National Park Service · AL
Paul Grist State Park
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Caution
Planning a Fall visit to the Montgomery Interpretive Center? Read this! The Montgomery Center is located next to the ASU football stadium. Home games are scheduled for Sept. 5 & 26, Oct. 9 (Fri), Nov. 14, 21 & 26 (Thur). Home games are big events - streets may be closed and parking may be difficult to find at…
Park Closure
Selma Interpretive Center Closed The Selma Interpretive Center will remain closed to the public due to major renovations; project completion is expected in 2028. There are two other unaffected visitor centers offering services: Montgomery Interpretive Center (1521 Harris…
Alerts: National Park Service alerts API · Oct 16, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
470 ftElevation
2,028 ftWater · an unnamed pond
3.9 miNE of Valley Grande, AL
62%Tree cover
Bortle 4Night sky · 16th darkest of 41 in AL
The place
the agency’s own description
In the agency’s own words
https://www.alapark.com/parks/paul-grist-state-park
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · 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.
Every line of the receipt · 3
What you actually pay
The sign priceNational Park Service
The National Park Service 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.
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
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Coordinate32.59145, -86.99976
The mapSee it on the map
The driveDirections ↗
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗
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
This Afternoon86°Slight Chance Rain Showers16% rain
Tonight48°Slight Chance Rain Showers then Partly Cloudy16% rain
Saturday67°Sunny
Saturday Night45°Clear
NWS forecast for Valley Grande, AL
Source: National Weather Service, BMX forecast office · Oct 16, 2026
Typical weather
Typical October night 55°F, day 80°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 36°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
100°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: SELMA, AL (USC00017366), 13 miles away and 323 ft lower
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
Paul Grist State Park is in Alabama’s 7th congressional district. Its representative, Terri Sewell (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: National Park Service 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.
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Tree cover: NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC), one 30 m cell at this coordinate · Sep 9, 2026
Cell signal: the Park Service’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.