Coeur D'alene
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $16–$28Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 5650 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Coeur d'Alene Campground is situated on Melvern Lake on the eastern edge of the Flint Hills of Kansas. Visitors come for the area's wide range of recreational activities, including boating, fishing, hiking and hunting. Find a virtual tour of Melvern Lake at http://www.photographyoptions.net/images/melvern/tour.html Recreation Melvern Lake impounds nearly 7,000 acres of water on the upper reaches of the Marais des Cygnes River Valley. Boating and swimming are popular activities on the lake. Anglers fish for walleye, crappie, channel and flathead catfish, black bass, white bass, striped and smallmouth bass. Keep reading
The 18,000 acres of land surrounding Melvern Lake provide plentiful hiking and hunting opportunities. The two trails that join the campground are the Breakwater Trail and the 4 mile Tall Grass Heritage Trail which connects Coeur d' Alene Campground to Arrow Rock Campground. Hunters may find deer, quail, turkeys, ducks, rabbits and squirrels throughout the area.
Facilities
The campground offers 47 campsites, 33 of which have electric hookups. Site 1 is an accessible site with 50-amp electric, water and sewer hookups. Sites 2-8, 34-43, 50 and 55 have 30-amp electric with water hookups. Sites 44-49, 51-54 and 56-60 are basic 30-amp electric. Two group day-use picnic shelters with electric hookups are available as well. Several family picnic sites can be used on a first come, first served basis. Amenities include flush and vault toilets, showers, drinking water and a dump station. A boat ramp, dock, marina and fish cleaning station are located on-site, as are an overlook, two nature trails, three playgrounds and a swim beach. Click Here for a Virtual Tour (http://www.photographyoptions.net/images/melvern/tour.html)
Natural Features
The Flint Hills represent America's last expanse of intact tallgrass prairie, made up mainly of big bluestem, switchgrass and Indian grass. The rolling hills on the south side of the lake are somewhat wooded, but trees and shade are sparse within the campground. Contact Info For local information, please call (877) 444-6777 or call (785) 549-3318 for general information.
What the agency tells you
Failure to be on site within 24 hours of your reservation check-in time will result in a no-show status
A poilicy of the Corps of Engineers is to require all campers, including camping units, that camping at one or more campsites at any one water resource project for a period longer than 14 days during any 30-consecutive-day period is prohibited.
Don't Move Firewood: Protect your forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. Visit Dontmovefirewood.org for further information.
Everything else this campground posts · 4
For further questions, please call the Melvern Lake Project Office at 785-549-3318.
Melvern Lake virtual tour available at: http://www.photographyoptions.net/images/melvern/tour.html
Generators are allowed on nonelectric sites until quiet hours begin at 10 PM.
For the safety of all visitors, please leave your golf carts at home; only licensed, street-legal vehicles are permitted on project roadways, and off-road driving is prohibited. Unless you get pre-approval from Lake Project Office.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 56
- Hookups
- 33 electric, 20 water, 1 sewer
- Longest rig
- 100 ft
- Paved pads
- 45 of 56
- Accessible sites
- 1
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 2 of 60 campsite records
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “Amenities include flush and vault toilets, showers, drinking water and a dump station.”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…flush and vault toilets, showers, drinking water and a dump station. A boat ramp, dock, marina and…”
- Dump station
- Yes
- recreation.gov lists “Dump Station”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Beach
- Boating
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Night sky · 21st darkest of 57 in KS
- Bortle 4
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 50 of the 56 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 · 18
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $16–$28 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 Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
60 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 50 mapped sitesAll 60 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. 48 of the 60 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Beach Loop | Overlook Shelter | day use | 15 amp | 766 ft | 620 ft | |||
| CASH | CASH | day use | ||||||
| CDEA | 01 | standard electric | 100 ft | 50 amp | yes | 155 ft | 579 ft | $21–$28 |
| CDEA | 02 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 64 ft | 581 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 03 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 73 ft | 616 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 04 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 48 ft | 526 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 05 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 73 ft | 549 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 06 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 48 ft | 484 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 07 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 73 ft | 481 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 08 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 59 ft | 435 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 09 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 78 ft | 407 ftMelvern Lake | $16 | ||
| CDEA | 10 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 66 ft | 325 ftMelvern Lake | $16 | ||
| CDEA | 11 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 51 ft | 276 ftMelvern Lake | $16 | ||
| CDEA | 12 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 51 ft | 243 ftMelvern Lake | $16 | ||
| CDEA | 13 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 85 ft | 193 ftMelvern Lake | $16 | ||
| CDEA | 14 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 109 ft | 133 ftMelvern Lake | $16 | ||
| CDEA | 15 | type not stated | 50 ft | 122 ftMelvern Lake | ||||
| CDEA | 16 | type not stated | 50 ft | 172 ftMelvern Lake | ||||
| CDEA | 17 | type not stated | 50 ft | 177 ftMelvern Lake | ||||
| CDEA | 19 | type not stated | 50 ft | 150 ftMelvern Lake | ||||
| CDEA | 20 | type not stated | 50 ft | 173 ftMelvern Lake | ||||
| CDEA | 21 | type not stated | 50 ft | 166 ftMelvern Lake | ||||
| CDEA | 22 | type not stated | 40 ft | 164 ftMelvern Lake | ||||
| CDEA | 23 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 92 ft | 195 ftMelvern Lake | $16 | ||
| CDEA | 24 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 88 ft | 238 ftMelvern Lake | $16 | ||
| CDEA | 25 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 88 ft | 156 ftMelvern Lake | $16 | ||
| CDEA | 26 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 91 ft | 141 ftMelvern Lake | $16 | ||
| CDEA | 27 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 88 ft | 187 ftMelvern Lake | $16 | ||
| CDEA | 29 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 77 ft | 237 ftMelvern Lake | $16 | ||
| CDEA | 30 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 77 ft | 283 ftMelvern Lake | $16 | ||
| CDEA | 31 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 78 ft | 331 ftMelvern Lake | $16 | ||
| CDEA | 32 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 78 ft | 380 ftMelvern Lake | $16 | ||
| CDEA | 34 | standard electric | 65 ft | 30 amp | 62 ft | 690 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 35 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 47 ft | 656 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 36 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 47 ft | 644 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 37 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 33 ft | 622 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 38 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 33 ft | 615 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 39 | standard electric | 65 ft | 30 amp | 45 ft | 625 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 40 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 45 ft | 583 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 41 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 40 ft | 568 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 42 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 62 ft | 522 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 43 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 40 ft | 532 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 44 | standard electric | 65 ft | 30 amp | 78 ft | 447 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 45 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 43 ft | 422 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 46 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 43 ft | 430 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 47 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 63 ft | 450 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 48 | type not stated | 50 ft | 30 amp | 500 ftMelvern Lake | |||
| CDEA | 49 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 60 ft | 438 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 50 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 60 ft | 491 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 51 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 49 ft | 426 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 52 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 49 ft | 437 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 54 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 61 ft | 475 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 55 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 61 ft | 532 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 56 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 62 ft | 505 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 57 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 65 ft | 528 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 58 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 63 ft | 550 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 59 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 63 ft | 569 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| CDEA | 60 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 66 ft | 599 ftMelvern Lake | $21–$28 | |
| Day Use Loop | Coeur d'Alene Shelter | day use | 15 amp | 766 ft | 593 ftMelvern Lake | |||
| OVSH | OVSH | day use |
The agency files 4 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It files them as day use. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
25 of 60 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Outlet(Melvern)1.3 mi
Arrow Rock2.3 mi
Turkey Point3.9 mi
Carbolyn Park12 mi
Outlet (Pomona Lake)13 mi
Michigan Valley15 miFrom US-75, take the Melvern Exit and travel 2 miles south on Melvern Lake Parkway, then 1 mile northwest on Coeur d'Alene Parkway (campground road).
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Olivet, KS
Typical weather
Typical October night 46°F, day 70°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 20°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
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
Coeur D'alene is in Kansas’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Derek Schmidt (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →