Sandy 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 14 of the next 14 nights read 14:13 UTC
- A night
- $22From, per site
- Sites
- 12All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
In the agency’s own words
Sandy Park Campground is located just below the Kaw Lake Dam. This campground is rural, quiet, wooded, and provides both sunny and shaded sites. Keep reading
Recreation
Hikers and horseback riders are attracted to the beautiful trails along the eastern shore. The Eagle View Hiking Trail is approximately 12 miles long and runs between Osage Cove and Burbank Landing. The Five Fingers Equestrian Trail extends from Burbank Landing to the Sarge Creek Cove Public Use Area. Hunters' skills are tested with excellent populations of whitetail deer, turkey, quail, rabbit and squirrel. During the fall waterfowl seasons Kaw Lake often attracts large numbers of migrating ducks and geese. During the winter visitors are likely to spot migrating bald eagles, as Kaw Lake has one of the biggest populations in the state.
Facilities
Sandy Park Campground offers 12 campsites with modern amenities like electric hookups, drinking water and flush toilets. A boat ramp provides easy access to the Arkansas River.
Nearby Attractions
The area holds several historical sites, including several Native American settlements, archeological sites and the Pioneer Woman Museum.
What the agency tells you
Reserve your campsite through Recreation.gov
One tent and one camper or two tents per 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
- 12
- Hookups
- 12 electric, 12 water
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- FLUSH TOILETS on 12 of 12 campsite records, ACCESSIBLE FLUSH TOILETS on 12 of 12 campsite records
- Showers
- Accessible Showers
- ACCESSIBLE SHOWERS on 12 of 12 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- DRINKING WATER on 12 of 12 campsite records, ACCESSIBLE DRINKING WATER on 12 of 12 campsite records, WATER SPIGOT on 12 of 12 campsite records
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek
- Biking
- Boating
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Hunting
- Kayaking
- Water access
- Cell signal · Cell signal · Army Corps says
- Yes
Full this Saturdayread 14:13 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
5 campgrounds have sites open within 30 miles, read 15:08 UTC. See them
OpenBooked
Every one of the 12 sites on offer is taken this Saturday. 11 are free on Tue, Oct 20. read 14:13 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
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $22 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
Open within 30 miles this weekend · 5
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 15:08 UTC
- Osage CoveKaw Lake · 1.8 mi · 54 of 94 site-nights open
- Coon Creek (OK)Kaw Lake · 6.3 mi · 11 of 57 site-nights open
- Washunga BayKaw Lake · 8.0 mi · 24 of 37 site-nights open
- Sarge CreekKaw Lake · 8.0 mi · 27 of 52 site-nights open
- Bear Creek CoveKaw Lake · 10 mi · 11 of 22 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 14:13 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
12 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 12 mapped sitesAll 12 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. 12 of the 12 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Main | 1 | standard electric | 30 amp | 75 ft | 83 ft | $22 |
| Main | 10 | standard electric | 30 amp | 83 ft | 268 ft | $22 |
| Main | 11 | standard electric | 30 amp | 61 ft | 186 ft | $22 |
| Main | 12 | standard electric | 30 amp | 61 ft | 154 ft | $22 |
| Main | 2 | standard electric | 30 amp | 75 ft | 126 ft | $22 |
| Main | 3 | standard electric | 30 amp | 71 ft | 191 ft | $22 |
| Main | 4 | standard electric | 30 amp | 71 ft | 237 ft | $22 |
| Main | 5 | standard electric | 30 amp | 79 ft | 296 ft | $22 |
| Main | 6 | standard electric | 30 amp | 70 ft | 406 ft | $22 |
| Main | 7 | standard electric | 30 amp | 70 ft | 434 ft | $22 |
| Main | 8 | standard electric | 30 amp | 41 ft | 369 ft | $22 |
| Main | 9 | standard electric | 30 amp | 41 ft | 367 ft | $22 |
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 phone number
Where it is
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Ponca City, OK
Typical weather
Typical October night 48°F, day 73°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 25°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
Sandy Park is in Oklahoma’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Frank Lucas (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 moneyFrank D. LucasU.S. Representative · Oklahoma’s 3rd district
No contact form we could verify, so that link is their own site. Contact is inside it. Washington office: 202-225-5565.
- Your senator, on the same appropriationAlan ArmstrongU.S. Senator · Oklahoma
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJames LankfordU.S. Senator · Oklahoma
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 Sandy Park, Oklahoma
Dear Frank D. Lucas, I’m a constituent in Oklahoma’s 3rd district. I tried to camp at Sandy Park, Oklahoma, and couldn’t. All 12 sites at Sandy Park are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 12 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Sandy Park keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Sandy 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 Sandy Park (Oklahoma) 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 Sandy Park, Oklahoma
Dear Alan Armstrong, I’m a constituent in Oklahoma. I tried to camp at Sandy Park, Oklahoma, and couldn’t. All 12 sites at Sandy Park are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 12 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Sandy Park keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Sandy 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 Sandy Park (Oklahoma) 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 Sandy Park, Oklahoma
Dear James Lankford, I’m a constituent in Oklahoma. I tried to camp at Sandy Park, Oklahoma, and couldn’t. All 12 sites at Sandy Park are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 12 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Sandy Park keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Sandy 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 Sandy Park (Oklahoma) via campanac.com
How we know this · 4
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
“the agency's own site records list "CELL PHONE SERVICE" on 12 of 12 campsites here”