical October night 35°F, day 62°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical November 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 moreOutside the published season
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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Mahogany Grove is in Nevada’s 4th congressional district. Its representative, Steven Horsford (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: B. 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 moneySteven HorsfordU.S. Representative · Nevada’s 4th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationCatherine Cortez MastoU.S. Senator · Nevada
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJacky RosenU.S. Senator · Nevada
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 Mahogany Grove, Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, Nevada
Dear Steven Horsford, I’m a constituent in Nevada’s 4th district. I tried to camp at Mahogany Grove, Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, Nevada, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 6 of the 8 campsites the agency files at Mahogany Grove, and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 5 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. Mahogany Grove keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Mahogany Grove. 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 Mahogany Grove (Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, Nevada) 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 Mahogany Grove, Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, Nevada
Dear Catherine Cortez Masto, I’m a constituent in Nevada. I tried to camp at Mahogany Grove, Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, Nevada, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 6 of the 8 campsites the agency files at Mahogany Grove, and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 5 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. Mahogany Grove keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Mahogany Grove. 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 Mahogany Grove (Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, Nevada) 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 Mahogany Grove, Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, Nevada
Dear Jacky Rosen, I’m a constituent in Nevada. I tried to camp at Mahogany Grove, Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, Nevada, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 6 of the 8 campsites the agency files at Mahogany Grove, and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 5 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. Mahogany Grove keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Mahogany Grove. 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 Mahogany Grove (Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, Nevada) via campanac.com