Big Creek (Gifford Pinchot National Forest, WA)
5Heads up5 fires, nearest 12 mi
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $25–$45Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 29All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 5 notices
In the agency’s own words
Situated in the vicinity of majestic Mount Rainier, Big Creek is a family campground nestled among Douglas firs, hemlock, alders and maples. The lush vegetation offers plenty of privacy between sites. The sites at Big Creek form a loop, with only a handful of sites sitting along the banks of Big Creek. Open from mid-May through late September, Big Creek provides an alternative to the campgrounds at Mount Rainier National Park, which can get very crowded during the summer. Keep reading
Recreation
Anglers can try their luck at catching brook trout in Big Creek or for those looking to explore the area, the Osborne Mountain Trail starts at the campground. The route is steep, but the scenery is amazing, and the trail can be traversed by foot, horse, mountain bike or dirt bike.
Facilities
The campground requires vehicles to have a relatively tight turning radius. Big Creek can accommodate tents, trailers and RVs, with a maximum vehicle length of 22 feet. Some parking spurs are paved; others are native moss and dirt. Some sites have rocks or heavy vegetation, which may make it difficult to pitch a tent. Drinking water is available, but there are no hot showers available onsite. Vault toilets are provided as well as a fire pit and picnic table at each site.
Natural Features
Located in southwest Washington State, the Gifford Pinchot National Forest encompasses over 1.3 million acres and includes the 110,000-acre Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument established by Congress in 1982. Big Creek is located in the Cowlitz Valley Ranger District, the northernmost portion of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. This Ranger District manages four Wilderness Areas including the Goat Rocks Wilderness, Glacier View Wilderness, Tatoosh Wilderness and William O' Douglass Wilderness. The Cowlitz Valley Ranger District is roughly located among three volcanic peaks: Mt. Rainier to the north, Mt. Adams to the east, and Mt. St. Helens to the west, providing visitors with a unique geological landscape. Contact Info This location has limited staffing. Please call (360) 686-3008 for general information.
Nearby Attractions
Big Creek is 6 miles from the Nisqually entrance of Mount Rainier National Park. The popular Henry M. Jackson Memorial Visitor Center at Paradise is 21 miles away, and the nearby town of Ashford offers restaurants, along with a few art galleries and shops.
Charges & Cancellations
Cancellations Individual Campsites: Cancellations up to 2 days before a reservation start date incur a $10.00 cancellation fee. A visitor who cancels a reservation the day before or on the day of arrival will pay a $10.00 service fee AND forfeit the first night's use fee including tax and applicable add-on for a campsite. Cancellations for a one-night reservation will forfeit the entire amount paid and will not be subject to an additional service fee. No-Shows A no-show visitor is one who does not arrive at a campground and does not cancel the reservation by check-out time on the day after the scheduled arrival date. Staff will hold a campsite until check-out time on the day following the arrival date. No-shows are assessed $20.00 service fee and forfeit the first night's rate, taxes and applicable add-on for a campsite. Refunds Visitors may submit a refund request through their Recreation.gov profile within 7 days of the end date of their reservation. Refunds will not be issued after the 7 days has ended. Refunds for debit or credit card payments will be issued as a credit to the original bank or credit card used to pay. For check or cash purchases, Recreation.gov will mail a Treasury check for refunds of cash, check, or money order payments to the address associated with the reservation. Treasury check refunds may take up to 6-8 weeks to arrive. In the event of an emergency closure, the Recreation.gov team or facility manager will refund all fees and will attempt to notify you using the contact information within the Recreation.gov visitor profile.
What the agency tells you
Check in: 2 pm, Check out: 12 pm (noon) No ATVS or OHVS in campground Click here for more information about Gifford Pinchot National Forest Don't Move Firewood: Please protect Pacific Northwest forests by preventing the spread of invasive species. Firewood can carry insects and diseases that can threaten the health of our western forests. You can make a difference by obtaining and burning your firewood near your camping destination. Visit Dontmovefirewood.org for further information.
The campground requires vehicles to have a relatively tight turning radius. Big Creek can accommodate tents, trailers and RVs, with a maximum vehicle length of 22 feet. Some parking spurs are paved; others are native moss and dirt. Some sites have rocks or heavy vegetation, which may make it difficult to pitch a tent.
Camping fee covers the first two vehicles (2 cars or RV/Trailer and tow vehicle). Extra vehicle fee of $8.00 is charged for the third vehicle.
Everything else this campground posts · 2
Firewood is available for sale at host site for $10.00/bundle.
Please do not park your vehicle within the 100' well exclusion area as signed. Thank you your cooperation is appreciated!
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 29
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 20 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…are no hot showers available onsite. Vault toilets are provided as well as a fire pit and picnic table…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…may make it difficult to pitch a tent. Drinking water is available, but there are no hot showers…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Night sky · 354th darkest of 400 in WA
- Bortle 4
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
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 · 14
What you actually pay
“Extra Vehicle Fee $8.00” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $25–$45 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
“Cancellations Individual Campsites: Cancellations up to 2 days before a reservation start date incur a $10.00 cancellation fee. A visitor who cancels a reservation the day before or on the day of arrival will pay a $10.00 service fee AND forfeit the first night's use fee including tax and applicable add-on for a cam…” · this campground’s own no-show terms
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 · 7
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
29 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 29 mapped sitesAll 29 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 29 of the 29 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 29 of the 29 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| AREA BIG CREEK | 001 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 45 ft | 44 ft | 209 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 002 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 45 ft | 66 ft | 211 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 003 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 54 ft | 78 ft | 239 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 004 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 54 ft | 83 ft | 274 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 005 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 65 ft | 98 ft | 317 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 006 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 97 ft | 106 ft | 388 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 007 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 93 ft | 212 ft | 469 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 008 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 93 ft | 123 ft | 462 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 009 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 49 ft | 246 ft | 574 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 010 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 92 ft | 158 ft | 553 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 011 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 49 ft | 205 ft | 614 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 012 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 66 ft | 270 ft | 654 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 013 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 66 ft | 213 ft | 698 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 014 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 106 ft | 298 ft | 751 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 015 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 114 ft | 403 ft | 796 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 016 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 72 ft | 465 ft | 787 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 017 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 72 ft | 488 ft | 721 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 018 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 67 ft | 395 ft | 709 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 019 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 57 ft | 413 ft | 645 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 020 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 57 ft | 356 ft | 642 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 021 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 46 ft | 375 ft | 529 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 022 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 46 ft | 330 ft | 540 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 023 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 63 ft | 397 ft | 420 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 024 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 67 ft | 333 ft | 429 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 025 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 63 ft | 393 ft | 363 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 026 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 76 ft | 343 ft | 339 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 027 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 87 ft | 425 ft | 268 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 028 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 97 ft | 417 ft | 208 ft | $25–$45 |
| AREA BIG CREEK | 029 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 156 ft | 305 ft | 155 ft | $25–$45 |
25 of 29 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Cougar Rock CampgroundMount Rainier National Park · 8.6 mi
Cougar Rock Group CampgroundMount Rainier National Park · 8.6 mi
Evans Creek CampgroundSnoqualmie National Forest · 14 mi
La Wis Wis CampgroundGifford Pinchot National Forest · 19 mi
Ohanapecosh CampgroundMount Rainier National Park · 19 miFrom Ashford, WA, take Forest Road 52 approximately 5 miles to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Ashford, WA
Typical weather
Typical October night 35°F, day 55°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 25°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 Augusts are colder than the August line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Big Creek (Gifford Pinchot National Forest, WA) is in Washington’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →