Carter Lake
- Right now
- Closedrecreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend, read 15:51 UTC
- A night
- $22When it reopens, per site
- Sites
- 21In the agency’s record
- Season
- May 1 – September 30Open May 1 through September 30
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Carter Lake Campground is a family favorite in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. This campground is located on Carter Lake, perfect for fishing, swimming, and boating. The Carter Dunes Trailhead is located within the campground, and the Pacific coast is just a short drive away. Keep reading
Recreation
Hike the Carter Dune Trail, which attracts campers and locals alike. Fishing for rainbow trout is a good way to pass the time, and canoeing and kayaking are excellent on Carter Lake. The dunes region is also famous for off-road vehicle riding trails.
Facilities
Drinking water and flush toilets are available and each site has a campfire pit, picnic table, and trash. Parking aprons are paved.
Natural Features
Campsites are nestled among shore pine, sitka spruce, and Douglas fir, with hedges of rhododendron. Carter Lake spans 28 acres at an elevation of 100 feet. The campground is part of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, known for its wind-sculpted sand dunes towering up to 500 feet above sea level. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (541) 271-6000.
Nearby Attractions
Carter Lake Campground is located near several non-motorized hiking trails, including Siltcoos Lake Trail and Threemile Creek Trail. Visitors can also use the campground as a base to explore the area's waterways, including the Pacific Ocean, Tahkenitch Lake, and Siltcoos Lake.
Charges & Cancellations
Campsites that are not occupied after 24 hours of arrival time will be considered as a "no show" and sites will be released for others to reserve. If campers will be arriving after 24 hours of their arrival time, they are encouraged to call the ranger station at 541-271-6000 to let staff know.
What the agency tells you
Guidelines for a safe visit to the Siuslaw National Forest The Siuslaw’s campgrounds, day use areas, and trails continue to be open for public enjoyment. While you are visiting the Forest, please adhere to the following guidelines. These guidelines will help ensure a safe and healthy visit for you and your family, our employees and volunteers, and other visitors: Please keep in mind that restrooms are generally cleaned and disinfected at least once daily at the more popular campgrounds and day use sites, and once to three times a week at other sites. Be prepared to provide your own soap, sanitizer, or disinfectant. If no trash receptacle is provided, please protect your public lands by packing out your waste and trash.
There is a 14-day in 30 rolling days camping limit on the Siuslaw National Forest. The 14 days does not have to be consecutive. The 14-day limit covers the entire Siuslaw National Forest and not just this campground as shown in the Rules Section. This means you cannot go to other campgrounds on the Siuslaw National Forest after reaching the 14-day limit.
Forest Service-operated campsites on the Siuslaw National Forest are currently available by online reservation only. Visitors can make reservations online through this website (preferred), or via phone by calling the recreation.gov phone line at 877-444-6777. If you call this number, please be prepared for longer-than-usual wait times. Please note that the Siuslaw National Forest does not have any control over the recreation.gov phone line, so we ask you to please prepare by making reservations well in advance.
Everything else this campground posts · 5
Sites must occupied within first 24 hours of arrival time. Otherwise unoccupied sites will be considered a "no-show" and will be released.
No off-road vehicle use allowed in campground
For more information on Siuslaw National Forest, click here
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.
Two vehicle maximum per site.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 21
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 30 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…trails. Facilities Drinking water and flush toilets are available and each site has a campfire pit,…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…vehicle riding trails. Facilities Drinking water and flush toilets are available and each site has a…”
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek, Coast
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Night sky · 486th darkest of 770 in OR
- Bortle 2
Nothing to book until it reopensread 15:51 UTC
recreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
Tell me when it reopens
Watch for it to come back
One email when the agency reopens it, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check the agency’s own record once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time it stops saying closed.
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.
Every line of the receipt · 11
What you actually pay
“Campsites that are not occupied after 24 hours of arrival time will be considered as a "no show" and sites will be released for others to reserve. If campers will be arriving after 24 hours of their arrival time, they are encouraged to call the ranger station at 541-271-6000 to let staff know.” · 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 · 5
Why this page can’t say why
recreation.gov lists every site at Carter Lake closed this Friday and Saturday night. The U.S. Forest Service has published no closure notice we hold, so this page can’t say why, and it won’t fill the gap with a guess. A closed night isn’t a sold-out one: the reservations its record still carries were taken before the sites were closed.
There’s no notice to quote and no reason to argue with, so this page offers you the watch and the list below, and no letter.
Open within 60 miles · 4
The agency’s own word that these are open, not our reading of a season.
- Lagoon CampgroundOregon Dunes National Recreation Area · 1.6 mi · 41 sites
- Sutton CampgroundSiuslaw National Forest · 14 mi · 80 sites
- Alder DuneSiuslaw National Forest · 15 mi · 39 sites
- Eel Creek CampgroundOregon Dunes National Recreation Area · 19 mi · 52 sites
recreation.gov availability, read 15:51 UTC · rules read Oct 1, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
21 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 21 mapped sitesAll 21 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. 21 of the 21 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 02 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 125 ft | 242 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 04 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 111 ft | 194 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 05 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 89 ft | 185 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 06 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 58 ft | 193 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 07 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 58 ft | 230 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 08 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 66 ft | 129 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 09 | rv nonelectric | 25 ft | 114 ft | 40 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 10 | rv nonelectric | 30 ft | 66 ft | 126 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 11 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 99 ft | 98 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 12 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 89 ft | 102 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 13 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 114 ft | 33 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 14 | rv nonelectric | 30 ft | 97 ft | 61 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 15 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 102 ft | 138 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 16 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 83 ft | 54 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 17 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 104 ft | 157 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 18 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 83 ft | 62 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 19 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 90 ft | 109 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 20 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 76 ft | 31 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 21 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 61 ft | 124 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 22 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 61 ft | 63 ft | $22 |
| AREA CARTER LAKE | 23 | standard nonelectric | 15 ft | 82 ft | 107 ft | $22 |
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
Waxmyrtle CampgroundOregon Dunes National Recreation Area · 1.3 mi
Lagoon CampgroundOregon Dunes National Recreation Area · 1.6 mi
Siltcoos Sand CampingOregon Dunes National Recreation Area · 1.7 mi
DriftwoodOregon Dunes National Recreation Area · 1.9 mi
Tyee Campground - Oregon DunesOregon Dunes National Recreation Area · 2.3 mi
Tahkenitch LandingOregon Dunes National Recreation Area · 3.9 miFrom Florence, travel south on Highway 101 for about 10 miles. The entrance to Carter Lake Campground is on the west (right) side of Highway 101.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Dunes City, OR
Typical weather
Typical May night 44°F, day 60°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical May night 44°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
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.
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
Carter Lake is in Oregon’s 4th congressional district. Its representative, Val Hoyle (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →