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Bureau of Land Management · Sonoran Desert National Monument · AZ

Margies Cove West Campground

First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Drawn from the record · 1,110 ft · 0% tree cover · Bortle 4 sky
1,110 ftElevation
4.8 miWater · an unnamed pond
0.3 miS of Buckeye, AZ
0%Tree cover
Bortle 4Night sky · 246th darkest of 262 in AZ

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Margies Cove West Campground is located in the Sonoran Desert National Monument . includes day-use parking for ten vehicles, three primitive campsites with picnic tables and steel fire rings, a vault toilet, and informational signage. There is no water at Margies Cove. The campground is adjacent to Margies Cove West Trailhead and the North Maricopa Mountains Wilderness Area .

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets
“…picnic tables and steel fire rings, a vault toilet, and informational signage. There is no water at…”
Drinking water
None, bring your own
“…vault toilet, and informational signage. There is no water at Margies Cove. The campground is adjacent to…”
Source: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

Around the campground

Birding
Camping Area
Stargazing
Wildlife viewing
Source: Recreation.gov activity records · Aug 23, 2026

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe agency’s record
Runs itBureau of Land Managementthe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 5

What you actually pay

The sign priceBureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
None
Stay limitDispersed camping is allowed for no more than 14 days within a 28 consecutive day period.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Coordinate33.12642, -112.58214
The phone602-867-5400

Where it is

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Overnight68°Mostly Cloudy4% rain
Saturday78°Mostly Cloudy14% rain
Saturday Night66°Chance Rain Showers32% rain
Sunday81°Mostly Sunny8% rain

NWS forecast for Buckeye, AZ

Source: National Weather Service, PSR forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 60°F, day 93°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical December night 40°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

120°30°

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.

Measured at: GILA BEND 2SE, AZ (USC00023393), 14 miles away and 316 ft lower
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

What threatens this place

developing
Sonoran Desert National Monumentgrazing, access, development

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 5, 2026

Who answers for this land

Adelita Grijalva, official portrait

Margies Cove West Campground is in Arizona’s 7th congressional district. Its representative, Adelita Grijalva (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A. See every public-lands vote →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: Bureau of Land Management publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate: the number below is the only way to be sure.
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 1.1 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 262 rated federal campgrounds in Arizona · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the BLM’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026