Swasey's Beach Campground
1Heads up1 fire 20 mi away
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 1 of the next 30 nights read 14:24 UTC
- A night
- $15From, per site
- Sites
- 12All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 1 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Swaseys Beach campground and day use area allow for camping and picnicking opportunities on the Green River across from Swaseys Boat Ramp. The beach and many campsites are shaded with large cottonwoods. Both areas are often full on summer weekends with recreationists floating the Green River Daily, swimming, enjoying the beach, and camping. Keep reading
Recreation
Thousands of visitors float the Green River Daily each year, putting in at Nefertiti Boat Ramp eight miles north of Swaseys Beach. Many more day users find relaxation on the beach, picnicking, fishing, and swimming during the warm summer months. While BLM rangers maintain the campground and patrol the river, there are no lifeguards, and visitors are responsible for their safety. Campfires are only allowed in fire rings. Please do not build fires on the beach .
Facilities
Accessible vault toilets Picnic tables Campfire rings Boat ramp Natural Features This recreation site is located beside Swaseys Rapid near the takeout for river runners floating the Green River Daily and Desolation-Gray canyons. It is framed by steep canyon walls, and cottonwoods provide a reprieve from summer heat. Hastings Road continues north paralleling the river, providing a scenic drive through the canyon and opportunities to appreciate the lush riparian ecosystem, rock art, sounds of the Green River, and outstanding canyon scenery including views of Desolation Canyon Wilderness across the river. This segment of the Green River is designated as a Wild and Scenic River Recreational Segment. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (435) 636-3600. Nearby Attractions
What the agency tells you
This location is open to day use and camping. Campers should park and camp in designated campsites and reserve the parking areas around Hastings Road for day users and river runners. All sites are first come first serve. There are no water services. Cell phone reception is unreliable. The nearest city is Green River, which has gas stations and grocery stores. Hastings Road is paved up to the boat ramp; the short section to the campground is gravel and well-maintained. The road condition becomes more varied going north to Nefertiti Boat Ramp, with some spots that are rocky or sandy (though passable in most vehicles). Watch for rockfall and floods during rainy seasons.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 12 · 3 group
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 1 of 12 campsite records
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Beach
- Boating
- Non-Motorized Boating
- Picnicking
- Rafting
- Swimming
- Water access
- Water sports
- Whitewater rafting
- Wildlife viewing
Full this Saturdayread 14:24 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot reservable
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 16
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $15 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
recreation.gov availability, read 14:24 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
12 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 12 mapped sitesAll 12 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 12 of the 12 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. 12 of the 12 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Swasey's Beach | Site 01 (Group) | group standard nonelectric | 66 ft | 210 ft | 1,473 ft | $50 |
| Swasey's Beach | Site 02 (Group) | group standard nonelectric | 66 ft | 192 ft | 1,502 ft | $50 |
| Swasey's Beach | Site 03 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 117 ft | 1,581 ft | $15 |
| Swasey's Beach | Site 04 | standard nonelectric | 34 ft | 79 ft | 1,555 ft | $15 |
| Swasey's Beach | Site 05 | standard nonelectric | 34 ft | 72 ft | 1,575 ft | $15 |
| Swasey's Beach | Site 06 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 55 ft | 1,621 ft | $15 |
| Swasey's Beach | Site 07 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 70 ft | 1,658 ft | $15 |
| Swasey's Beach | Site 08 | standard nonelectric | 29 ft | 66 ft | 1,679 ft | $15 |
| Swasey's Beach | Site 09 | standard nonelectric | 29 ft | 94 ft | 1,704 ft | $15 |
| Swasey's Beach | Site 10 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 80 ft | 1,729 ft | $15 |
| Swasey's Beach | Site 11 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 99 ft | 1,768 ft | $15 |
| Swasey's Beach | Site 12 (Group) | group standard nonelectric | 340 ft | 177 ft | 2,104 ft | $50 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Cottonwood Canyon CampgroundPrice Field Office · 26 mi
New Joe's CampgroundPrice Field Office · 26 mi
North Klondike CampgroundMoab Field Office · 28 miEquestrian CampgroundPrice Field Office · 30 mi
San Rafael Swinging Bridge CampgroundPrice Field Office · 30 miSwaseys Beach Campground is located 10 miles north of Green River City via Hastings Road.
From I-70 eastbound (Price, Richfield): Take Exit 160 and travel east on the business loop (SR 19) for 3 miles, turning left on Hastings Road. The campground is in 9.5 miles.
From I-70 westbound (Moab, Grand JUnction): Take Exit 164 and travel west on the business loop for 1.3 miles, turning right on Hastings Road. The campground is in 9.5 miles.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Green River, UT
Typical weather
Typical October night 40°F, day 68°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 17°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 · a letter you can send
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Swasey's Beach Campground is in Utah’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Mike Kennedy (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyMike KennedyU.S. Representative · Utah’s 3rd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJohn R. CurtisU.S. Senator · Utah
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMike LeeU.S. Senator · Utah
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Swasey's Beach Campground, Utah
Dear Mike Kennedy, I’m a constituent in Utah’s 3rd district. I tried to camp at Swasey's Beach Campground, Utah, and couldn’t. All 12 sites at Swasey's Beach Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Swasey's Beach Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Swasey's Beach Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the Bureau of Land Management in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Swasey's Beach Campground (Utah) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Swasey's Beach Campground, Utah
Dear John R. Curtis, I’m a constituent in Utah. I tried to camp at Swasey's Beach Campground, Utah, and couldn’t. All 12 sites at Swasey's Beach Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Swasey's Beach Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Swasey's Beach Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the Bureau of Land Management in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Swasey's Beach Campground (Utah) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Swasey's Beach Campground, Utah
Dear Mike Lee, I’m a constituent in Utah. I tried to camp at Swasey's Beach Campground, Utah, and couldn’t. All 12 sites at Swasey's Beach Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Swasey's Beach Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Swasey's Beach Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the Bureau of Land Management in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Swasey's Beach Campground (Utah) via campanac.com