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U.S. Forest Service · Coronado National Forest · AZ

Spencer Canyon Campground

First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
OpenListed open; its database flags it not open
A night
$28From, per site
Season
April 1 – October 31Open April 1 through October 31
Photos · USDA Forest Service
8,030 ftElevation
1.6 miWater · an unnamed pond
7.1 miSE of Saddlebrooke, AZ
18%Tree cover
Bortle 4Night sky · 244th darkest of 262 in AZ
Open April 1 through October 31Today

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

This mountain campground is located at the head of a shallow, forested canyon a short distance off the Catalina Highway . Spencer Canyon faces the city of Tucson and the Santa Cruz Valley, both of which are visible as a distant panorama through openings in the forest canopy. Spencer Canyon Campground has 66 sites. Each site has a concrete table, firepit, B-B-Q and bear box for food storage. A beautiful night view of Tucson can be seen from several sites. Spencer is rugged, rustic in layout and close to the hamlet of Summerhaven. Each camping area has clean, stocked vault toilets. Campground hosts live on site. Firewood may be purchased from the hosts. The Catalina Highway is paved, but it can be snow covered in winter when chains and/or 4-wheel drive may be required.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets
“…Each camping area has clean, stocked vault toilets. Campground hosts live on site. Firewood may be…”
Bear boxes
Yes
Firewood
Sold here
Source: Stated in the agency description
Water, toilets and showers: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

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 $28 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.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe record
A night$28Per site, fromthe agency’s fee record
A weekend$56DerivedFriday and Saturday, everything includedours, from the lines above
Runs itVista RecreationA private concessionaire under permit from U.S. Forest Servicethe operator link
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 13

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
A night, from$28
Camping fee is $28.00 per night for single sites.
No more than 6 people per numbered site, including children and visitors.
Double Family site is $44.00.
No more than two vehicles per site.
Extra persons, walk-ins, and bicycles are $1.00 each.
Firewood is $8.00 per bundle/bag.
The Interagency Senior and Access Pass is good for a 50% discount on camping fee only.
Payable with cash or check.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What this campground addsits own record
Extra vehicle$11

“Extra vehicle is $11.00 per night per site.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record

What a stay costs
One night, fromDerived$28
A weekend, Friday and Saturday, fromDerived$56

Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($28), 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 · 6
Sign price: Derived by CAMPANAC from the U.S. Forest Service fee record: a stated per-night amount only · Sep 7, 2026
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
What this campground adds: The U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record and notices for this campground, quoted verbatim. An extra-vehicle charge is set locally and appears on no national schedule, so it’s never assumed. · Aug 24, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate32.41863, -110.73833

Where it is

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

The weather

the next four days

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Overnight42°Mostly Cloudy1% rain
Saturday54°Partly Sunny then Slight Chance Rain Showers16% rain
Saturday Night45°Chance Rain Showers43% rain
Sunday59°Chance Rain Showers then Slight Chance Showers And Thunderstorms31% rain

NWS forecast for Summerhaven, AZ

Source: National Weather Service, TWC forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

What threatens this place

Watch
critical
Roadless
Butterfly Roadless Area42,296 acres · 4 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Cdo Wsa1,955 acres · 5 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Oracle Roadless22,365 acres · 6 mi · inventoried roadless area

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 16, 2026

Who answers for this land

Juan Ciscomani, official portrait

Spencer Canyon Campground is in Arizona’s 6th congressional district. Its representative, Juan Ciscomani (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it open right now. Its own recreation database, though, flags it not open with no reason or date; the flag is named under How we know all this.
Listed not open: USFS EDW Recreation Opportunities, openstatus field: a not-open flag in a database, with no reason and no date published; read there since Sep 9, 2026. A flag, not a notice, so this page doesn’t call it a closure. · Oct 16, 2026
Season: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.98 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 262 rated federal campgrounds in Arizona · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the Forest Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest place of any size: Summerhaven, AZ, 1 mi SE (a census designated place). Straight line.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026