Catoctin Mountain Park · Maryland
Overview Poplar Grove offers youth groups and organizations enjoyable year-round primitive tent camping. Located just steps away from the Catoctin Mountain Park portion of the Catoctin National Recreation Trail in the rolling hills of Thurmont, Maryland. Poplar Grove allows youth groups to experience traditional wilderness camping in a beautiful, natural setting.
Sites at Poplar Grove Youth Group Campground are reserved through Recreation.gov. Sites here can be reserved in advance through the official system, and they are claimed fast — cancellations then trickle back all season, unannounced, at any hour of the day or night.
| Total sites | 3 |
|---|---|
| Site types | Group |
| Location | Thurmont, MD |
| Book through | Recreation.gov |
| Official listing | Recreation.gov |
Because sites are booked months ahead, a steady share of reservations get cancelled as trips fall through. Each cancellation instantly returns that site and those nights to the official calendar — first-come, first-served, no waitlist, no announcement. Refreshing the booking page yourself, every few minutes for weeks, works in theory. In practice, the people who get these sites are the ones who hear about the opening first.
itOpened scans the Recreation.gov calendar for Poplar Grove Youth Group Campground around the clock. When a site matching your dates and your vehicle opens, you get a text with a direct link to it. You book it yourself, in your own account, at the normal price. We never book, hold, or resell — your fee pays for monitoring, and openings are first-come, so speed is the whole game.
| Owens Creek Campground | Cancellation alerts available |
|---|---|
| Camp Misty Mount | Cancellation alerts available |
| Adirondack Shelters | Cancellation alerts available |
| Camp Greentop | Cancellation alerts available |
| Camp Greentop Dining Hall and Rec Hall | Cancellation alerts available |
| Camp Round Meadow | Cancellation alerts available |
Page data refreshed 2026-10-29. Site facts come from the official directory listing for Poplar Grove Youth Group Campground; cancellation statistics come from our own scanning logs.