Sylvan Park
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 16:27 UTC
- A night
- $10–$20Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 26All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 5 notices
In the agency’s own words
Sylvan Park Campground is located below the dam at Wilson Lake in the wide open spaces of central Kansas. A few campsites overlook the Saline River exiting the dam, while a handful of other sites overlook the Old Saline River channel. Keep reading
Recreation
Boating is the most popular pastime on the lake, with plenty of room for water skiing, wake boarding, jet skiing, sailing and more. The high salinity content of the Saline River makes drinking and irrigation difficult without special treatment, but it aids the stocking of ocean-native Striped Bass, which have been known to reach enormous sizes in Wilson Lake. This and many other game fish species have been enhanced by a stocking program conducted by the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism. Walleye, Large and Smallmouth bass can be found in abundance in the lake, as well as White bass, channel and flathead catfish. Several trails are available to visitors, including the Bur Oak Nature Trail located in Sylvan Park. This 3/4 mile nature walk is a self guided interpretive trail, that has many interpretive stations along the path. Wilson Lake also offers hunting opportunities for a variety of game animals, including pheasant, quail, prairie chicken, whitetail deer, turkey, waterfowl and rabbit.
Facilities
Sylvan Park Campground offers 27 reservable modern campsites, along with an 8-site group camp area and large group picnic shelter that can accommodate up to 50 guests. Most campsites offer sweeping views of the surrounding prairie, in addition to a handful of sites which offer a beautiful view of the Saline River. Access to hiking trails and a boat ramp make exploring the area convenient for visitors, while others looking to stay closer to the campground can enjoy an on-site sand volleyball court and playground.
Natural Features
Wilson lake, known as the "clearest lake in Kansas," is located in the Smoky Hills of North Central Kansas--a rolling landscape of hills, buttes and hazy valleys. Also known as Post Rock Country, the area contains thousands of miles of stone fenceposts and buildings that have been constructed out of the area's local limestone. This and other unique geologic formations and mixed grass prairie lands provide an excellent scenic backdrop for recreation around the lake.
Nearby Attractions
Wilson State Park, also located on the south side of the lake, offers additional recreation opportunities, as well as Lucas and Minooka Parks. Visitors can check out the nearby town of Lucas, known for its unique artistic spirit and attractions, or experience the rich historical heritage of Wilson, Kansas and other surrounding communities.
What the agency tells you
Off-road vehicles are not permitted
Sites may be available on a first come, first served basis outside of the reservation window
Limit of one RV and one tent or two tents per camp pad
Everything else this campground posts · 2
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.
Park attendants are not always available. Day Use Boat Ramp hang tags for USACE reservation campers are available in the black box mounted to the side of the Sylvan Park Booth.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 26 · 1 group
- Hookups
- 25 electric, 24 water, 2 sewer
- Longest rig
- 137 ft
- Paved pads
- 25 of 26
- Accessible sites
- 12
- Pets
- Allowed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Coast
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Swimming
- Water sports
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 4th darkest of 57 in KS
- Bortle 3
Full this Saturdayread 16:27 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedClosed
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.
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 · 14
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $10–$20 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 16:27 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
27 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 27 mapped sitesAll 27 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 26 of the 27 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| SYLVAN PARK | 01 | standard electric | 65 ft | 30 amp | 83 ft | 325 ft | $20 | |
| SYLVAN PARK | 02 | standard electric | 95 ft | 30 amp | 63 ft | 407 ft | $20 | |
| SYLVAN PARK | 03 | standard electric | 100 ft | 30 amp | 95 ft | 285 ft | $20 | |
| SYLVAN PARK | 04 | standard electric | 93 ft | 30 amp | 63 ft | 398 ft | $20 | |
| SYLVAN PARK | 05 | standard electric | 103 ft | 30 amp | 51 ft | 379 ft | $20 | |
| SYLVAN PARK | 06 | standard electric | 102 ft | 30 amp | 44 ft | 362 ft | $20 | |
| SYLVAN PARK | 07 | standard electric | 104 ft | 30 amp | 44 ft | 343 ft | $20 | |
| SYLVAN PARK | 08 | standard electric | 80 ft | 30 amp | 68 ft | 320 ft | $20 | |
| SYLVAN PARK | 09 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | 82 ft | 276 ft | $10 | ||
| SYLVAN PARK | 10 | standard electric | 60 ft | 30 amp | 68 ft | 422 ft | $20 | |
| SYLVAN PARK | 11 | standard electric | 70 ft | 30 amp | 68 ft | 463 ft | $20 | |
| SYLVAN PARK | 12 | standard electric | 60 ft | 30 amp | 60 ft | 490 ft | $20 | |
| SYLVAN PARK | 13 | standard electric | 80 ft | 30 amp | 60 ft | 508 ft | $20 | |
| SYLVAN PARK | 14 | standard electric | 125 ft | 50 amp | yes | 73 ft | 556 ft | $20 |
| SYLVAN PARK | 15 | standard electric | 118 ft | 50 amp | yes | 67 ft | 587 ft | $20 |
| SYLVAN PARK | 16 | standard electric | 118 ft | 50 amp | yes | 67 ft | 610 ft | $20 |
| SYLVAN PARK | 17 | standard electric | 114 ft | 50 amp | yes | 68 ft | 630 ft | $20 |
| SYLVAN PARK | 18 | standard electric | 109 ft | 50 amp | yes | 71 ft | 664 ft | $20 |
| SYLVAN PARK | 19 | standard electric | 112 ft | 50 amp | yes | 77 ft | 682 ft | $20 |
| SYLVAN PARK | 20 | standard electric | 130 ft | 50 amp | yes | 69 ft | 554 ft | $20 |
| SYLVAN PARK | 21 | standard electric | 132 ft | 50 amp | yes | 57 ft | 596 ft | $20 |
| SYLVAN PARK | 22 | standard electric | 132 ft | 50 amp | yes | 57 ft | 635 ft | $20 |
| SYLVAN PARK | 23 | standard electric | 137 ft | 50 amp | yes | 66 ft | 675 ft | $20 |
| SYLVAN PARK | 24 | standard electric | 136 ft | 50 amp | yes | 66 ft | 714 ft | $20 |
| SYLVAN PARK | 25 | standard electric | 137 ft | 50 amp | yes | 73 ft | 762 ft | $20 |
| SYLVAN PARK | GS1-Day Use Shelter | day use | 15 amp | 339 ft | 85 ft | $20 | ||
| SYLVAN PARK | GS2 | group standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 339 ft | 233 ft | $125 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It files it as day use. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
25 of 27 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Lucas Park1.7 mi
Minooka Park5.1 mi
Venango Park36 mi
Riverside (KS)38 mi
French Creek83 mi
Curtis Creek83 miFrom Interstate 70, north of Wilson, Kansas, take exit 206 and turn north onto Highway 232. Continue for 8 miles, then turn right onto Highway 181 and follow signs 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 Sylvan Grove, KS
Typical weather
Typical October night 43°F, day 70°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 19°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
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Sylvan Park is in Kansas’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Tracey Mann (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 moneyTracey MannU.S. Representative · Kansas’s 1st district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJerry MoranU.S. Senator · Kansas
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRoger MarshallU.S. Senator · Kansas
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 Sylvan Park, Kansas
Dear Tracey Mann, I’m a constituent in Kansas’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Sylvan Park, Kansas, and couldn’t. All 26 sites at Sylvan Park are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 5 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Sylvan Park keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Sylvan Park. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 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 Sylvan Park (Kansas) 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 Sylvan Park, Kansas
Dear Jerry Moran, I’m a constituent in Kansas. I tried to camp at Sylvan Park, Kansas, and couldn’t. All 26 sites at Sylvan Park are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 5 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Sylvan Park keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Sylvan Park. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 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 Sylvan Park (Kansas) 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 Sylvan Park, Kansas
Dear Roger Marshall, I’m a constituent in Kansas. I tried to camp at Sylvan Park, Kansas, and couldn’t. All 26 sites at Sylvan Park are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 5 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Sylvan Park keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Sylvan Park. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 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 Sylvan Park (Kansas) via campanac.com