Murrell Park
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 16:40 UTC
- A night
- $14From, per site
- Sites
- 2211 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 14 notices
In the agency’s own words
Murrell Park offers day use facilities, boat ramp access and primitive camping on scenic Grapevine Lake, in the middle of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex in Texas. The lake has become a premier recreation destination for the Southwest and offers some of the best camping, fishing and boating in Texas. This facility is open year-round, but particularly in hot summer months, the cool water provides a refreshing break from the Texas heat. Keep reading
Recreation
Murrell Park is popular for picnicking, hiking, mountain biking, boating and fishing. The park is home to the well known Northshore Trail, which welcomes hikers and mountain bikers. Horses and moterized bikes including E-Bikes are not permitted on the Northshore Trail. Horses not permited in Murrell Park; however, there are horse trails available on the south side and west end of the lake. Hunting is not allowed in the park, but is available in some of the surrounding public lands. Anglers can fish along the shoreline or from the water; popular species include black and white crappie, catfish and bass.
Facilities
This facility offers 11 tent-only campsites along the lakeshore with views of the water. These sites do not have electrical or water hook ups. All campsites have campfire rings and grills, picnic tables with shelters. Vault toilets are provided; shower and flush toilet facilities are not available. a community water spigot is available from spring through fall and are shut off some of the winter months. It is recommended that campers provide their own water. The park contains a boat ramp.
Natural Features
Grapevine is an 7,280 acre recreational lake with 60 miles of rolling shoreline. The area offers a wide variety of wildlife to observe, including white-tailed deer, turkey, squirrel, armadillo, rabbit and numerous birds species.
Nearby Attractions
The nearby city of Grapevine offers many historical attractions as one of the oldest settlements in the county, dating back to 1844, a year before Texas became a part of the United States.
Charges & Cancellations
No refunds on weather or health related cancelations.
What the agency tells you
The lake functions for flood control and conservation; lake levels fluctuate
RV's and Camping trailers not allowed. Vehicle must fit in standard sized parking spot.
Campers must bring their own drinking water during winter months
Everything else this campground posts · 11
Park entry is free
The park is open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Alcohol and glass containers are prohibited
Equipment to alter or cut down park vegetation, including but not limited to chainsaws, mowers and weed eaters, is prohibited
Off-road vehicles, ATVs, dirt bikes, golf carts and other non street-legal vehicles are not permitted in the park
Boats are subject to inspection for Zebra Mussels, an invasive aquatic species; To learn moreClick Here
There are no lifeguards around the lake; all swimmers swim at their own risk
Snakes do inhabit the area around the lake; please use cation
Murrell Park allows a maximum of 2 tents, 2 vehicles and 8 people per campsite. If you have questions about campsite limits please contact our project office at (817) 865-2600
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.
Advance reservations required
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 22
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 20 ft
- Paved pads
- 11 of 22
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- 13 of 22 sites
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…and grills, picnic tables with shelters. Vault toilets are provided; shower and flush toilet facilities…”
- Showers
- None at this campground
- “Vault toilets are provided; shower and flush toilet facilities are not available. a community water spigot is available from spring through fall and are shut off some of the winter months.”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- WATER (SEASONAL) on 10 of 22 campsite records
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Beach
- Boating
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Jet Skiing
- Kayaking
- Mountain biking
- Water access
- Night sky · 154th darkest of 154 in TX
- Bortle 8
Full this Saturdayread 16:40 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
Every one of the 11 sites on offer is taken this Saturday. 10 are free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:40 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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $14 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.
“No refunds on weather or health related cancelations.” · 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
recreation.gov availability, read 16:40 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
22 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 11 mapped sitesAll 22 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 22 of the 22 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
| Hippy Point | 24 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 122 ft | 185 ft | 1,274 ft |
| Hippy Point | 25 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 64 ft | 101 ft | 1,573 ft |
| Hippy Point | 26 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 64 ft | 143 ft | 1,511 ft |
| Hippy Point | 27 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 65 ft | 118 ft | 1,328 ft |
| Hippy Point | 28 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 64 ft | 92 ft | 1,267 ft |
| Hippy Point | 29 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 64 ft | 72 ft | 1,203 ft |
| Hippy Point | 30 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 90 ft | 87 ft | 1,169 ft |
| Hippy Point | 31 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 90 ft | 94 ft | 1,086 ft |
| Hippy Point | 32 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 107 ft | 135 ft | 1,029 ft |
| Hippy Point | 33 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 81 ft | 130 ft | 937 ft |
| Hippy Point | 34 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 81 ft | 106 ft | 857 ft |
| South Point | 1 | type not stated | 120 ft | 2,929 ft | ||
| South Point | 2 | type not stated | 124 ft | 3,075 ft | ||
| South Point | 3 | type not stated | 88 ft | 3,124 ft | ||
| South Point | 4 | type not stated | 75 ft | 3,217 ft | ||
| South Point | 5 | type not stated | 99 ft | 3,237 ft | ||
| South Point | 6 | type not stated | 101 ft | 3,125 ft | ||
| South Point | 7A | type not stated | 157 ft | 2,648 ft | ||
| South Point | 7B | type not stated | 181 ft | 2,585 ft | ||
| South Point | 8A | type not stated | 105 ft | 2,649 ft | ||
| South Point | 8B | type not stated | 146 ft | 2,631 ft | ||
| South Point | 8C | type not stated | 193 ft | 2,518 ft |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Hickory Creek (TX)7.8 mi
Longhorn32 mi
North Holiday Park33 mi
East Fork (TX)34 mi
Rocky Creek Park (Benbrook Lake)34 mi
Holiday (Texas)35 miGrapevine Lake is located in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, south of Denton, Texas. The north side of the lake is almost entirely within the town boundaries of Flower Mound, Texas in Denton county. The south side of the lake is located in Grapevine, Trophy Club and Southlake, Texas in Tarrant County. The parks physical address is 880 Simmions Road, Flower Mound, Texas
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Flower Mound, TX
Typical weather
Typical October night 55°F, day 78°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 34°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 Augusts are colder than the August line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Murrell Park is in Texas’s 26th congressional district. Its representative, Brandon Gill (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 moneyBrandon GillU.S. Representative · Texas’s 26th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJohn CornynU.S. Senator · Texas
- Your senator, on the same appropriationTed CruzU.S. Senator · Texas
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 Murrell Park, Texas
Dear Brandon Gill, I’m a constituent in Texas’s 26th district. I tried to camp at Murrell Park, Texas, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 11 of the 22 campsites the agency files at Murrell Park, 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 11 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Murrell Park keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Murrell Park. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 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 Murrell Park (Texas) 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 Murrell Park, Texas
Dear John Cornyn, I’m a constituent in Texas. I tried to camp at Murrell Park, Texas, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 11 of the 22 campsites the agency files at Murrell Park, 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 11 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Murrell Park keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Murrell Park. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 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 Murrell Park (Texas) 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 Murrell Park, Texas
Dear Ted Cruz, I’m a constituent in Texas. I tried to camp at Murrell Park, Texas, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 11 of the 22 campsites the agency files at Murrell Park, 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 11 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Murrell Park keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Murrell Park. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 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 Murrell Park (Texas) via campanac.com