Blue Lake Creek Campground - Gifford Pinchot NF (WA)
5Heads up5 fires, nearest 23 mi
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $20From, per site
- Sites
- 11All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
In a well-shaded location among maple trees and ferns, Blue Lake Creek Campground offers open, grassy spaces with sites that can accommodate both tents and RVs with a small brook that babbles through the campground. Both Blue Lake and the Cispus River can be reached from multi-use trails leaving the campground, making this location popular among hikers, mountain bikers and OHV riders. Keep reading
Recreation
There is direct access to the Valley Trail, which is used by OHV riders, mountain bikers, hikers and horseback riders. Valley Trail offers a network of over 50 miles of OHV trails. The shorter High Log Trail is only open to foot traffic and connects with the Cispus River, where fishing and other water activities abound. Hikers looking to explore the stunning scenery of Blue Lake, can take the Valley Trail #270 to the Blue Lake Trail, which leads visitors on a trek of moderate difficulty to Blue Lake, where fishing and beautiful mountain landscapes await.
Facilities
The campground consists of 11 back in sites with paved parking spurs that vary from 20 to 30 feet in length. Due to its popularity among OHV riders, Blue Lake Creek can become noisy when trail bikes come and go. Minimal privacy is provided between sites. Hookups and drinking water are not available at this facility, however there are picnic tables, grills and vault toilets available on site.
Natural Features
Located in southwest Washington State, the Gifford Pinchot National Forest encompasses over 1.3 million acres, including the 110,000-acre Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument established by Congress in 1982. Blue Lake Creek Campground is located in the Cowlitz Valley Ranger District, which is in 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 Cispus River runs nearby the campground and can be accessed via a short hike. Blue Lake, a small mountain lake with beautiful turquoise waters, can also be reached by via a trail leaving the campground. Contact Info This location has limited staffing. Please call (360) 686-3008 for general information.
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)
Water is not available at this campground.
No ATVS or OHVS are allowed in the actual campground.
Everything else this campground posts · 4
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.
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.
Firewood is available for sale at host site for $10.00/bundle.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 11
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 48 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…there are picnic tables, grills and vault toilets available on site. Natural Features Located in…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “Hookups and drinking water are not available at this facility, however there are picnic tables, grills and vault toilets available on site.”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Night sky · 164th darkest of 400 in WA
- Bortle 3
- Fall color · reported 9 days ago, 32 km away
- Patchy color
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 · 13
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 rate for this season, $20 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
11 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 11 mapped sitesAll 11 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 11 of the 11 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| North Side | 001 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 75 ft | 185 ft | $20 |
| North Side | 002 | standard nonelectric | 34 ft | 75 ft | 141 ft | $20 |
| North Side | 003 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 103 ft | 227 ft | $20 |
| North Side | 004 | standard nonelectric | 29 ft | 92 ft | 81 ft | $20 |
| North Side | 005 | standard nonelectric | 42 ft | 102 ft | 105 ft | $20 |
| South Side | 006 | standard nonelectric | 31 ft | 94 ft | 106 ft | $20 |
| South Side | 007 | standard nonelectric | 29 ft | 87 ft | 11 ft | $20 |
| South Side | 008 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 87 ft | 79 ft | $20 |
| South Side | 009 | standard nonelectric | 48 ft | 65 ft | 41 ft | $20 |
| South Side | 010 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 65 ft | 13 ft | $20 |
| South Side | 011 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 80 ft | 21 ft | $20 |
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.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
North Fork Bear Group CampGifford Pinchot National Forest · 4.1 mi
North Fork Beaver Group CampGifford Pinchot National Forest · 4.1 mi
North Fork Campground (WA)Gifford Pinchot National Forest · 4.1 mi
North Fork Elk Group CampGifford Pinchot National Forest · 4.2 mi
Adams Fork CampgroundGifford Pinchot National Forest · 6.2 mi
Tower Rock CampgroundGifford Pinchot National Forest · 6.9 miTake State Highway 12 to Randle, Washington. Follow State Highway 131 to the fork and and stay left onto Forest Road 23. Follow Forest Road 23 beyond North Fork Campground to Blue Lake Creek.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Packwood, WA
Typical weather
Typical October night 40°F, day 61°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 31°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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Blue Lake Creek Campground - Gifford Pinchot NF (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 →