Sugarloaf 1 Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $24From, per site
- Sites
- 2917 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 9 notices
In the agency’s own words
Sugarloaf 1 is a quiet, remote getaway in the northwoods of New Hampshire. Located near the western base of Mount Washington and 3 miles east of the small town of Twin Mountain, the campground is minutes away from hiking, mountain biking, scenic driving, fishing and sightseeing opportunities. The White Mountains boast pristine forests, clear mountain streams and rivers and the tallest peaks in the Northeast. The forest encompasses nearly 800,000 acres in New Hampshire and western Maine, and is one of the most popular in the country. Keep reading
Recreation
Hiking is one of the biggest draws to the campground. The 6,288-ft. Mount Washington, New England's highest peak, is just minutes away. Access to the wild Ammonoosuc River is easy for campers wishing to fish for brook trout or wade in its cool waters during warmer summer months. The campground is in close proximity to Bretton Woods ski resort and the upscale Mount Washington Hotel. Learn more about recreation in the national forest.
Facilities
The campground is in a rustic setting. Campsites are well spaced around a single loop. Accessible restrooms and a hand pump for water are provided. There is no dump station, and the nearest showers are 10 miles away.
Natural Features
The facility sits along the banks of the Zealand River and not far from the cold, cascading Ammonoosuc River. Thick hardwood and pine forests fill the landscape. White Mountain National Forest is home to many species of northern wildlife, including moose, white-tailed deer and black bear. Almost 200 species of birds, including the rare Bicknell's Thrush, live within its boundaries.
Nearby Attractions
The small town of Twin Mountain has a general store, gas station and restaurants. Numerous hiking trails, mountain biking trails and rock climbing routes are within a short drive of the campground, including the well-known Appalachian Trail. The Cog Railway provides a once-in-a-lifetime experience for visitors to ascend the western side of Mount Washington by train. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (802) 289-0970.
What the agency tells you
Two pets per site
No switching sites upon arrival
Be bear aware; keep all food out of site in approved containers or locked inside a hard-sided vehicle and remove all food from area after eating
Everything else this campground posts · 6
Please Note: Site fee includes one RV with tow vehicle, tent sites include two vehicles. If space allows a third vehicle would be an additional fee paid at time of check in if you did not pay for the Extra Vehicle Add On. Vehicles must fit on the parking spur at your site.
Reserved Sites will be held until check out time (NOON) the day following your arrival date. Sites must be occupied by the checkout time of that following day to hold a reservation or the site will be forfeited and released to other guests. Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).
Visitors should be prepared for rugged trails and changing weather: Hike SafeHike Safe
Don't move firewood: To limit the spread of invasive tree-killing pests, firewood from outside the area is not permitted. Some states have quarantines and may confiscate your firewood. Please help protect our forests from invasive species by obtaining your firewood at or near your camping destination and burning it on-site. Visit dontmovefirewood.org for more information.
Click here to learn more about White Mountain National Forest website
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 29 · 13 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Accessible sites
- 3
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…single loop. Accessible restrooms and a hand pump for water are provided. There is no dump station,…”
- Store
- Nearby
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Picnicking
- Night sky · 7th darkest of 28 in NH
- Bortle 3
- Fall color · reported 4 days ago, 8.5 km away
- Minimal color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 17 of the 29 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
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 · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $24 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
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
29 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 17 mapped sitesAll 29 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 29 of the 29 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 29 of the 29 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| MANAGEMENT SITES1 | 001 | type not stated | 1,001 ft | 1,845 ft | $24 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES1 | 007 | type not stated | 616 ft | 2,013 ft | $24 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES1 | 008 | type not stated | 717 ft | 1,943 ft | $24 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES1 | 009 | type not stated | 740 ft | 1,858 ft | $24 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES1 | 012 | type not stated | 631 ft | 1,834 ft | $24 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES1 | 013 | type not stated | 595 ft | 1,956 ft | $24 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES1 | 014 | type not stated | 602 ft | 1,919 ft | $24 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES1 | 017 | type not stated | 292 ft | 2,253 ft | $24 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES1 | 018 | type not stated | 349 ft | 2,213 ft | $24 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES1 | 027 | type not stated | 660 ft | 2,224 ft | $24 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES1 | 028 | type not stated | 700 ft | 2,125 ft | $24 | |||
| MANAGEMENT SITES1 | 029 | type not stated | 810 ft | 1,987 ft | $24 | |||
| SUGA | 002 | tent only nonelectric | 77 ft | 1,009 ft | 1,799 ft | $24 | ||
| SUGA | 003 | tent only nonelectric | 77 ft | 941 ft | 1,873 ft | $24 | ||
| SUGA | 004 | tent only nonelectric | 103 ft | 857 ft | 1,900 ft | $24 | ||
| SUGA | 005 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | 117 ft | 639 ft | 2,044 ft | $24 |
| SUGA | 006 | tent only nonelectric | 113 ft | 752 ft | 1,964 ft | $24 | ||
| SUGA | 010 | tent only nonelectric | 80 ft | 689 ft | 1,827 ft | $24 | ||
| SUGA | 011 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | 80 ft | 662 ft | 1,907 ft | $24 |
| SUGA | 015 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 109 ft | 539 ft | 2,002 ft | $24 | |
| SUGA | 016 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | 109 ft | 430 ft | 2,111 ft | $24 |
| SUGA | 019 | tent only nonelectric | 90 ft | 366 ft | 2,245 ft | $24 | ||
| SUGA | 020 | tent only nonelectric | 90 ft | 293 ft | 2,334 ft | $24 | ||
| SUGA | 021 | tent only nonelectric | 86 ft | 382 ft | 2,276 ft | $24 | ||
| SUGA | 022 | tent only nonelectric | 86 ft | 310 ft | 2,361 ft | $24 | ||
| SUGA | 023 | tent only nonelectric | 88 ft | 348 ft | 2,378 ft | $24 | ||
| SUGA | 024 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 86 ft | 438 ft | 2,303 ft | $24 | |
| SUGA | 025 | tent only nonelectric | 86 ft | 426 ft | 2,372 ft | $24 | ||
| SUGA | 026 | tent only nonelectric | 116 ft | 538 ft | 2,324 ft | $24 |
25 of 29 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Sugarloaf 2 CampgroundWhite Mountain National Forest · 0.2 mi
Hancock Campground (NH)White Mountain National Forest · 14 mi
Big RockWhite Mountain National Forest · 15 mi
Dolly CoppWhite Mountain National Forest · 15 mi
Barnes Field CampgroundWhite Mountain National Forest · 15 mi
Black Mountain CabinWhite Mountain National Forest · 17 miFrom Twin Mountain, New Hampshire: Take State Highway 302 east for 3 miles. Turn right on Zealand Road and go 0.5 miles south to the campground.
From North Conway, New Hampshire: Travel on State Highway 302 north for approximately 33.5 miles. After passing the Mount Washington Hotel and Bretton Woods ski resort, look for Zealand Road on your left. Turn left on Zealand Road and go 0.5 miles south to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Whitefield, NH
Typical weather
Typical October night 34°F, day 58°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 5°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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Sugarloaf 1 Campground is in New Hampshire’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Maggie Goodlander (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →