Camp Sherman Campground
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 12 mi
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 1 of the next 30 nights read 15:00 UTC
- A night
- $27From, per site
- Sites
- 14All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Camp Sherman Campground is nestled on the banks of the scenic Metolius River in Deschutes National Forest. It offers visitors some of the most stunning scenery in central Oregon and easy access to an abundance of recreational activities. Keep reading
Recreation
Hiking and fishing top the list of recreational activities at Camp Sherman Campground. Biking is a great way to see the area as well. Anglers enjoy fly-fishing for rainbow trout, whitefish, bull trout and kokanee salmon. Day hikers and backpackers will find a wide variety of hiking trails through scenic terrain, ranging from riverside trails to routes through subalpine forests.
Facilities
Camp Sherman Campground offers a handful of standard sites for both tent and RV camping, and one tent-only site. Each sites is equipped with a picnic table and campfire rings. Vault toilets and drinking water are provided, but electrical hookups are not available. Showers are available in the town of Camp Sherman, less than 2 miles from the campground.
Natural Features
Many sites at this campground have views of to Metolius River, a tributary of the Deschutes River, through Lake Billy Chinook, near the city of Sisters. Metolius Springs forms the headwaters of the river at the base of Black Butte, a 3,076' cinder cone. The clear, cold river flows north from the springs through diverse coniferous forest and a landscape of volcanic activity. The area provides habitat for mammals such as mule deer, coyote and cougar. Migratory birds and native fish also call the area home.
Nearby Attractions
The Metolius-Windigo Trail begins near the Metolius River headwaters west of the town of Sisters. The trail is over 100 miles long and is open to hiking, biking and horseback riding. It was created in the 1980s by linking sections of existing trails, primarily to give long-distance horseback riders an alternative to the Pacific Crest Trail.
Charges & Cancellations
Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
What the agency tells you
Prevent the spread of invasive species by inspecting and cleaning packs, equipment and tires before using trails.
Please Note: One RV with tow vehicle per single site or one vehicle per tent site. Most sites can accommodate 1 extra vehicle that is not included with the reservation fee. Extra vehicle will be charged a per night fee and collected at the campground.
Fire Restrictions: Fire restrictions may be imposed at any time due to hot, dry weather conditions, at which time campfires and charcoal fires may not be allowed.
Everything else this campground posts · 7
During your time in Central Oregon, you can find wildfire, prescribed fire and smoke information at centraloregonfire.org .
Reserved Sites will be held until check out time (NOON) the day following your arrival date. Sites must be occupied by the checkout time of that following day to hold a reservation or the site will be forfeited and released to other guests. Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).
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.
Click here for more information about Deschutes National Forest.
Camping or otherwise occupying a single location (including leaving camping equipment and/or related supplies) for a period longer than 14 consecutive calendar days is prohibited. ‘Location’ means the occupied area, the occupied campsite, and the National Forest System lands in the immediate vicinity thereof. Camping or occupying any location on all National Forest lands for more than 28 calendar days total during a calendar year is prohibited.
NO generator use is allowed in campgrounds between 10:00PM and 7:00AM (36 CFR 261.10). Silent power banks or battery powered devices are allowed.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 14 · 1 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 40 ft
- Paved pads
- 1 of 14
- Accessible sites
- 1
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…with a picnic table and campfire rings. Vault toilets and drinking water are provided, but electrical…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…and campfire rings. Vault toilets and drinking water are provided, but electrical hookups are not…”
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
- Stay limit
- 28 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Night sky · 466th darkest of 770 in OR
- Bortle 2
Full this Saturdayread 15:00 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot reservable
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
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 · 14
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $27 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.
“Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.” · this campground’s own 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 · 6
recreation.gov availability, read 15:00 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
15 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 14 mapped sitesAll 15 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 14 of the 15 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| CAMP SHERMAN CAMPGROUND | 001 HOST | host pad | 40 ft | 228 ft | |||
| CAMP SHERMAN CAMPGROUND | 002 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 130 ft | 212 ft | $27 | |
| CAMP SHERMAN CAMPGROUND | 003 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 85 ft | 85 ft | $27 | |
| CAMP SHERMAN CAMPGROUND | 004 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 85 ft | 21 ft | $27 | |
| CAMP SHERMAN CAMPGROUND | 005 | tent only nonelectric | 103 ft | 95 ft | $27 | ||
| CAMP SHERMAN CAMPGROUND | 006 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 68 ft | 132 ft | $27 | |
| CAMP SHERMAN CAMPGROUND | 007 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 68 ft | 133 ft | $27 | |
| CAMP SHERMAN CAMPGROUND | 008 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 100 ft | 123 ft | $27 | |
| CAMP SHERMAN CAMPGROUND | 009 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 66 ft | 102 ft | $27 | |
| CAMP SHERMAN CAMPGROUND | 010 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 66 ft | 96 ft | $27 | |
| CAMP SHERMAN CAMPGROUND | 011 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 91 ft | 106 ft | $27 | |
| CAMP SHERMAN CAMPGROUND | 012 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 144 ft | 78 ft | $27 | |
| CAMP SHERMAN CAMPGROUND | 013 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 110 ft | 221 ft | $27 | |
| CAMP SHERMAN CAMPGROUND | 014 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 105 ft | 244 ft | $27 | |
| CAMP SHERMAN CAMPGROUND | 015 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 91 ft | 196 ft | $27 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It names it a host pad. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
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
Pine Rest CampgroundDeschutes National Forest · 0.0 mi
Gorge CampgroundDeschutes National Forest · 0.2 mi
Allingham CampgroundDeschutes National Forest · 0.4 miAllingham CampgroundDeschutes National Forest · 0.7 mi
Smiling River Campground0.8 miCamp Sherman CampgroundDeschutes National Forest · 1.3 miFrom Salem, take I-5 South 20.7 miles to exit 233 toward Sweet Home. Continue along Highway. 20 for 83 miles, then turn left on Forest Road 14 and go 6.1 miles. The campground is 0.5 miles north on Forest Road 1419.
From Sisters, travel 9.6 miles northwest on Highway 20. Turn right on Forest Road 14 and go 6.1 miles. The campground is 0.5 miles north on Forest Road 1419.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Camp Sherman, OR
Typical weather
Typical October night 35°F, day 60°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 27°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 Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
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
Camp Sherman Campground is in Oregon’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Cliff Bentz (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyCliff BentzU.S. Representative · Oregon’s 2nd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJeff MerkleyU.S. Senator · Oregon
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRon WydenU.S. Senator · Oregon
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Camp Sherman Campground, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon
Dear Cliff Bentz, I’m a constituent in Oregon’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Camp Sherman Campground, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon, and couldn’t. All 14 sites at Camp Sherman Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 12 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Camp Sherman Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Camp Sherman Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Camp Sherman Campground (Deschutes National Forest, Oregon) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Camp Sherman Campground, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon
Dear Jeff Merkley, I’m a constituent in Oregon. I tried to camp at Camp Sherman Campground, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon, and couldn’t. All 14 sites at Camp Sherman Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 12 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Camp Sherman Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Camp Sherman Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Camp Sherman Campground (Deschutes National Forest, Oregon) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Camp Sherman Campground, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon
Dear Ron Wyden, I’m a constituent in Oregon. I tried to camp at Camp Sherman Campground, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon, and couldn’t. All 14 sites at Camp Sherman Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 12 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Camp Sherman Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Camp Sherman Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Camp Sherman Campground (Deschutes National Forest, Oregon) via campanac.com