Potomac Group Campground
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 29 of the next 30 nights read 16:48 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Potomac Group Campground and Day Use Area provides a primitive camping experience for groups of 8-40 people. It is an excellent site for family events and youth group activities. The facility is situated in a scenic area of New York, which makes for an exciting place to explore. A variety of recreational activities are available. Parking for the campground is located approximately 500 feet from the campground itself and all gear must be carried in and out. Recycling cans are available on site but trash must be packed out. Keep reading
Recreation
A variety of trails exist in the area, including the Potomac Trail, which extends about 5 miles round-trip. It is a moderately difficult trail that travels through a variety of forest types and follows the edges of quite a few ponds in the area. It is a nice loop on which to learn cross-country skiing and is also a popular game bird hunting area. The Potomac Trail connects with the Interloken Trail and the campground. Fishing is allowed in the ponds, pertaining to state fishing regulations.
Facilities
Many primitive, group, tent-only campsites, and a group picnic shelter are available for reservation and equipped with at least 4 tables. A campfire circle and grills are also provided and vault toilets are located nearby. The shelter can accommodate up to 40 people and an adjacent parking lot can hold up to 10 vehicles. There is no electricity at the shelter. Drinking water is not available at the campground or picnic shelter, nor is trash collection.
Natural Features
The lush, green campground is located in Finger Lakes National Forest, between Cayuga and Seneca Lakes in southwestern New York. It is New York's only National Forest. The Forest has over 30 miles of interconnecting trails that traverse gorges, ravines, pastures, and woodlands.
What the agency tells you
Drinking water is not available
The facility is about 200 yards from the parking lot, requiring a short hike
Access road to the facility is not plowed during winter months
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Groups larger than 75 people require a Recreation Special Use permit
Click here for more information on the Finger Lakes National Forest
Don't move firewood: To limit the spread of invasive tree-killing pests, firewood from outside the area is not permitted. Some states have quarantines and may confiscate your firewood. Please help protect our forests from invasive species by obtaining your firewood at or near your camping destination and burning it on-site. Visit dontmovefirewood.org for more information.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…circle and grills are also provided and vault toilets are located nearby. The shelter can accommodate up…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…There is no electricity at the shelter. Drinking water is not available at the campground or picnic shelter, nor is trash…”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Swimming
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
- Fall color · reported 7 days ago, 36 km away
- Patchy color
Full this Saturdayread 16:48 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot reservable
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:48 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
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 · 4
recreation.gov availability, read 16:48 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 1 of the 1 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
| POTOMAC GROUP | 001 | group standard area nonelectric | 1,054 ft | 152 ft |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Blueberry Patch CampgroundFinger Lakes National Forest · 0.9 mi
Backbone Horse CampgroundFinger Lakes National Forest · 1.1 mi
Lawrence Recreation Area41 mi
Tompkins41 mi
South Shore Recreation Area42 mi
Ives Run46 miFrom the south, take State Route 14 north to Watkins Glen. Turn right at the Fourth Street intersection, onto State Route 414. Continue about 9 miles north, past the Hector Ranger Station, and turn right on County Route 2. Drive 5 miles to the intersection, turn left on Potomac Road and continue to the campground.
From the north, take State Route 414 south to Hector. Turn left onto County Route 2 and continue about 5 miles east to an intersection. Turn left onto Potomac Road and continue 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 Burdett, NY
Typical weather
Typical October night 39°F, day 58°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 14°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 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 · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Potomac Group Campground is in New York’s 24th congressional district. Its representative, Claudia Tenney (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 moneyClaudia TenneyU.S. Representative · New York’s 24th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationCharles E. SchumerU.S. Senator · New York
- Your senator, on the same appropriationKirsten E. GillibrandU.S. Senator · New York
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 Potomac Group Campground, Finger Lakes National Forest, New York
Dear Claudia Tenney, I’m a constituent in New York’s 24th district. I tried to camp at Potomac Group Campground, Finger Lakes National Forest, New York, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Potomac Group Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Potomac Group Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Potomac Group Campground. 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 Potomac Group Campground (Finger Lakes National Forest, New York) 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 Potomac Group Campground, Finger Lakes National Forest, New York
Dear Charles E. Schumer, I’m a constituent in New York. I tried to camp at Potomac Group Campground, Finger Lakes National Forest, New York, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Potomac Group Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Potomac Group Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Potomac Group Campground. 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 Potomac Group Campground (Finger Lakes National Forest, New York) 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 Potomac Group Campground, Finger Lakes National Forest, New York
Dear Kirsten E. Gillibrand, I’m a constituent in New York. I tried to camp at Potomac Group Campground, Finger Lakes National Forest, New York, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Potomac Group Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Potomac Group Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Potomac Group Campground. 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 Potomac Group Campground (Finger Lakes National Forest, New York) via campanac.com