Butte Lake
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $15From, per site
- Sites
- 8179 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Butte Lake Campground (elevation 6,100 feet) is located in the northeastern section of Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California. It is fairly remote and within walking distance of Butte Lake, which is popular for fishing, canoeing, kayaking and swimming. Several hiking and backpacking trails are located nearby. The facility is 45 minutes from the main park road. Keep reading
Recreation
Outdoor enthusiasts stay at Butte Lake Campground for its many recreation opportunities. The lake is popular for trout fishing, as well as non-motorized boating. Within the facility, hikers and backpackers will find the trailhead for the Cinder Cone Trail, one of the most popular trails in the park that ascends a nearby volcanic dome. The Painted Dunes, Snag Lake and Bathtub Lake areas are also nearby.
Facilities
This facility is more remote than other campgrounds within the park. Campers must travel on a six-mile gravel road to access the facility. For more information visit Campgrounds of Lassen Volcanic . A non-motorized boat launch is convenient for kayaks and canoes. Flush toilets and running water are turned on during summer; vault toilets are available outside of the peak season.
Natural Features
The campground has a pleasant atmosphere dominated by Ponderosa pines. It sits on soft volcanic soils, and several ponds dot the landscape. Butte Lake has a large black lava flow running into it, creating rocky shores and interesting views for visitors in kayaks and canoes to explore. The national park is known for its volcanic history, as well as its diversity of plants and animals. It contains 300 active volcanic domes and many hydrothermal features, such as mud pots and steam vents. Lassen Peak is the southernmost active volcano in the Cascades, and the second most recent volcano to erupt in the lower 48 of the United States before Mount Saint Helens. Lassen National Park boasts over 700 species of flowering plants and 250 species of vertebrates, including birds, mammals, reptiles and fish. The park is at the junction of the Cascade Mountains, the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Great Basin, thus providing many unique habitats.
Nearby Attractions
Visitors can explore Subway Cave, an underground lava tube, in the adjacent Lassen National Forest from late April through November. Free tours are offered every weekend during summer. Subway Cave, Lassen National Forest
What the agency tells you
There is no electricity/water/sewer site hook-ups at this campground.
Campsites are limited to 3 tents, 6 people, and 2 vehicles (including RV) per site.
Campers must have valid entrance permit/pass before camping.
Everything else this campground posts · 5
An entrance fee of $30 per vehicle is required. Do too limited connectivity at the campground we highly recommend visitors purchase the park's digital 1-7 day entrance fee or the parks annual pass and make campground reservations through recreation.gov prior to visiting park.
No motorized boats permitted on the lake.
Pets must be on a 6' leash at all times.
Pets must not be left unattended and are not allowed on park trails.
Please have a printed copy of your reservation with you.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 81 · 2 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 45 ft
- Accessible sites
- 1
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets · Vault Toilets
- “…is convenient for kayaks and canoes. Flush toilets and running water are turned on during summer;…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Picnicking
- Swimming
- Visitor center
- Night sky · 86th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 2
- Fall color · reported 13 days ago, 14 km away
- Peak color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 79 of the 81 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
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
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $15 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.
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 · 5
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
81 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 78 mapped sitesAll 81 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 80 of the 81 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. 79 of the 81 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Loop A | A01 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 63 ft | 747 ft | 200 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A02 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 63 ft | 807 ft | 138 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A03 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 101 ft | 766 ft | 194 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A04 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 98 ft | 864 ft | 138 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A05 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 81 ft | 869 ft | 72 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A06 | type not stated | 45 ft | yes | 1,068 ft | 129 ft | ||
| Loop A | A07 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 78 ft | 1,052 ft | 176 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A08 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 108 ft | 1,162 ft | 229 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A09 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 76 ft | 1,127 ft | 246 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A10 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 78 ft | 1,253 ft | 333 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A11 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 46 ft | 1,194 ft | 322 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A12 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 46 ft | 1,212 ft | 361 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A13 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 72 ft | 1,310 ft | 404 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A14 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 51 ft | 1,300 ft | 449 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A15 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 51 ft | 1,349 ft | 498 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A16 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 72 ft | 1,379 ft | 476 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A17 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 73 ft | 1,424 ft | 550 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A18 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 73 ft | 1,480 ft | 587 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A19 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 54 ft | 1,499 ft | 576 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A20 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 68 ft | 1,374 ft | 449 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A21 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 54 ft | 1,503 ft | 572 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A22 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 73 ft | 1,483 ft | 544 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A23 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 68 ft | 1,350 ft | 415 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A24 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 73 ft | 1,441 ft | 502 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A25 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 77 ft | 1,363 ft | 429 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A26 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 74 ft | 1,291 ft | 352 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A27 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 63 ft | 1,303 ft | 379 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A28 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 74 ft | 1,228 ft | 290 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A29 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 63 ft | 1,244 ft | 329 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A30 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 69 ft | 1,176 ft | 282 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A31 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 86 ft | 1,102 ft | 176 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A32 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 86 ft | 1,037 ft | 152 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A33 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 69 ft | 1,136 ft | 282 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A34 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | $15 | ||||
| Loop A | A35 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 78 ft | 1,070 ft | 284 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A36 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 104 ft | 952 ft | 186 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A37 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 78 ft | 1,013 ft | 306 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A38 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 85 ft | 849 ft | 200 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A39 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 91 ft | 875 ft | 300 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A40 | type not stated | 45 ft | 774 ft | 326 ft | |||
| Loop A | A41 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 68 ft | 777 ft | 205 ft | $15 | |
| Loop A | A42 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 102 ft | 677 ft | 329 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B01 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 102 ft | 633 ft | 428 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B02 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 102 ft | 762 ft | 455 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B03 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 108 ft | 799 ft | 505 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B04 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 92 ft | 864 ft | 446 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B05 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 91 ft | 919 ft | 381 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B06 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 50 ft | 1,050 ft | 256 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B07 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 80 ft | 1,032 ft | 355 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B08 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 97 ft | 1,146 ft | 197 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B09 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 92 ft | 1,148 ft | 360 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B10 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 97 ft | 1,202 ft | 231 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B11 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 92 ft | 1,218 ft | 393 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B12 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 61 ft | 1,271 ft | 319 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B13 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 64 ft | 1,389 ft | 424 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B14 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 50 ft | 1,397 ft | 498 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B15 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 55 ft | 1,438 ft | 481 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B16 | tent only nonelectric | 24 ft | 50 ft | 1,431 ft | 519 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B17 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 55 ft | 1,489 ft | 523 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B18 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 68 ft | 1,540 ft | 601 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B21 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 141 ft | 1,617 ft | 679 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B26 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 64 ft | 1,737 ft | 803 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B34 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 64 ft | 1,730 ft | 803 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B35 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 80 ft | 1,678 ft | 721 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B37 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 68 ft | 1,607 ft | 646 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B38 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 141 ft | 1,680 ft | 606 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B39 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 57 ft | 1,547 ft | 550 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B41 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 71 ft | 1,481 ft | 452 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B43 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 55 ft | 1,467 ft | 285 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B44 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 61 ft | 1,322 ft | 291 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B45 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 74 ft | 1,319 ft | 218 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B46 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 55 ft | 1,448 ft | 233 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B47 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 61 ft | 1,432 ft | 169 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B48 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 61 ft | 1,410 ft | 121 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B49 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 102 ft | 1,382 ft | 93 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B50 | tent only nonelectric | 45 ft | 111 ft | 1,278 ft | 83 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B51 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 87 ft | 1,172 ft | 129 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B52 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 98 ft | 1,175 ft | 175 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B53 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 98 ft | 1,077 ft | 251 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B54 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 50 ft | 1,086 ft | 215 ft | $15 | |
| Loop B | B55 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 108 ft | 908 ft | 398 ft | $15 |
25 of 81 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Butte Lake GroupLassen Volcanic National Park · 0.0 mi
Butte Lake Stock CorralLassen Volcanic National Park · 0.0 mi
Backcountry Camping in Lassen's WildernessLassen Volcanic National Park · 5.0 mi
Summit Lake Stock CorralLassen Volcanic National Park · 7.7 mi
Juniper Lake GroupLassen Volcanic National Park · 7.9 mi
Juniper Lake Stock CorralLassen Volcanic National Park · 7.9 miFrom Redding, California drive 63 miles east on State Highway 44 to Old Station. From the intersection of 44 and State Highway 89, continue east on 44 for 11 miles. Watch for sign to Butte Lake Campground. Turn right and continue for six miles on a rough gravel road.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Old Station, CA
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
Butte Lake is in California’s 1st congressional district. Whoever holds it votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. See how its representative votes on public lands →
Our roster still carries Doug LaMalfa for this district and the current federal record doesn’t list them as sitting, so we’re not naming a representative here until the two agree.