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U.S. Forest Service · Okanogan National Forest · WA

Buck Lake Campground

5Heads up5 fires, nearest 24 mi
Wildfire
Sinlahekin fire · 24 mi away · 166,007 acres · 100% contained · updated Oct 15, 2026
Wildfire
Ptarmigan fire · 30 mi away · 25,566 acres · 90% contained · updated Oct 8, 2026
Wildfire
Sisi fire · 34 mi away · 4,615 acres · 34% contained · updated Oct 14, 2026
Wildfire
Border 2 fire · 46 mi away · 9,108 acres · 74% contained · updated Oct 12, 2026
Wildfire
Luna fire · 48 mi away · 8,553 acres · 42% contained · updated Sep 23, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 15, 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
OpenInside the published season, our reading
A night
$10From, per site
Season
May 1Opens May 1. No closing date published.
Drawn from the record · 3,280 ft · 58% tree cover · Buck Lake within reach · Bortle 2 sky
3,280 ftElevation
423 ftWater · Buck Lake
16.4 miNW of Twisp, WA
58%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 13th darkest of 400 in WA
Opens May 1. No closing date published.Today

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Small, quiet forested campground. Boat landing, adequate for small crafts. Successful fishing early in the year. Lake stocked. Mountain biking opportunites. Maximum length of site is 25 feet.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Lake
Fall color · reported 12 days ago, 33 km away
Peak color
Source: Stated in the agency description
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (33 km) · Oct 4, 2026

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and a night costs $10 with nothing added. 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
A night$10Per site, fromthe agency’s fee record
A weekend$20DerivedFriday and Saturday, everything includedours, from the lines above
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
A night, from$10
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What this campground addsits own record
Extra vehicleSee the note

“$10/Night for single unit, $5 per extra vehicle.(2 vehicles per site maximum) 2 tents or 1 tent and 1 RV maiximum per site” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record

What a stay costs
One night, fromDerived$10
A weekend, Friday and Saturday, fromDerived$20

Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($10), and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.

How we know this receipt · 6
Sign price: Derived by CAMPANAC from the U.S. Forest Service fee record: a stated per-night amount only · Sep 7, 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
What this campground adds: The U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record and notices for this campground, quoted verbatim. An extra-vehicle charge is set locally and appears on no national schedule, so it’s never assumed. · Aug 24, 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
Coordinate48.60606, -120.20259

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

This Afternoon59°Mostly Sunny
Tonight44°Partly Cloudy then Slight Chance Rain Showers22% rain
Saturday53°Slight Chance Rain Showers then Mostly Sunny22% rain
Saturday Night35°Mostly Clear

NWS forecast for Winthrop, WA

Source: National Weather Service, OTX forecast office · Oct 16, 2026

Typical weather

Typical May night 37°F, day 60°F.

Coldest night of the open season: typical May night 37°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

80°32°10°

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: HOLDEN VILLAGE, WA (USC00453730), 38 miles away and 62 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

Dan Newhouse, official portrait

Buck Lake Campground is in Washington’s 4th congressional district. Its representative, Dan Newhouse (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: Today falls inside the season the agency publishes, and it has posted nothing else. That reading is ours.
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: 0.033 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 400 rated federal campgrounds in Washington · 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
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (33 km) · Oct 4, 2026
Reported by: iNaturalist fall color observations, reported peak color · Oct 4, 2026
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: Winthrop, WA, 8.5 mi N. 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