Prairie Ridge (Rathbun Lake)
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $25From, per site
- Sites
- 55All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Prairie Ridge Park is located 6 miles, SW of the Jct of Iowa Highway 5 and J18 at Moravia. Awesome Sunsets- No Extra Charge! Rathbun's off-the-beaten path park offers unique opportunities for lover's of the outdoors. Nestled between Buck Creek and Honey Creek, the high ridge offers wonderful vistas of the lake while surrounded by Iowa's Natural and enhanced prairie life community, with woodland draws and timbered hillsides. Keep reading
Recreation
Prairie Ridge Boat Ramp is protected on three sides and has been long popular with both motorized craft and a launching area for wind surfers and catamarans. A courtesy dock with fish cleaning station aid families on and off the water.
Facilities
Fifty-four family friendly, Large, campsites are available in two seperate camp areas. Two shower houses, drinking water and RV dump stations is available. A modern playground offers activities for our younger visitors.
Natural Features
Rathbun's most extensive trail, eight miles in length, takes hikers and bikers into Iowa's wild, and links to Iowa's Premier destination park at Honey Creek Resort. Contact Info This location is unstaffed. To speak with our main office for general information, please call: (641) 647-2464.
Nearby Attractions
The park is within a few minutes of lake conveniences, bait, dining, and fuel. Rathbun's fish hatchery is open to the public on weekdays. Groups are encouraged to make appointments. 14 minutes west, on Hwy S70, one of Southern Iowa's best off-roading opportunities is at the 125 Acre Rathbun OHV Park. There's even a tot lot beginner's area. Search Rathbun OHV Park on-line for actual dates of operation and applicable rules.
What the agency tells you
14 Day Policy on Rathbun Lake: Campers are only allowed to camp at the same camping loop a maximum of 14 nights within a 30 night period. After the 14th night, they will be required to move (physically move the camping unit) to a different camping loop, which can be in the same campground.
If late, you must contact this park within 24 hours after your original check-in time or you will be considered a 'no show' resulting in the cancelation of your reservation.
Please register for campsites during booth hours, 8 a.m.-10 a.m. and 3 p.m.-8 p.m.
Everything else this campground posts · 4
For more information, visit the Rathbun Lake website http://www.nwk.usace.army.mil/Locations/District-Lakes/Rathbun-Lake/
Purchase firewood from a local source.
If you must bring your own firewood, don't leave any firewood behind at your campsite.
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 55 · 1 group
- Hookups
- 54 electric
- Longest rig
- 111 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…seperate camp areas. Two shower houses, drinking water and RV dump stations is available. A modern…”
- Dump station
- Yes
- recreation.gov lists “Dump Station”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek
- Biking
- Boating
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Kayaking
- Picnicking
- Sailing
- Swimming
- Water access
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 3rd darkest of 32 in IA
- Bortle 4
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 · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $25 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.
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 · 5
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
56 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 55 mapped sitesAll 56 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 55 of the 56 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| PPL. | B01 | standard electric | 43 ft | 50 amp | 59 ft | 754 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B02 | standard electric | 37 ft | 50 amp | 59 ft | 708 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B03 | standard electric | 43 ft | 50 amp | 86 ft | 675 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B04 | standard electric | 47 ft | 50 amp | 76 ft | 689 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B05 | standard electric | 87 ft | 50 amp | 95 ft | 809 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B06 | standard electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | 76 ft | 736 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B07 | standard electric | 43 ft | 50 amp | 74 ft | 715 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B08 | standard electric | 90 ft | 50 amp | 65 ft | 792 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B09 | standard electric | 69 ft | 50 amp | 65 ft | 774 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B10 | standard electric | 50 ft | 50 amp | 74 ft | 694 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B11 | standard electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | 77 ft | 674 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B12 | standard electric | 42 ft | 50 amp | 84 ft | 638 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B13 | standard electric | 75 ft | 50 amp | 80 ft | 674 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B14 | standard electric | 63 ft | 50 amp | 80 ft | 610 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B15 | standard electric | 75 ft | 50 amp | 97 ft | 346 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B16 | standard electric | 88 ft | 50 amp | 96 ft | 298 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B17 | standard electric | 56 ft | 50 amp | 165 ft | 240 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B18 | standard electric | 57 ft | 50 amp | 76 ft | 341 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B19 | standard electric | 65 ft | 50 amp | 76 ft | 347 ft | $25 |
| PPL. | B20 | standard electric | 110 ft | 50 amp | 122 ft | 379 ft | $25 |
| PRID | PR Group Camp | group standard nonelectric | 2075 ft | 214 ft | $70 | ||
| PRIP | A01 | standard electric | 51 ft | 50 amp | 64 ft | 180 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A02 | standard electric | 55 ft | 50 amp | 76 ft | 255 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A03 | standard electric | 52 ft | 50 amp | 46 ft | 158 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A04 | standard electric | 74 ft | 50 amp | 46 ft | 153 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A05 | standard electric | 70 ft | 50 amp | 60 ft | 140 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A06 | standard electric | 64 ft | 50 amp | 62 ft | 241 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A07 | standard electric | 64 ft | 50 amp | 62 ft | 222 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A08 | standard electric | 52 ft | 50 amp | 60 ft | 121 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A09 | standard electric | 53 ft | 50 amp | 74 ft | 120 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A10 | standard electric | 71 ft | 50 amp | 75 ft | 212 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A11 | standard electric | 42 ft | 50 amp | 63 ft | 128 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A12 | standard electric | 44 ft | 50 amp | 63 ft | 133 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A13 | standard electric | 51 ft | 50 amp | 78 ft | 250 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A14 | standard electric | 111 ft | 50 amp | 78 ft | 288 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A15 | standard electric | 49 ft | 50 amp | 80 ft | 193 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A16 | standard electric | 59 ft | 50 amp | 73 ft | 226 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A17 | standard electric | 64 ft | 50 amp | 71 ft | 279 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A18 | standard electric | 59 ft | 50 amp | 80 ft | 309 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A19 | standard electric | 80 ft | 50 amp | 66 ft | 346 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A20 | standard electric | 62 ft | 50 amp | 68 ft | 295 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A21 | standard electric | 68 ft | 50 amp | 66 ft | 409 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A22 | standard electric | 54 ft | 50 amp | 73 ft | 329 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A23 | standard electric | 67 ft | 50 amp | 58 ft | 414 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A24 | standard electric | 73 ft | 50 amp | 76 ft | 314 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A25 | standard electric | 46 ft | 50 amp | 58 ft | 421 ft | $25 |
| PRIP | A26 | standard electric | 68 ft | 50 amp | 86 ft | 377 ft | $25 |
| PRSH | PRS1 | day use | 180 ft | $25 | |||
| PUMP | B21 | standard electric | 48 ft | 50 amp | 60 ft | 203 ft | $25 |
| PUMP | B22 | standard electric | 48 ft | 50 amp | 52 ft | 150 ft | $25 |
| PUMP | B23 | standard electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | 60 ft | 207 ft | $25 |
| PUMP | B24 | standard electric | 65 ft | 50 amp | 52 ft | 151 ft | $25 |
| PUMP | B25 | standard electric | 67 ft | 50 amp | 85 ft | 204 ft | $25 |
| PUMP | B26 | standard electric | 61 ft | 50 amp | 85 ft | 228 ft | $25 |
| PUMP | B27 | standard electric | 79 ft | 50 amp | 92 ft | 268 ft | $25 |
| PUMP | B28 | standard electric | 82 ft | 50 amp | 116 ft | 339 ft | $25 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It files it as day use. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
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.
25 of 56 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Buck Creek (Rathbun Lake)1.4 mi
Island View (Rathbun Lake)3.5 mi
Bridgeview (Rathbun Lake)7.3 mi
Ivans34 mi
Howell Station34 mi
Whitebreast Camp34 miFrom Moravia, IA, travel 4 miles west on Highway J18, then south 2.5 miles on 200th Avenue (gravel). Follow signs into campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Moravia, IA
Typical weather
Typical October night 41°F, day 64°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 12°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
Who answers for this land
Prairie Ridge (Rathbun Lake) is in Iowa’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Zach Nunn (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →