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U.S. Forest Service · Chequamegon National Forest · WI

Birch Grove Recreation Area

1Heads up1 fire 36 mi away
Wildfire
Redhouse fire · 36 mi away · 22 acres · updated Oct 10, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 10, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
OpenListed open; its database flags it not open
Season
May 2 – October 31Open May 2 through October 31
1,110 ftElevation
191 ftWater · an unnamed lake
6.4 miW of Washburn, WI
0%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 28th darkest of 70 in WI
Open May 2 through October 31Today

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Birch Grove Recreation Area is a family favorite if you are looking for a base camp to explore the Bayfield Peninsula. It is nestled between 22-acre East and 16-acre West Twin Lakes and is close to the community of Washburn. Each lake has a small boat access and includes bass, panfish and northern pike. During the late summer berry picking is a popular activity in the nearby Moquah Barrens. Each campsite has a defined parking spur, fire ring, picnic table and some have a tent pad and can accommodate RV's up to 35 feet. Drinking water, vault toilets and a small picnic area are available. Keep reading

There are also areas where campers can access the lake for swimming. This campground is near Long Lake Recreation Area which has a swimming beach, trail and carry-in boat access. Valhalla Recreation Area is also nearby that has more than 20 miles of hiking and biking trails during the summer months. So, if you like to boat, fish or picnic then the Birch Grove Recreation Area is the place for you, conveniently located just 8 miles west of Washburn.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets
“…RV's up to 35 feet. Drinking water, vault toilets and a small picnic area are available. There are…”
Drinking water
Yes
“…and can accommodate RV's up to 35 feet. Drinking water, vault toilets and a small picnic area are…”
Source: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Lake, Beach
Source: Stated in the agency description

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe record
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 5

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
Individual campsite fee is $15, or $7.50 with the use of an Interagency pass (access or senior).
The interagency pass applies only to the fee for the campsite physically occupied by the pass holder, not to any additional fees or campsite(s) occupied by members of the pass holder's party.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
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
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · 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: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate46.68480, -91.06050

Where it is

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Overnight31°Clear
Saturday57°Sunny
Saturday Night42°Mostly Clear
Sunday62°Sunny

NWS forecast for Washburn, WI

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

Typical weather

Typical October night 35°F, day 55°F.

Coldest night of the open season: typical October night 35°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

90°32°0°

Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season

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: ASHLAND KENNEDY MEM AP, WI (USW00094929), 12 miles away and 284 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

who answers for it

Who answers for this land

Tom Tiffany, official portrait

Birch Grove Recreation Area is in Wisconsin’s 7th congressional district. Its representative, Tom Tiffany (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. 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: The agency lists it open right now. Its own recreation database, though, flags it not open with no reason or date; the flag is named under How we know all this.
Listed not open: USFS EDW Recreation Opportunities, openstatus field: a not-open flag in a database, with no reason and no date published; read there since Sep 9, 2026. A flag, not a notice, so this page doesn’t call it a closure. · Oct 16, 2026
Season: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 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: 0.084 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 70 rated federal campgrounds in Wisconsin · 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 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