Spring Gap Campground (C&O Canal NHP, towpath mile 173.3)

public land records

Researched — The record is detailed and internally consistent, and the coordinates land where the managing agency says this site is.

NPS C&O Canal NHP 'Reservable Campgrounds' page (nps.gov/choh/planyourvisit/reservable-campgrounds.htm, read 2026-09-27) and camping page (.../camping.htm): drive-in campgrounds are 'By reservation only' via recreation.gov; '$20 per site per night, pass holders may be entitled to additional discounts. Limit eight people per site.' 'Stay is limited to 14 days between May 1 and October 1. Stay is limited to a total of 30 days for the entire calendar year. No RV Hookups. Trailer length may not exceed 20 feet.' 'All sites have: chemical toilet, picnic table, firepit, and well water.' Water: NPS says drive-in well water 'is potable and treated with iodine - do NOT drink if you have any iodine allergies or if you are on medication for an overactive thyroid', advises boiling or treating it as a flood-zone precaution, and says it is 'turned off from mid-November to mid-April each year.' 'Antietam Creek and Paw Paw have adjacent parking, but visitors cannot park at the actual campsite. Visitors may not park and sleep in recreational vehicles in these parking areas.' Coordinate = recreation.gov facility 252967 lat/long (public search API, read 2026-09-27). VERIFIED by projecting it onto the OSM C&O towpath relation 1392951 (stitched 180.08 mi + the 4.42 mi DC offset calibrated in the 2026-08-13 fire): it lands at towpath mile 173.13, 25 ft off the towpath centreline. NPS mileposts: reservable-campgrounds page gives mile 173.3; the NPS Park Planner PDF (nps.gov/choh/planyourvisit/upload/Park_Planner_web.pdf) 'Recreational Guide by Milepost' gives 173.3. County per FCC Census Block API: Allegany County, MD, matching the county NPS lists. Nearest town: Spring Gap ~0.1 mi. 'Nearest town' is straight-line distance to the nearest OSM place=city/town/village, NOT a driving distance; in the Potomac valley the nearest named place is often across the river in WV or PA. Ingest 2026-09-27. | REVIEW 2026-09-27 (nightshift-verified, fire 2660): Both NPS pages re-read today (camping.htm and reservable-campgrounds.htm, both footer 'Last updated: November 19, 2025'): 'By reservation only', the 14-day May 1-Oct 1 / 30-day-a-year stay limits, 'No RV Hookups', 'Trailer length may not exceed 20 feet', 'All sites have: chemical toilet, picnic table, firepit, and well water', the iodine-treated potable well water with the flood-zone boil advice and the mid-Nov to mid-Apr shutoff, and 'Limit eight people per site' are all present verbatim; the five campgrounds, their mileposts and counties are unchanged. CORRECTION of attribution only: '$20 per site per night, pass holders may be entitled to additional discounts' is on camping.htm, NOT on reservable-campgrounds.htm as fee_evidence said -- fee_evidence re-pointed. The five rows pair one-to-one with the five NPS campground POIs by name; no POI is claimed twice. recreation.gov facility 252967 'Spring Gap Campground' still gives exactly this lat/long. Its active notice says 'The hand pump well is turned on April 15 - October 31. Please bring water for use if camping between November 1 - April 14.' -- a slightly different window from the NPS page's 'mid-November to mid-April'; the `water` field was NOT changed, the discrepancy is recorded here. NPS Public POIs: 'Spring Gap Campground' (typed Primitive Campsite) is the nearest POI, 246 m. Duplicate check on COORDINATES: nearest approved/published camp is row 16953 'Irons Mountain hiker-biker campsite (C&O Canal towpath mile ' at 2977 m -- not a duplicate. DECISION: approved. | REVIEW 2026-09-27 addendum (fire 2660): tag 'reservation-required' added -- NPS says 'By reservation only' and build_map.py prints 'Reservation required' only for that tag, not for the existing 'reservation-only'.

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.