Santa Fe Trail
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 15 of the next 15 nights read 16:15 UTC
- A night
- $17–$29Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 33All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Santa Fe Trail Campground is located on the 3,310-acre Council Grove Lake in the green expanses of eastern Kansas. Keep reading
Recreation
Boating is a popular pastime at the lake, and a boat ramp is located in the campground for visitors' convenience. The lake is known for its fishing opportunities, with crappie and catfish being the most abundant. Council Grove was also the first lake in Kansas to receive stocking of Saugeye. Hunters will find populations of quail, prairie chicken, wild turkey and deer on the nearly 2,700 acres of hunting lands surrounding the lake. Hiking trails wind along the lake shore and into the forest. Pioneer Nature Trail is known as the most scenic trail, with plenty of wildlife, greenery and wildflowers creating a beautiful background. Council Grove is also a starting point for the Flint Hills National Scenic Byway. This byway travels through the best of the remaining remnants of the Tallgrass Prairie Ecosystem in North America. Along the byway and 25 miles south is the National Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, where visitors can spot colorful wildflowers in the spring and array of autumn colors in the fall.
Facilities
Santa Fe Trail Campground offers 35 reservable campsites, including one group camping area that can accommodate up to 75 guests. Electric hookups, flush toilets and other modern amenities are provided. The campground has plenty of shade, along with open grassy areas for games and recreation.
Natural Features
Council Grove Lake sits in the rolling, grassy Flint Hills. The lake was created by a dam built in 1964, and now offers recreational opportunities to hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. Historically this area is where the Osage Indians signed a treaty to establish the Old Santa Fe Trail. A marker in the town of Council Grove indicates the place where the treaty was signed.
Nearby Attractions
The town of Council Grove, located about 2 miles southeast of the lake, is a National Historic District, with seven Santa Fe National Historic Trail sites in the community.
What the agency tells you
New for 2024, check-out time is 3PM and check-in time is 4PM.
Campsite must be reserved prior to setting up camping equipment.
Two camping units are allowed per campsite, i.e. one RV and one tent or two tents. Only one camping unit may be plugged into the electric service.
Everything else this campground posts · 7
Quiet hours are from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Park gates close at 10pm, all park visitors who are not camping must depart prior to 10 p.m.
Pets must be kept contained at all times (i.e. leash or pen). It is a violation to leave pets unattended.
Help keep your parks operating at their best - Please report issues and concerns with any of the facilities to a park ranger or volunteer. For emergencies call Morris County Sheriff Office at (620)767-6310.
Help protect your public property by leaving them better than when you arrived. Trash receptacles are available throughout the parks. Please throw away any discarded materials in these locations; campsite fire rings are not to be used as trash cans. Dumping of household trash is not permissible.
All motorized vehicles (including toys) must be licensed and tagged to operate on Corps roadways. An Off-Road Vehicle park is located below the dam in Outlet Channel-East; maximum wheel-base width of 66-inches.
Click here for more information on Council Grove Lake
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
- 33 · 1 tent-only, 1 group
- Hookups
- 32 electric, 29 water, 2 sewer
- Longest rig
- 102 ft
- Paved pads
- 23 of 33
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- 31 of 33 sites
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…up to 75 guests. Electric hookups, flush toilets and other modern amenities are provided. The…”
- Dump station
- Yes
- recreation.gov lists “Dump Station”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Night sky · 14th darkest of 57 in KS
- Bortle 3
4 of 66 site-nights open this Friday and Saturdayread 16:15 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
OpenBooked
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 · 19
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $17–$29 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
recreation.gov availability, read 16:15 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
33 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 33 mapped sitesAll 33 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. 32 of the 33 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| SFET | 001 | standard electric | 56 ft | 15/20/30/50 amp | 80 ft | 117 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 002 | standard electric | 54 ft | 15/20/30/50 amp | 80 ft | 47 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 003 | standard electric | 44 ft | 15/20/30/50 amp | 103 ft | 17 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 004 | standard electric | 50 ft | 15/20/30/50 amp | 78 ft | 74 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 005 | standard electric | 70 ft | 15/20/30/50 amp | 72 ft | 71 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 006 | standard electric | 44 ft | 15/20/30/50 amp | 72 ft | 73 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 007 | standard electric | 57 ft | 15/20/30/50 amp | 78 ft | 89 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 008 | standard electric | 39 ft | 15/20/30/50 amp | 78 ft | 101 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 009 | standard electric | 102 ft | 15/20/30/50 amp | 86 ft | 139 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 010 | standard electric | 47 ft | 15/20/30/50 amp | 72 ft | 51 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 011 | standard electric | 49 ft | 15/20/30/50 amp | 72 ft | 53 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 012 | standard electric | 43 ft | 15/20/30/50 amp | 72 ft | 62 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 013 | standard electric | 49 ft | 15/20/30/50 amp | 96 ft | 36 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 014 | tent only nonelectric | 144 ft | 77 ft | |||
| SFET | 015 | standard electric | 69 ft | 15/20/30 amp | 75 ft | 83 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 016 | standard electric | 44 ft | 15/20/30 amp | 75 ft | 115 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 017 | standard electric | 50 ft | 15/20/30 amp | 92 ft | 169 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 018 | standard electric | 46 ft | 20/30/50 amp | 98 ft | 162 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 019 | standard electric | 68 ft | 20/30/50 amp | 87 ft | 150 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 020 | standard electric | 67 ft | 20/30/50 amp | 55 ft | 141 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 021 | standard electric | 66 ft | 20/30/50 amp | 67 ft | 235 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 022 | standard electric | 70 ft | 20/30/50 amp | 65 ft | 227 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 023 | standard electric | 70 ft | 20/30/50 amp | 65 ft | 228 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 024 | standard electric | 60 ft | 20/30/50 amp | 54 ft | 141 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 025 | standard electric | 63 ft | 20/30/50 amp | 54 ft | 120 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 026 | standard electric | 72 ft | 20/30/50 amp | 57 ft | 123 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 027 | standard electric | 70 ft | 20/30/50 amp | 74 ft | 226 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 028 | standard electric | 68 ft | 20/30/50 amp | 57 ft | 130 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 029 | standard electric | 78 ft | 20/30/50 amp | 74 ft | 216 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 030 | standard electric | 68 ft | 20/30/50 amp | 87 ft | 150 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 031 | standard electric | 50 ft | 20/30/50 amp | 102 ft | 164 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | 032 | standard electric | 55 ft | 20/30/50 amp | 102 ft | 138 ft | $22–$29 |
| SFET | S-1 | group standard electric | 50 ft | 20/30/50 amp | 384 ft | 392 ft | $240 |
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 33 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Neosho Park0.8 mi
Canning Creek1.0 mi
Kanza View1.8 mi
Kit Carson1.8 mi
Richey Cove2.0 miNorth Richey Cove2.3 miFrom I-70, take Highway 177 south for 30 miles. Continue west across the dam road, then right onto City Lake Road. After a mile turn right into the campground entrance.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Council Grove, KS
Typical weather
Typical October night 45°F, day 69°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 20°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
Santa Fe Trail is in Kansas’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Derek Schmidt (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →