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U.S. Army Corps of Engineers · NH

Surry Mountain Lake Beach

Day use, not campingThe agency files 3 records here and marks every one of them day use, not overnight. On its own record there’s nothing here to spend the night in.

This place has sites and nobody may sleep in them.Ask for camping here →

Book on recreation.govWe make nothing when you book
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Photos · USACE
560 ftElevation
885 ftWater · an unnamed pond
1.2 miNW of Keene, NH
0%Tree cover
Bortle 4Night sky · 25th darkest of 28 in NH

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices

In the agency’s own words

Surry Mountain Lake Beach is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers day use facility located on the Ashuelot River in Surry, New Hampshire. Keep reading

Recreation

Swimming, sunbathing, picnicking, paddling and fishing are just a few of the favorite activities enjoyed at Surry Mountain Lake Beach. A boat ramp is available for small boats, kayaks and canoes. There are picnic tables and grills located throughout the park, as well as a playground.

Facilities

Surry Mountain Lake Beach has restrooms with flush toilets. There is a large sandy beach and swim area. Three picnic shelters are available in the park. Picnic tables, grills a boat ramp and a playground are located in the park.

Natural Features

Surry Mountain Lake Beach provides a large sandy beach on the river and open grassy areas, with views of Surry Mountain.

Charges & Cancellations

If a customer cancels a group day use facility reservation within the 14 days of scheduled arrival date they will forfeit the total fee. A $10.00 service fee will apply if you change or cancel your reservation outside of the 14 day scheduled arrival. The $10.00 service fee will be deducted from the refund amount.

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

What the agency tells you

Rule

The operating hours for Surry Mountain Lake is Wednesday through Sunday 8:00 am to 8:00 pm. Mondays and Tuesdays will be designated as walk-in access only days. Please note that during these days, the park office and certain amenities may not be available; however, visitors are welcome to enjoy the parks and utilize the available facilities.

Rule

The existing flush restrooms will not be open but there will be portable toilets located within the park for visitors to use. Existing shelter reservations made prior to April 14th will remain but we will not be taking any more shelter reservations for this season. Visitors are welcome to use the beach and boat ramp, to picnic and enjoy the area. Dogs are permitted on leash, except on beach area.

Rule

Surry Mountain Lake is a day-use area. NO OVERNIGHT CAMPING Carry in, carry out trash.

Everything else this campground posts · 8
Rule

There are no life guards; it is a swim at your own risk facility.

Rule

Motorboats are allowed (no wake).

Rule

Surry Mountain is a flood control facility and the park may be flooded during severe storm events.

Rule

Beach advisories may be posted at any time due to water quality issues.

Rule

For more information call the Otter Brook Lake project office at (603) 352-4130.

Rule

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.

Rule

No commercial activities, sales or solicitation of business on USACE land.

Rule

Shelter reservations and or group events that bring in hired food trucks or vendors, large event tents (greater than 12’x12’), bounce houses, and any other atypical items are required to apply for a special use permit by calling the main office at 603-352-4130. Please inquire if you are unsure.

Read them on the agency’s own page →
Source: recreation.gov facility notices, quoted verbatim · Sep 9, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Flush Toilets
“…Facilities Surry Mountain Lake Beach has restrooms with flush toilets. There is a large sandy beach and swim area. Three…”
Boat ramp
Yes
Playground
Yes
Stay limit
14 nights
recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Source: Stated in the agency description · Aug 23, 2026
Water, toilets and showers: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Lake, River, Beach
Boating
Canoeing
Fishing
Hunting
Ice Fishing
Kayaking
Picnicking
Swimming
Wildlife viewing
Source: Recreation.gov activity records · Aug 23, 2026

Nothing here to sleep in

The agency files 3 records here and marks every one of them day use, not overnight. On its own record there’s nothing here to spend the night in.

No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.

Booking windowOut of seasonOut of season, no booking. On November 29, 2026 at 10 AM ET, availability opens through May 29, 2027.recreation.govAdd to calendar (.ics)
Max stay14 nightsthe facility record
Sites, a night, from$35From the rate schedule matched to 3 of its 3 sites. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers publishes no campground-level rate we can read.derived by CAMPANAC
If plans change$10 to cancel$10 to change a reservation; this campground publishes its own terms toorecreation.gov’s schedule
Runs itU.S. Army Corps of EngineersBooked through recreation.govthe agency’s record
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.

Free forever, no booking kickbacks.
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’ll write once, when the season that starts Sat, May 29 2027 is open for booking.

Free forever, no booking kickbacks.
Book on recreation.gov

We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.

Every line of the receipt · 12

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Sites, a night, from$35
Derived by CAMPANAC from the rate schedule matched to 3 of its 3 sites. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers publishes no campground-level rate for this campground that we can read, only per-site rate templates its own record matches to each site’s own type.
Group areas, a night$35–$85
These are next season’s rates, May 29, 2027 to Sep 5, 2027. The campground is between seasons now.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Reservation fee, booked online$8
One fee per reservation, however many nights you book, and it’s non-refundable. $9 if you book by phone, $3 in person.
Pass discounts only apply to the recreation (or use) fee for the facility. Other charges such as electricity or water hookups, reservation or other fees are not eligible for a discount.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s nothing to add the $8 booking fee to. We won’t total a receipt with a number missing from it.
If your plans changerecreation.gov
Change fee, moving to dates outside your booking$10
Cancellation fee$10
Cancelling the day before, or the day of$10 + your first night
No-show$20 + your first night

“A $10.00 service fee will apply if you change or cancel your reservation outside of the 14 day scheduled arrival. The $10.00 service fee will be deducted from the refund amount.” · this campground’s own terms

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 · 6
Sites from: Derived by CAMPANAC from this campground's own priced campsites, using recreation.gov facility rate schedule matched to each site's own published type · Sep 14, 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
This campground’s own terms: recreation.gov facility cancellation policy for this campground, quoted verbatim. Recreation.gov states that policies listed for specific locations supersede its site-wide policies. · 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: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

The sites

3 records · which ones have room · the site map

The sites, ranked

from 3 mapped sites
657 ftbetween you and the next site, typically
Most roomMaple 708 ftAspen 657 ftBirch 657 ft
Least roomAspen 657 ftBirch 657 ftMaple 708 ft
Source: Derived by CAMPANAC from recreation.gov per-site coordinates (nearest-neighbor distance) · Oct 12, 2026

All 3 records

3 of 3 records located
Day use3
AspenBirchMaple
Aerial · Esri World Imagery
Sites: recreation.gov (RIDB), coordinates as published · Aug 23, 2026
Imagery: Esri World Imagery
SURRY MOUNTAIN LAKE BEACHAspenday useyes657 ft112 ftSurry Mountain Lake$35–$85
SURRY MOUNTAIN LAKE BEACHBirchday use657 ft60 ftSurry Mountain Lake$35–$85
SURRY MOUNTAIN LAKE BEACHMapleday useyes708 ft196 ftSurry Mountain Lake$35–$85

The agency files 3 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It files them as day use. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.

Price: Derived by CAMPANAC: each site takes the per-night rate this campground publishes for the site’s own site type (recreation.gov rate schedule). recreation.gov publishes no per-campsite fee, and a site whose type carries no published rate is left blank rather than called free · Oct 1, 2026
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Getting there

the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Coordinate43.00222, -72.32278
The phone603-352-4130
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗

Where it is

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Today45°Partly Sunny3% rain
Tonight25°Clear
Sunday55°Sunny
Sunday Night30°Clear

NWS forecast for Keene, NH

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

Typical weather

Typical October night 36°F, day 60°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 10°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

90°32°0°

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.

Measured at: KEENE, NH (USC00274399), 4 miles away and 49 ft lower
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

who answers for it · a letter you can send

Who answers for this land

Maggie Goodlander, official portrait

Surry Mountain Lake Beach 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 →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score
Who can change it · 3
Ask whether this could be a place to sleep

The agency’s own record files sites here and marks every one of them day use. The draft asks whether any could open to overnight camping, and if not, why.

Read the draft, or change the wording
To Maggie Goodlander

Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.

Subject Surry Mountain Lake Beach has sites, and nobody may sleep in them

Dear Maggie Goodlander,

I’m a constituent in New Hampshire’s 2nd district. Surry Mountain Lake Beach, New Hampshire carries 3 records on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight.

I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not?

Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do.

Sent about Surry Mountain Lake Beach (New Hampshire) via campanac.com
To Jeanne Shaheen

Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.

Subject Surry Mountain Lake Beach has sites, and nobody may sleep in them

Dear Jeanne Shaheen,

I’m a constituent in New Hampshire. Surry Mountain Lake Beach, New Hampshire carries 3 records on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight.

I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not?

Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do.

Sent about Surry Mountain Lake Beach (New Hampshire) via campanac.com
To Margaret Wood Hassan

Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.

Subject Surry Mountain Lake Beach has sites, and nobody may sleep in them

Dear Margaret Wood Hassan,

I’m a constituent in New Hampshire. Surry Mountain Lake Beach, New Hampshire carries 3 records on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight.

I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not?

Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do.

Sent about Surry Mountain Lake Beach (New Hampshire) via campanac.com
How we know this · 4
Contacts: Contact forms from @unitedstates/congress-legislators · Sep 9, 2026
The figures in these drafts: Navy Ford (CVN-78) Class Aircraft Carrier Program: Background and Issues for Congress (CRS Report RS20643) · Updated December 4, 2025 · “The ship’s final procurement cost was $13,316.5 million (i.e., about $13.3 billion) in then-year dollars.”
The figures in these drafts: Salary Table 2026-GS, Incorporating the 1% General Schedule Increase, Effective January 2026 (U.S. Office of Personnel Management) · Effective January 2026 · “Grade 5, Step 1: $34,799 (annual rate, before locality pay).”
The figures in these drafts: Update to Civilian Position Full Fringe Benefit Cost Factor, Federal Pay Raise Assumptions, and Inflation Factors used in OMB Circular No. A-76 (OMB Memorandum M-08-13) · March 11, 2008 · “the civilian position full fringe benefit cost factor needs to be adjusted downward, from 36.45 percent to 36.25 percent”

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 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: the number below is the only way to be sure.
Sites on recreation.gov: recreation.gov’s own month availability payload for this facility, asked for October 2026 and November 2026. It names 3 of the 0 campsites the agency files here, and every one of them carries an answer either way. A campground nobody has read carries no answer at all, never a no. · Oct 15, 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: 0.44 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 28 rated federal campgrounds in New Hampshire · 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 Army Corps’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 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