McHenry Avenue Recreation Area
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $20From, per site
- Sites
- 13All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 1 notices
In the agency’s own words
McHenry Avenue Campground is part of the park system scattered along the lower Stanislaus River within the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. The environmental campground boasts quiet, peaceful tent sites situated close to the river’s edge. The scenic recreation areas and river access points are popular for activities such as rafting, picnicking, hiking and much more. Stanislaus River Parks is often referred to as the “string of pearls” since they serve as charming, quiet oasis running through a number of small towns and cities. Keep reading
Recreation
The campground offers an excellent base camp for exciting recreation opportunities. The park boasts walking and hiking trails, picnic areas and river access points for fishing and boating.
Facilities
McHenry Avenue Recreation Area Campground is one of three reservable campgrounds in Stanislaus River Parks’ system. Its amenities include flush toilets and potable water near the campsites. Each campsite contains a picnic table, fire ring, and a lantern holder. Campers must park their vehicles in the campground parking lot. No vehicles are permitted at campsites.
Natural Features
The campground scenery is a pleasant mix of Fremont cottonwoods, Valley Oaks and the occasional elderberry bush, offering sporadic shade with dispersed rays of sunshine. Nearby, grasses, shrubs and seasonal wildflowers fill the open spaces. Wildlife is also plentiful in the park with mule deer, acorn woodpeckers, scrub jays, foxes and squirrels among lots of other fauna.
Nearby Attractions
Within 35 min drive, campers can explore the historic town of Knights Ferry, rich with history of the gold rush era. Within the historic district, lies Knights Ferry Recreation Area, home to the longest covered bridge west of the Mississippi River and a National Historic Landmark dedicated in 2014. The park boasts walking and hiking trails, picnic areas and river access points. Visitors can learn about the area when they visit the Knights Ferry Visitors Center, which contains a small museum highlighting local, natural, and cultural resources. Visitors have a unique opportunity to make reservations with local rafting companies to journey down the Stanislaus River. During the summer months, rafters can enjoy guided and self-guided floats down the lower Stanislaus River. For thrill seekers, the fall season brings perfect flows for advanced white water in the Goodwin Canyon. Fall also brings thousands of Chinook salmon returning to the Stanislaus River to spawn, completing and beginning their lifecycles. Onlookers, can view the spawning salmon from several river access points along the river.
Charges & Cancellations
Contact Recreation.gov for changes or cancellations.
What the agency tells you
Check-In/Check-Out: Check-In: 1:00 PM Latest Check-In: 6:00 PM in April and 7:00 PM May-September Check-Out: 12:00 PM Cancellation and Refund Policies: Contact Recreation.gov for changes or cancellations. General: 1. Use of all project and recreation facilities is at your own risk, and pursuant to your agreement to abide by all rules and regulations listed under the Code of Federal Regulations - Title 36. 2. USACE reserves the right to evict any person(s) who does not comply with the rules and regulations. 3. Maintenance on and/or washing of vehicles on property is not permitted. 4. All campsites are to be kept neat and clean for the duration of your stay. 5. Collecting or gathering dead, and downed firewood is permitted. Cutting of any trees which are not dead and downed is not permitted. 6. There are several unique animals and insect species native to this area. For your own safety, please don't approach, feed, or disturb wildlife. 7. DO NOT leave trash out overnight. Trash must be placed in dumpsters upon checking out. Campsites left with excessive trash may be subject to a $180 citation to the registered camper. 8. Parks close promptly at posted closure hours. Campers can exit over spike strip after closing for emergencies, but cannot re-enter until the park gate opens at 6:00 a.m. 9. The maximum stay is 14 nights within a 30-day rolling cycle. Campsite Information: 1. Recreation.gov confirmation must be presented to a Park Host or Ranger Staff during check-in to receive parking passes. 2. Individual campsites are limited to two (2) tents, and two (2) vehicle passes. 3. Group campsite is limited to five (5) tents, and six (6) vehicle passes. 4. Maximum overnight occupancy is six (6) people for individual campsites and twenty-five (25) people for the group campsite. 5. No vehicle access to campsites - no exceptions. Parking area is approximately 20 meters from furthest campsite. Recommended to bring wagons. Quiet Hours: 1. Quiet Hours are from 10:00 PM – 6:00 AM. 2. Please be courteous to other guests around you. 3. Excessively loud music or objectionable noise is not allowed at any time. 4. Profanity or violence towards other guests, USACE staff, or partners may result in immediate eviction from the park. 5. Generators are PROHIBITED during quiet hours. Pet Policy: 1. Pets must be kept on a leash and under immediate control at all times. 2. Guests are responsible to “clean up” after their pets. 3. USACE is not responsible for and will hold accountable pet owners for any injuries or damage(s) caused by pet(s). Safety: 1. Please wear a life jacket while recreating on, in, or around water. Free loaner life jackets are available at several points around water access areas. Please return them after use. 2. The possession and/or use of firearms of any kind is PROHIBITED. 3. The use of archery, paintball, slingshots or air guns is PROHIBITED. 4. Fireworks, firecrackers, rockets, or tother explosives of any kind are PROHIBITED. 5. Use or illegal drugs, including THC products, is PROHIBITED. 6. Wood campfires are allowed in appropriate fire rings and other containments depending on wind, weather, and local fire conditions. Propane fire pits are allowed year-round. Fire restriction signage will be posted at park entrances. 7. Vehicles may park in designated areas only. No vehicles may block any portion of roadway or maintenance access. 8. Vandalism of any kind by anyone in your group (regardless of age) may result in eviction from the Park.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 13 · 13 tent-only, 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- 12 of 13 sites
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- ACCESSIBLE FLUSH TOILETS on 13 of 13 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- ACCESSIBLE DRINKING WATER on 13 of 13 campsite records
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- River
- Biking
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Kayaking
- Picnicking
- Rafting
- Water access
- Wildlife viewing
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
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 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.
“Contact Recreation.gov for changes or cancellations.” · this campground’s own terms
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 · 6
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
13 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 7 mapped sitesAll 13 sites
| 1 (Group) | group tent only area nonelectric | 98 ft | 297 ftStanislaus River |
| 10 | tent only nonelectric | ||
| 11 | tent only nonelectric | ||
| 12 | tent only nonelectric | ||
| 13 | tent only nonelectric | ||
| 2 | tent only nonelectric | 98 ft | 354 ft |
| 3 | tent only nonelectric | 93 ft | 372 ft |
| 4 | tent only nonelectric | 98 ft | 355 ftStanislaus River |
| 5 | tent only nonelectric | ||
| 6 | tent only nonelectric | 98 ft | 293 ftStanislaus River |
| 7 | tent only nonelectric | ||
| 8 | tent only nonelectric | 64 ft | 436 ftStanislaus River |
| 9 | tent only nonelectric | 64 ft | 410 ftStanislaus River |
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.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Valley Oak Recreation Area11 mi
Horseshoe Road Recreation Area17 mi
Coyote Point19 mi
Deer Flat Boat In Campground30 mi
Glory Hole Recreation Area31 mi
Acorn Campground32 miFrom Modesto, California, take McHenry Avenue north. Turn left on East River Road and continue for approximately 1 mile, then turn left into McHenry Avenue Recreation Area. Proceed past the park entrance station and stop sign at the intersection until you reach the parking lot.
From Escalon, California, take McHenry Avenue south. Turn right on East River Road and continue for approximately 1 mile, then turn left into McHenry Avenue Recreation Area. Proceed past the park entrance station and stop sign at the intersection until you reach the parking lot.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Escalon, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 52°F, day 79°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 39°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
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
McHenry Avenue Recreation Area is in California’s 9th congressional district. Its representative, Josh Harder (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →