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Blue Heron Campground
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Blue Heron Campground
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Blue Heron Campground is located in the Kentucky portion of Big South Fork, 9 miles west of Stearns off Highway 742. The campground offers a total of 45 sites all with water and electric hook-ups, picnic tables, fire-rings, access to restrooms and showers and a dump station.
Campground reservations for sites within Big South Fork can now be made through National Recreation Reservation Service by calling 1-877-444-6777 or online at www.recreation.gov. Reservations may be made up to 240 days in advance.
Official reservation information ↗Published campsites
- total Sites
- 45
- group
- 0
- horse
- 0
- tent Only
- 45
- electrical Hookups
- 45
- rv Only
- 45
- walk Boat To
- 0
- other
- 0
Published camping fees
- Camping Fee
- $20 · This fee covers one night of camping for up to 6 persons.
Amenities
- trash Recycling Collection
- Yes - seasonal
- toilets
- Flush Toilets - seasonal
- internet Connectivity
- Yes - seasonal
- showers
- Hot - Seasonal
- cell Phone Reception
- Yes - seasonal
- laundry
- No
- amphitheater
- Yes - seasonal
- dump Station
- Yes - seasonal
- camp Store
- No
- staff Or Volunteer Host Onsite
- Yes - seasonal
- potable Water
- Yes - seasonal
- ice Available For Sale
- No
- firewood For Sale
- No
- food Storage Lockers
- Yes - seasonal
Accessibility and facilities
- wheelchair Access
- Wheelchair access is available from the campsite #29 to the bathhouse. The campground is paved with the exception of the tent pads which are gravel.
- internet Info
- Free WiFi is available at the campground kiosk.
- fire Stove Policy
- Firewood must be purchased and/or collected from the local vicinity; to learn more visit http://dontmovefirewood.org/.
- rv Allowed
- 1
- rv Info
- All sites have 20 and 30 amp service with water. There are no sewer hookups on each site.
- rv Max Length
- 50
- additional Info
- The Blue Heron Mining Community is located just a few miles from the campground and is open year-round for visitors who wish to learn about life in a company owned coal mining town. The Stearns Depot Visitor Center is located 9 miles away in the Big South Fork Scenic Railway Depot in Stearns, Kentucky. The visitor center is open daily from April through mid-to-late December each year.
- ada Info
- Campground has one accessible site (#29) which is near the bathhouse. The bathhouse has an accessible restroom with a hot water shower and toilet.
- trailer Allowed
- 1
- access Roads
- Paved Roads - All vehicles OK
- classifications
- Developed Campground
Official NPS information and current conditions ↗
1 matching records · Campground records| Place / record | Campground records | Context | Explore |
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| Blue Heron Campground | 1 | Blue Heron Campground is located in the Kentucky portion of Big South Fork, 9 miles west of Stearns off Highway 742. The campground offers a total of 45 sites all with water and electric hook-ups, picnic tables, fire-rings, access to restrooms and showers and a dump station. | Profile → |
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SOURCES & DEFINITIONS
Know what the map counts.
Source: National Park Service API for sites, facilities, campground locations and published fee entries; NPS Public Use Statistics for monthly recreation visits, 1979–2025. Snapshot retrieved 2026-10-03. 474 NPS site records include 62 national-park API records; Sequoia and Kings Canyon share one API record. These record counts are not the official count of individually designated parks. 392 API site records have matched visitation history, including the separately reported Sequoia and Kings Canyon visit totals combined for their shared API record. 665 campgrounds are included.
Complete monthly series reconcile with the source’s annual totals. Published annual totals remain available for years with partial monthly reporting. Four monthly entries contain negative accounting corrections. They remain in the archived data and annual totals, and are unavailable as ordinary monthly visit counts. Blank data is not zero. Recreation visits are visits, not unique people. Month as percent of annual peak = selected month visits ÷ largest monthly count that year × 100, requiring twelve nonnegative monthly values. This helps compare recorded seasonality; it is not a crowding forecast, reservation forecast, or present-condition report.
Activities and amenities reflect published NPS entries, rather than a guarantee of access on a particular day. Fees and pass categories are dated 2026-10-03; official site and reservation links provide current conditions and rules. Campground points are published NPS coordinates. Offshore sites can be viewed on the world extent. Broader public-land agencies are outside this reviewed NPS snapshot.
World outlines: Natural Earth 1:50m map units, public domain. U.S. state outlines: Census via us-atlas. Source licenses apply to their respective inputs and derived data. Download the derived parks snapshot · Source manifest, retrieval dates and SHA-256 hashes.
Archived inputs and attribution (14)
- nps-parks.json · National Park Service · NPS federal data; media rights vary by credit · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 3,921,936 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 29b719dea3c3361c4ef1d7c0f068da09ee366e5335907442453b08db7737072b - nps-campgrounds.json · National Park Service · NPS federal data; media rights vary by credit · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 3,464,748 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 9762634332c69e5ed729fbe4751a163cab534722c07c7e595b857e9a372b75e3 - nps-campgrounds-500.json · National Park Service · NPS federal data; media rights vary by credit · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 967,966 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 4160009fb0ddc173680428bba03b765398deeca9d303a518821967c7db5fea20 - nps-visitation-2025-2025.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 1,071,221 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 878c51940ae94a29c7e47518d2321713e6d48ad9b008408530723745ca5fab5a - nps-visitation-2021-2024.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 4,209,731 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 508548d54089885eb78af5a81c63856ba289c01ee8f39c2d096267b3cf9ce243 - nps-visitation-1979-1983.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 3,868,488 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 494795b9ffb6da1f00e10614cde87ef8b18aca67e9c504c2196ba0346c21ddd7 - nps-visitation-1984-1988.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 4,171,732 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: cd6e3b86c83ecc9ab11d123ea8f560f0590446020fe66eea21e272eb8d931eb7 - nps-visitation-1989-1993.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 4,393,574 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 22960690990cec0c7af0e7a55d87ef7ee3d8a116afd81bf753c821f65e50ad00 - nps-visitation-1994-1998.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 4,538,236 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: c021fdd6108c9d3e1047b954376cf8e01c4f8abf0f327dfe081596dff7939e48 - nps-visitation-1999-2003.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 4,704,673 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: da3f808031e6f26e1e36c42cc11403b415e24e67844762ac51f33998d2c1cd5f - nps-visitation-2004-2008.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 4,844,655 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 373f1d9ae9eff33e2e73b3bfc26d26c6504d2f831fc5b41c5c1e3df7bade6047 - nps-visitation-2009-2013.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 4,928,350 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 968591a7dd40985cc44fea48568b8a0880953c7b982b328a6c88077d064c12c2 - nps-visitation-2014-2018.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 5,057,268 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 76f1e2173bee73eee3550e4e2e3a987e19d67d4f6841c9c726fa412360a3fb20 - nps-visitation-2019-2020.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 2,028,678 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 661d426529aa1b5771d52e29c90758b943edf883fa8e1f9c53f76851e450e5f1
