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National Park Service · Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park · MD

Swains Lock Hiker-Biker Campsite

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Park Closure
Closures: Detours; Towpath; Points of Interest Multiple items are closed due to hazardous conditions or maintenance. See below for more details.
Caution
DC Water Sewer Overflow DC Water is managing a sanitary sewer overflow from the Potomac Interceptor near Lock 10. Anyone with questions or in need of support can reach out to DC Water’s 24-Hour Command Center at (202) 612-3400 or visit…
Information
Equestrian Traffic Temporarily Prohibited - Mile 124.5 to 155 Horses are prohibited between Little Tonoloway (mile 124.5) and Paw Paw (mile 155) due to recent and ongoing towpath resurfacing. See more for details.
Caution
Hiking in Gold Mine Tract Visitors are restricted to the designated trails within the Gold Mine Tract in the Great Falls area. This location is generally defined as that area bordered by MacArthur Boulevard and Berma Road and depicted on the Great Falls Maryland…
Alerts: National Park Service alerts API · Oct 16, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: all 5 sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directions
Right now
OpenThe agency lists it open
Sites
55 of them walk-up
Season
Year-roundOpen year-round
Photos · NPS/ S. Spencer
160 ftElevation
18 ftWater · Potomac RiverTidal flat · 13.2 mi
In townTravilah, MD
5Walk-up sites
49%Tree cover
Open year-roundToday

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Mile 16.6 - Hiker-biker campgrounds are located along the towpath approximately every 5-7 miles. No fee or reservation required. Overnight stays are limited to one night. All sites include a chemical toilet, picnic table, grill, and water. Please Note: Water at hiker-biker campsites is non-potable. Water is not treated and not for drinking or cooking. If you use this water, you are advised to filter, chemically treat, or boil before use. Water is turned off from mid-November to mid-April each year.

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

Facilities

Toilets
Portable Toilets - year round
Drinking water
Yes
Source: National Park Service and agency records

Around the campground

Night sky · 59th darkest of 62 in MD
Bortle 6
Fall color · reported 11 days ago, 11 km away
Patchy color
Source: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate · Sep 8, 2026
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (11 km) · Oct 5, 2026
Official page →

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. 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 agency’s record
Runs itNational Park Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 3

What you actually pay

The sign priceNational Park Service
The National Park 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.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
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: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Coordinate39.03100, -77.24458
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

Today82°Partly Sunny then Showers And Thunderstorms Likely59% rain
Tonight48°Showers And Thunderstorms82% rain
Saturday53°Chance Rain Showers then Mostly Sunny32% rain
Saturday Night36°Clear

NWS forecast for Travilah, MD

Source: National Weather Service, LWX forecast office · Oct 16, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 48°F, day 66°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 27°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 Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.

Measured at: ROCKVILLE 1 NE, MD (USC00187705), 7 miles away and 280 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

who answers for it

Who answers for this land

Jamie Raskin, official portrait

Swains Lock Hiker-Biker Campsite is in Maryland’s 8th congressional district. Its representative, Jamie Raskin (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

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it open right now.
Season: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 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: 8.2 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 62 rated federal campgrounds in Maryland · 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
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (11 km) · Oct 5, 2026
Reported by: USA National Phenology Network (Nature's Notebook), reported patchy color · Oct 5, 2026
Cell signal: the Park 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 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