Agency-listedNPSFee
Cottonwood Cove Upper Campground
Dispersed · National Park Service · NV · 35.48758, -114.69603
Inside a national park unit
Cottonwood Cove Upper Campground sits inside Lake Mead National Recreation Area — a national recreation area run by the National Park Service.
Park rules apply, and they are stricter than dispersed camping: inside a National Park Service unit you camp in a designated campground or on a backcountry permit, not wherever you find a flat spot. Check the park before you go: nps.gov/lake ↗
Placed by point-in-polygon against the National Park Service’s own boundary layer (NPS Land Resources Division, 442 units, fetched 18 Sep 2026; this unit’s polygon edited 2023-03-17). Nothing about the price or the legal status on this page was changed by it.
Ask an AI about this campsiteOpens Grok already loaded with this site. It reads the same records this page is built from, and links whatever it tells you.
Ask about this camp →National Park Service lists this site. Someone from the agency inventoried it, so it is a real camp — not a spot we guessed at. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.
USGS topo — contours & terrain
Aerial — USGS / NAIP
Weather outlook — at Cottonwood Cove Upper Campground
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 808 ft.
Fire & smoke — around Cottonwood Cove Upper CampgroundNIFC · AirNow
Checking active fires & air quality…
Active wildfires from NIFC (within ~50 mi); air quality from AirNow. Always confirm current fire restrictions with the managing office before you go.
Everything you need — measured from Cottonwood Cove Upper Campground · National Park Service · NV
▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.
Nearest of each
- @Mail1 mi
- FFuel12 mi
- GGrocery13 mi
- AAir-up19 mi
- EVEV fast charger19 mi
- DDump20 mi
- HHardware24 mi
- LLaundry24 mi
- RxPharmacy24 mi
- ShShower26 mi
- MMechanic27 mi
- +Urgent care30 mi
- WWater32 mi
- PPropane42 mi
- OOutfitter43 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water
The read: water is a real 32-mi drive, fuel & food sit about 12 mi out.
One dot per need — the nearest of each kind, straight-line from camp. Places from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors); the EV fast charger from the US DOE station locator. Open in Google Maps ↗
The site — Cottonwood Cove Upper Campground
Access
Dispersed
Land
National Park Service
Elevation
808 ft
Ground slope
4% · gentle
State
NV
Coordinates
35.48758, -114.69603
Cost
Fee
Nearby & resupply — around Cottonwood Cove Upper Campground · National Park Service · NV (OpenStreetMap)
- Water featureLake Mohave · ~0.6 mi · USGS: perennial lake or pond
- Nearest townSearchlight · ~12.8 mi
- Rail & highwaynone mapped within 10 mi
- Drinking waternone within 10 mi
- FuelFuel · ~12.5 mi
- Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
- Dump station~20.0 mi
- GroceriesTerrible Herbst · ~12.6 mi
- PharmacyLaughlin Pharmacy · ~24.3 mi
- Hospital / clinicNorthwest Urgent Care · ~30.5 mi
- HardwareThe Home Depot · ~23.6 mi
EV charging — from Cottonwood Cove Upper Campground · National Park Service · NV — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
- Nearest public DC fast charger19.2 mi straight-line NE — White Hills, AZ - Tesla Supercharger, Willow Beach, AZ (at a gas station) · Tesla · NACS (Tesla) · 8 fast ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-06-18 · hours: 24 hours daily. NACS partner enabled. · directions
- Public DC fast stations within reach2 within 25 mi · 41 within 50 · 105 within 100 · 164 within 150
- Nearest listing CCS27.9 mi — Anderson Ford Bullhead City, Bullhead City
- Nearest listing CHAdeMO39.8 mi — Prizm Outlets (Primm, NV), Primm
- Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)19.7 mi — Last Stop Travel Center, White Hills, AZ · Blink Network · J1772 · 2 Level 2 ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily
- Pricing at the fast chargernot listed
- Power (kW)not listed by AFDC — “DC fast” spans roughly 24 to 350 kW, so ask the network.
- Read this honestlyStraight-line miles, like every distance on this site. Roads run longer than this, and you have to get back. We know where a charger is listed. We don’t know if it works today, how fast it is, or the road miles. Check the network before you commit.
Snapshot 2026-09-16 · AFDC record 157941 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around Cottonwood Cove Upper Campground · National Park Service · NV — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
- RestroomCC Restroom Upper Campground 224 · at this camp · NPS
- RestroomCC Restroom Upper Campground 223 · at this camp · NPS
- RestroomCC Restroom Upper Campground 225 · at this camp · NPS
- RestroomCC CONC Lower Trailer Village Shower/Laundry L-LAKE001-24 · ~0.4 mi E · NPS
Coming out here — Cottonwood Cove Upper Campground · National Park Service · NV
- Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Lake Mohave as a perennial lake or pond, ~0.6 mi from the pin (National Hydrography Dataset, data refreshed October 2022). Mapped as perennial is not the same as flowing today. Nobody has checked it for you. Filter or boil anything you drink.
- Ground slope around the pin: about 4% — gentle. Measured on USGS's 3DEP elevation model (1 m data here), sampled every 10 metres around the point. That is the hillside, not the ground under your wheels — a graded pullout or a bench a few metres across is too small to show up at that spacing, and nobody has checked this one for you.
- No rail line and no interstate or US route is mapped within 10 mi of the pin. Checked against the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026) and the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025). Both are national files and both are maps of what is built, not counts of what moves on it.
- Power: Dave carries his own — batteries or solar. A generator will run your rig and it is also the thing everybody camped near you can hear.
- Getting online: Dave recommends Starlink. He has had it since SpaceX introduced it, used it for four years living on the road, and it delivers as promised — several hundred nights out, and he can count on one hand the places he could not connect. The cable on his unit runs 150 feet, which is usually all it takes to find enough sky. Starlink → Referral link — Starlink pays Dave $100 in cash if you sign up through it, and that money funds this site and the next trip. It costs you nothing and does not change the recommendation.
Open Cottonwood Cove Upper Campground elsewhere
Other camps near Cottonwood Cove Upper Campground
If this one is full, gated or washed out.
- Cottonwood Cove Lower Campground~0.6 mi · fee
- Clark County~18.5 mi
Who holds the land at Cottonwood Cove Upper Campground
USGS’s Protected Areas Database (PAD-US 4.1, queried 2026-09-23) lists the ground at this pin as Lake Mead National Recreation Area, manager on record: National Park Service (federal). That names who holds the land — it is not a statement that camping is permitted here.
How we know this — Cottonwood Cove Upper Campground
Stay limit
30 nights (Camping is limited to 30 days in any campground)
Source
public land records
Confidence
Likely — The record is good enough to put a pin on, but thin in places. Treat the details as a starting point, not gospel.
How it was placed
Lake Mead National Recreation Area, NPS-operated developed campground -- the upper loop at Cottonwood Cove on Lake Mohave. FEE: this is an NPS-operated campground and IS a fee campground, but nps.gov did not publish the nightly rate on any page reachable this fire -- the fees page defers to the campgrounds page, which renders client-side and returned no rate. The two Lake Mead campgrounds that DO publish a rate (Boulder Beach, Callville Bay) both show $20/night for NPS-operated sites, so $20 is the likely figure, but IT IS NOT VERIFIED FOR THIS SITE. A reviewer must confirm the rate before this ships. STAY LIMIT: Lake Mead superintendent's compendium page (nps.gov/lake/learn/management/superintendent-s-compendium.htm, read 2026-08-17): "Camping is limited to 30 days in any campground" within a consecutive 12-month period, and total stay in the recreation area is capped at "90 days within a consecutive 12-month period". ENTRANCE FEE: nps.gov/lake/planyourvisit/fees.htm gives $25.00 per private vehicle valid 1-7 days -- that is on TOP of the camping fee. DO NOT CONFUSE WITH THE RESORT: the concessioner Cottonwood Cove Resort separately offers "Around 75 RV sites ... with full hookups, and another 45 campsites ... for tents and RVs without hookups" (nps.gov/places/cottonwood-cove.htm) at concessioner prices. This row is the NPS campground, not the resort. There is a dump station at the upper loop (NPS POI "cc cottonwood cove upper campground dump"). NEAREST TOWN: Searchlight, NV. Coordinate is the NPS Public POIs pin. SOURCE: https://www.nps.gov/places/cottonwood-cove.htm | auto:agency-trust 2026-08-18: state agency GIS record with a source URL and coordinates, confidence not low. Fee value is the agency's own, not field-checked. Not field-verified -- confirm access, road conditions and fire rules before you go.
EV chargers
US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.
Field check
On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.
What we don’t know about Cottonwood Cove Upper Campground
A land record can put you within a few meters of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.
- Road surface & last-mile access
- How many rigs actually fit
- Cell coverage by carrier
- Seasonal & winter access
- Current fire restrictions
- Whether any water here is drinkable
- Shade & wind exposure
- Noise and who else shows up
- Whether a listed EV charger works today, or the road miles to it
Before you go — Cottonwood Cove Upper Campground
Water on public land →Hot-weather camping →Bugs & critters →Dispersed camping tips →All field notes →