Butte Lake Group
3Heads uppark alerts
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- Sites
- 6All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Butte Lake Group 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
Butte Lake Group Campground is located at the north end of Loop B, adjacent to the main Butte Lake Campground. This facility is more remote than other campgrounds within the park and campers must travel on a six-mile gravel road to get here. 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 that creates rocky shores and interesting areas 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 in 1980. 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 tube created by lava flow, 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.
All equipment must fit on the site pad.
Min 10 - Max 25 persons and six licensed vehicles per site.
Everything else this campground posts · 5
Campers must have a valid entrance permit/pass before camping.
An entrance fee of $30.00 per vehicle will be collected at the campground.We highly recommend visitors purchase the park's digital 1-7 day entrance fee or the parks annual pass throught recreation.gov prior to visiting park.
No motorized boats permitted on the lake
Pets must be on a 6-ft. leash, 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
- 6 · 6 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 45 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets - seasonal
- Drinking water
- Yes
- Boat ramp
- Yes
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 12 days ago, 14 km away
- Peak 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 · 12
What you actually pay
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
6 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 6 mapped sitesAll 6 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 6 of the 6 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. 6 of the 6 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Butte Lake Group Sites | A | group standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 195 ft | 1,627 ft | 704 ft | $35 |
| Butte Lake Group Sites | B | group standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 170 ft | 1,734 ft | 795 ft | $35 |
| Butte Lake Group Sites | C | group standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 136 ft | 1,868 ft | 930 ft | $35 |
| Butte Lake Group Sites | D | group standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 136 ft | 1,894 ft | 912 ft | $35 |
| Butte Lake Group Sites | E | group standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 195 ft | 1,767 ft | 718 ft | $35 |
| Butte Lake Group Sites | F | group standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 295 ft | 1,562 ft | 424 ft | $35 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Butte LakeLassen 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, drive 63 miles east on state highway 44 to Old Station. From intersection of state highway 89 and 44, continue east on state highway 44 for 11 miles. Watch for sign to Butte Lake Campground. Turn right and continue for 6 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 Group 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.