CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
The map
U.S. Forest Service · Coronado National Forest · AZ

Sunny Flat Campground

The agency doesn’t say how you get a siteIts record carries no access type, so treat it as a place to phone before you drive.
Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Photos · https://www.flickr.com/photos/sloalan/, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
5,090 ftElevation
160 ftWater · Cave Creek
37.6 miNE of Douglas, AZ
37%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 30th darkest of 262 in AZ

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Campsites are clustered around a grassy meadow in this relatively open streamside camp. All sites are shaded, some more than others, and all are reasonably close to Cave Creek. Birdwatching is good right in camp (as it is in all Cave Creek camps) with elegant trogons and many other interesting species sighted regularly among the sycamores and oaks that border the creek. The open character of the area makes for exciting views of Cave Creek Canyon's famous rock formations which tower over the area. Keep reading

Other recreation attractions in Cave Creek Canyon, such as birding areas along South Fork and a number of hiking trails, are just a short drive from this campground, which is along the Cave Creek Canyon /Portal to Paradise Loop scenic drive. Some attractions you may want to take advantage of while you're camped at Sunny Flat are the scenic Vista Point Trail located a short distance downstream of the campground, and the Cave Creek Visitor Information Center a little farther downstream. The Center, is open year-round, offers interpretive information, books and pamphlets on the natural and cultural history of the area, and a few examples of local wildlife species. Note: Black bears in area.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Creek, Meadow
Source: Stated in the agency description

Phone before you drive

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.

Booking window6 months outBooking opens 6 months ahead; today unlocks arrivals through April 16, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 8

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
Campsites: Single site: $20.
With Golden Age/Access or Interagency Senior/Access pass $10.
Day Use: Day use: $8 per vehicle Weekly: $10 per vehicle Buy a pass online , or purchase a pass on-site with cash or check.
Proof of payment, or a valid Coronado National Forest Annual Pass or Interagency (America the Beautiful) Pass, including the Annual, Senior, Access, or Military Pass, must be displayed on the driver's side of the vehicle dashboard.
Learn more about accepted passes.
The booking feerecreation.gov
We hold no recreation.gov booking record for this campground, so we can’t say whether a booking fee applies.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
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
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
Coordinate31.88480, -109.17540

Where it is

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Tonight38°Partly Cloudy2% rain
Saturday59°Sunny6% rain
Saturday Night40°Partly Cloudy then Chance Rain Showers45% rain
Sunday65°Chance Showers And Thunderstorms45% rain

NWS forecast for Rodeo, NM

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

Typical weather

Typical October night 41°F, day 75°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.

100°32°20°

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 Junes are colder than the June line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.

Measured at: PORTAL 4 SW, AZ (USC00026716), 2 miles away and 300 ft higher
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

What threatens this place

Watch
critical
Roadless
Chiricahua76,876 acres · 10 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

Sunny Flat 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: U.S. Forest Service publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate.
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: 0.026 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: Rodeo, NM, 7.5 mi WNW (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