Reynolds Creek Group Campground
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- OpenInside the published season, our reading
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
- Season
- March 1Opens March 1. No closing date published.
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Reynolds Creek Group Campground is a rustic and secluded, creek side camp located on the Pleasant Valley Ranger District in the Tonto National Forest. The primitive group camping area is nestled between towering ponderosa pine at an elevation of 5,250 feet and provides a great base camp for a wide range of recreational activities including, hiking, fishing, hunting, and nature photography. Keep reading
Recreation
The site is located between the Salome and Sierra Ancha Wilderness Areas and adjacent to the From the Desert to the Tall Pines National Scenic Byway. Two trailheads are located within a quarter mile of the campground and provide access to the Wilderness Areas as well as a lookout tower.
Facilities
The site includes two large ramadas, eight picnic tables, group grill, one large metal campfire ring, and one vault toilet.
Natural Features
The group site is located adjacent to Reynolds Creek, which runs year round. Opportunities for wading, fishing, and hiking abound. Berry picking is a popular activity in the fall. A thick stand of ponderosa pine covers the group area, offering pleasant shade. A large meadow provides the perfect place for group activities and games.
Nearby Attractions
Workman Creek is located two miles to the south and has cascading waterfalls and plenty of opportunities for berry picking in the fall. Hikers and equestrians can explore the area's majestic scenery on meandering trails.
What the agency tells you
This site is very remote and is accessible only by dirt roads.
Bears can be present in the area. Please store food appropriately.
A combination code is needed to access the facility. Please check your confirmation letter for the combination code.
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Fires are only allowed in the established steel fire rings of which there are four (4). Please be aware of current fire restrictions.
Check in time is 2:00pm and check out time is 11:00am.
This recreation site is downstream from a recent burn area due to the Billy Fire. Please beware of flash flooding and debris flows within Reynolds Creek during rain storms. For more information visit https://www.fs.usda.gov/science-technology/fire/after-fire
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 21 ft
- Accessible sites
- 1
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…one large metal campfire ring, and one vault toilet. Natural Features The group site is located…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Waterfall, Creek, Meadow
- Night sky · 145th darkest of 262 in AZ
- Bortle 3
Full this Saturdayread 16:38 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot on the booking system
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:38 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.
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 · 12
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 · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 16:38 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
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 1 of the 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| REYNOLDS CREEK GROUP CAMPGROUND | Reynolds Creek Group Campground/1 | group standard area nonelectric | 21 ft | yes | 420 ft | $75 |
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
Reynolds Creek Group Camp (ID)Tonto National Forest · 0.0 mi
Schoolhouse Campground (AZ)Tonto National Forest · 15 mi
Windy Hill CampgroundTonto National Forest · 16 mi
Cholla CampgroundTonto National Forest · 16 mi
Grapevine Group CampgroundTonto National Forest · 16 mi
Frazier Group CampgroundTonto National Forest · 17 miFrom Young, drive 20 miles south on State Hwy. 288 (unpaved). Site is on the right and is signed. From Hwy 188, drive 27 miles north on State Hwy. 288 (partially paved).
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Young, AZ
Typical weather
Typical March night 31°F, day 61°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical March night 31°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 moreOutside the published season
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
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Reynolds Creek Group Campground is in Arizona’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Eli Crane (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 moneyElijah CraneU.S. Representative · Arizona’s 2nd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMark KellyU.S. Senator · Arizona
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRuben GallegoU.S. Senator · Arizona
No contact form we could verify, so that link is their own site. Contact is inside it. Washington office: 202-224-4521.
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 Reynolds Creek Group Campground, Tonto National Forest, Arizona
Dear Elijah Crane, I’m a constituent in Arizona’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Reynolds Creek Group Campground, Tonto National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Reynolds Creek 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Reynolds Creek Group Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Reynolds Creek 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 Reynolds Creek Group Campground (Tonto National Forest, Arizona) 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 Reynolds Creek Group Campground, Tonto National Forest, Arizona
Dear Mark Kelly, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Reynolds Creek Group Campground, Tonto National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Reynolds Creek 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Reynolds Creek Group Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Reynolds Creek 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 Reynolds Creek Group Campground (Tonto National Forest, Arizona) 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 Reynolds Creek Group Campground, Tonto National Forest, Arizona
Dear Ruben Gallego, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Reynolds Creek Group Campground, Tonto National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Reynolds Creek 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 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Reynolds Creek Group Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Reynolds Creek 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 Reynolds Creek Group Campground (Tonto National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com