Shady Lake
1Heads up1 fire 45 mi away
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $20From, per site
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
Scenic 25-acre lake in remote mountain setting.The Civilian Conservation Corps developed the Shady Lake Recreation Area in 1937. The Shady Lake Trail traverses Saline Creek, passes the historic Shady Lake Dam, and continues along the eastern edge of the campground. The trail is ideal for day hiking. Mountain bikers may also use the trail. Overview: The campground is made up of four camping loops, with 51 campsites, ranging in amenities of no services to campsites with electric and water services provided. Bathhouses with warm showers and flush toilets. Day use hosts a swimming site, picnic pavilions, restrooms, picnic tables with BBQ grills and a 3-mile hiking trail that follows the shoreline of Shady Lake. Campsites can accommodate RV's up to 32-feet in length. Shady Lake is located approximately 40 miles west of Glenwood, Arkansas, and 45 southeast of Mena, Arkansas.
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…Bathhouses with warm showers and flush toilets. Day use hosts a swimming site, picnic pavilions,…”
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “Bathhouses with warm showers and flush toilets.”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek, Beach
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and a night costs $20 with nothing added. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.
recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.
Every line of the receipt · 5
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($20), and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
How we know this receipt · 5
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
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 Board Camp, AR
Typical weather
Typical October night 52°F, day 69°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 32°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
what threatens it · who answers for it
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
Shady Lake is in Arkansas’s 4th congressional district. Its representative, Bruce Westerman (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →