Upper Wolf Creek Group
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 16 of the next 16 nights read 15:52 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices
In the agency’s own words
Upper Wolf Creek Group Campground provides a quiet forest setting for groups of up to 100 people to camp and enjoy the outdoors. The historic town of Prescott, Arizona is just 8 miles away. This facility is set away from other developed recreation sites and offers town amenities, trails and lake recreation within minutes. To make reservations click on the availability button to the right to book this site or call 1 (877) 444-6777. For general campground questions contact the Bradshaw Ranger District at 1 (928) 443-8000. Keep reading
Recreation
Within the facility, campers can relax with a game of volleyball( net not provided ) or horseshoes. Numerous hiking and mountain biking trails are found in the Bradshaw Mountains around the campground, and 15-acre Goldwater Lake is just a few miles away. Boaters, canoers and kayakers can make use of the lake's dock and boat ramp. Anglers try for trout, sunfish, crappie, largemouth bass and channel catfish in the calm waters. A drive down unpaved Forest Road 97 reveals mountain views and passes through a burn scar from a 2002 wildfire.
Facilities
The group site has 13 picnic tables, five grills and one campfire ring. Trees are thinly spaced in some areas, allowing ample space for group activities, RV parking (up to 40 ft.) and camping. Drinking water and hookups are not provided.
Natural Features
The group area is set at an elevation of 6,000 feet in a ponderosa pine forest mixed with juniper, Gambel oak, native grasses. Boulders are strewn throughout the area. A multitude of colorful wildflowers bloom in the spring and during the summer monsoon season. Goldwater Lake is nearby. The forest is home to a wide variety of wildlife. Visitors may have the chance to spot deer, mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, fox, rabbits, lizards, snakes and birds. Afternoon thunderstorms are possible from late June through mid-September.
Nearby Attractions
This site is a convenient camping spot for groups who reserve the Groom Creek Schoolhouse day use picnic area nearby.
What the agency tells you
Maximum stay limit is 14 days within 30 consecutive days in Prescott National Forest including stays at dispersed sites.
No drinking water or hookups provided
Toilet is accessible; site is not
Everything else this campground posts · 8
Quiet hours between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Pets are welcome but must be on a 6 foot leash or in a cage and never unattended.
Campfires in developed fire pits only
Fireworks, including sparklers, are prohibited at all times on National Forest Lands.
Fire restrictions may be imposed due to dry conditions, at which time smoking, wood and charcoal fires may be prohibited.
OHV/ATV use prohibited in the campground
Click here for more information about Prescott National Forest
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “Drinking water and hookups are not provided.”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Night sky · 207th darkest of 262 in AZ
- Bortle 4
- Fall color · reported 3 days ago, 13 km away
- Patchy color
Full this Saturdayread 15:52 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 15:52 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
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 · 10
What you actually pay
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 · 4
recreation.gov availability, read 15:52 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 1 of the 1 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
| UPPE | 1 | group standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 2,886 ft | 1,820 ft |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Lower Wolf Creek CampgroundPrescott National Forest · 0.4 mi
Groom Creek Horse CampPrescott National Forest · 1.0 mi
Groom Creek SchoolhousePrescott National Forest · 1.5 mi
White Spar CampgroundPrescott National Forest · 3.8 mi
Eagle Ridge Group CampgroundPrescott National Forest · 5.3 mi
Hilltop Campground (AZ)Prescott National Forest · 5.4 miFrom Phoenix, Arizona: Traveling Northbound on I-17 take Exit 262 onto Hwy 69 North to Prescott and cointnue on Hwy 69 for 41 miles. Turn onto South Mt. Vernon Avenue (a.k.a Senator Highway) and drive south for about 6 miles. Pass the entrance to Goldwater Lake and the community of Groom Creek. The pavement ends about 500 feet before Forest Road 97. Turn right onto Forest Road 97 and travel for another 0.75 miles to the group campground on the right. Forest Road 97 is unpaved but suitable for all vehicles during dry road conditions.
Alternate route from Flagstaff, Arizona: Traveling Southbound on I-17 take Exit 278 onto Westbound Highway 169 and continue for 15 Miles until reaching the junction of Hwy 69, turn right onto Northbound Hwy 69 and continue for 15 miles until arriving in Prescott. Turn onto South Mt. Vernon Avenue (a.k.a Senator Highway) and drive south for about 6 miles. Pass the entrance to Goldwater Lake and the community of Groom Creek. The pavement ends about 500 feet before Forest Road 97. Turn right onto Forest Road 97 and travel for another 0.75 miles to the group campground on the right. Forest Road 97 is unpaved but suitable for all vehicles during dry road conditions
Alternate route from Prescott: Take Hwy 89 (White Spar Road) south for about 6 miles to Forest Road 97. Turn left on Forest Road 97 and go another 5.5 miles to the campground you will pass through the Ponderosa Park community along the way.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Prescott, AZ
Typical weather
Typical October night 40°F, day 73°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 24°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
Upper Wolf Creek Group is in Arizona’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Eli Crane (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 moneyElijah CraneU.S. Representative · Arizona’s 2nd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMark KellyU.S. Senator · Arizona
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRuben GallegoU.S. Senator · Arizona
No contact form we could verify, so that link is their own site. Contact is inside it. Washington office: 202-224-4521.
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 Upper Wolf Creek Group, Prescott National Forest, Arizona
Dear Elijah Crane, I’m a constituent in Arizona’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Upper Wolf Creek Group, Prescott National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Upper Wolf Creek Group 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Upper Wolf Creek Group keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Upper Wolf Creek Group. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service 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 Upper Wolf Creek Group (Prescott National Forest, Arizona) 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 Upper Wolf Creek Group, Prescott National Forest, Arizona
Dear Mark Kelly, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Upper Wolf Creek Group, Prescott National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Upper Wolf Creek Group 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Upper Wolf Creek Group keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Upper Wolf Creek Group. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service 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 Upper Wolf Creek Group (Prescott National Forest, Arizona) 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 Upper Wolf Creek Group, Prescott National Forest, Arizona
Dear Ruben Gallego, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Upper Wolf Creek Group, Prescott National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Upper Wolf Creek Group 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Upper Wolf Creek Group keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Upper Wolf Creek Group. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service 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 Upper Wolf Creek Group (Prescott National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com