CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
The map
1Heads up1 fire 6.1 mi away
Wildfire
Summit fire · 6.1 mi away · 20 acres · updated Oct 17, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 17, 2026
Closedrecreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend, read 14:17 UTC
Why it’s closed, and what’s open near hereTell me when it comes back
Right now
Closedrecreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend, read 14:17 UTC
Sites
1In the agency’s record
Drawn from the record · 3,600 ft · 77% tree cover · North Santiam River within reach · Bortle 2 sky
3,600 ftElevation
751 ftWater · North Santiam River
23.9 miNW of Sisters, OR
77%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 411th darkest of 770 in OR

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there · 1 notices

In the agency’s own words

Big Pool is a small, shady, group site campground situated between Forest Service Road 18 and Fall Creek. Expect heavy use during summer weekends. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (801) 226-3564.

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

What the agency tells you

Rule

Customer Service Contact 801-226-3564 or Help.Willamette.MiddleFork@AmericanLL.com

Source: recreation.gov facility notices, quoted verbatim · Sep 9, 2026

Tents and rigs

Sites
1 · 1 group
Hookups
None
Accessible sites
None listed
Pets
Allowed
Campfires
Allowed, barring fire bans
Shade
Every site
Source: Recreation.gov campsite records · Aug 23, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Creek
Source: Stated in the agency description · Aug 23, 2026

Nothing to book until it reopensread 14:17 UTC

recreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend

Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.

Sites, from, when it reopens$90From the rate schedule matched to 1 of its 1 sites. U.S. Forest Service publishes no campground-level rate we can read.derived by CAMPANAC
If plans change$10 to cancel$10 to change a reservationrecreation.gov’s schedule
Runs itAmerican Land & LeisureA private concessionaire under permit from U.S. Forest Servicethe operator link
What’s open near here
Tell me when it reopens

Watch for it to come back

One email when the agency reopens it, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.

We check the agency’s own record once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time it stops saying closed.

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’ll write once, when the agency reopens it.

Free forever, no booking kickbacks.
Every line of the receipt · 11

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
Sites, when it reopens, from$90
Derived by CAMPANAC from the rate schedule matched to 1 of its 1 sites. U.S. Forest Service publishes no campground-level rate for this campground that we can read, only per-site rate templates its own record matches to each site’s own type.
Group area, a night$90
These are next season’s rates, Jun 1, 2027 to Sep 20, 2027. The campground is between seasons now.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Reservation fee, booked online$8
One fee per reservation, however many nights you book, and it’s non-refundable. $9 if you book by phone, $3 in person.
Pass discounts only apply to the recreation (or use) fee for the facility. Other charges such as electricity or water hookups, reservation or other fees are not eligible for a discount.
If your plans changerecreation.gov
Change fee, moving to dates outside your booking$10
Cancellation fee$10
Cancelling the day before, or the day of$10 + your first night
No-show$20 + your first night

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 · 4
Sites from: Derived by CAMPANAC from this campground's own priced campsites, using recreation.gov facility rate schedule matched to each site's own published type · Sep 14, 2026
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
Why this page can’t say why

recreation.gov lists every site at Big Pool closed this Friday and Saturday night. The U.S. Forest Service has published no closure notice we hold, so this page can’t say why, and it won’t fill the gap with a guess. A closed night isn’t a sold-out one: the reservations its record still carries were taken before the sites were closed.

Closure: U.S. Forest Service status record · Oct 17, 2026

There’s no notice to quote and no reason to argue with, so this page offers you the watch and the list below, and no letter.

Open within 60 miles · 4

The agency’s own word that these are open, not our reading of a season.

Open near here: Agency-published status, in the CAMPANAC campground index · Oct 17, 2026

recreation.gov availability, read 14:17 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

The sites

1 sites · the site map

All 1 sites

1 of 1 sites located
Group1
Big Pool Group
Aerial · Esri World Imagery
Sites: recreation.gov (RIDB), coordinates as published · Aug 23, 2026
Imagery: Esri World Imagery
SleepsTakes aUp to

The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 1 of the 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.

Big PoolBig Pool Groupgroup standard nonelectric751 ft$90
Price: Derived by CAMPANAC: each site takes the per-night rate this campground publishes for the site’s own site type (recreation.gov rate schedule). recreation.gov publishes no per-campsite fee, and a site whose type carries no published rate is left blank rather than called free · Oct 1, 2026

OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Getting there

the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Coordinate44.49294, -121.98285
The phoneN/A
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗

Where it is

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

This Afternoon56°Partly Sunny8% rain
Tonight35°Areas Of Fog2% rain
Sunday63°Mostly Sunny
Sunday Night36°Cloudy then Patchy Fog9% rain

NWS forecast for Idanha, OR

Source: National Weather Service, PQR forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 33°F, day 65°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical December night 23°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

100°32°10°

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 Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.

Measured at: REDMOND ROBERTS FLD, OR (USW00024230), 45 miles away and 557 ft lower
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

Roadless country, and what’s coming for it

Roadless
Mt. Jefferson, South5,366 acres · 3 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Echo Mountain8,098 acres · 6 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Mt. Washington, North997 acres · 10 mi · inventoried roadless area

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: USFS Inventoried Roadless Areas via MTJP Roadless Map · Jul 29, 2026

Who answers for this land

Janelle Bynum, official portrait

Big Pool is in Oregon’s 5th congressional district. Its representative, Janelle Bynum (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A. See every public-lands vote →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: recreation.gov lists every site here closed on Friday and Saturday night (read 14:17 UTC). U.S. Forest Service has published no closure notice we hold, so the reason isn’t on this page. A closed night isn’t a sold-out one, and the reservations the record still carries predate the closure. That reading is ours, off the agency’s own booking record.
Sites on recreation.gov: recreation.gov’s own month availability payload for this facility, asked for October 2026 and November 2026. It names 1 of the 1 campsites the agency files here, and every one of them carries an answer either way. A campground nobody has read carries no answer at all, never a no. · Oct 15, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.075 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 770 rated federal campgrounds in Oregon · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the Forest Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest place of any size: Idanha, OR, 14.5 mi SSE. Straight line.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026