Contorta Flat Campground
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $21–$46Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 18All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Contorta Flat is an isolated, hidden gem on the far side of Crescent Lake at the top of the Willamette Pass. There are excellent tent sites right on the lake as well as many sites that are ideal for large RVs. You will need to go a little off the beaten path by taking a gravel road for the last few miles to find this nice quiet campground. The sites are all close to the lake and large, but not isolated from one another. This campground might be the best deal in the Oregon Cascades. Keep reading
Recreation
Crescent Lake is a prime location for boating, fishing and swimming. The Summit Lake Trail is popular among hikers and mountain bikers, offering excellent views of Diamond Peak across Crescent Lake. Visitors can take advantage of skiing, snowshoeing and snowmobiling in the winter months. Crescent Lake Snowpark offers a base camp for exciting winter excursions. The Summit Lake Trail is open to snowmobiling.
Facilities
With 19 campsites this campground is well suited to tent, trailer or RV campers. Many sites are located right on the water. Nearby Crescent Lake Resort also offers lodging and a general store. Supplies and equipment rentals are also available.
Natural Features
Cresent Lake is nestled in a glacier basin east of the towering Cascade Mountain Range. It boasts brilliant blue-green water and sandy beaches. A forest of lodgepole pine provides the backdrop to the area, with mountain hemlock, fir and spruce in the mix. Wildlife found in the area includes deer, native fish and migratory birds.
Nearby Attractions
Visitors can explore wilderness areas, rivers, lakes and reservoirs, and approximately 1,600 miles of trails that comprise nearly 2.5 million acres within the Deschutes National Forest and the adjacent Ochoco National Forest. Lava Lands Visitor Center in nearby Bend, Oregon, and the unique geological landscape of Newberry National Volcanic Monument draw visitors to the region as well. Visitors enjoy traveling the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway, known as Oregon's Highway in the Sky, which climbs into the clouds on a 66-mile drive through the Cascade Range, weaving past snow-capped peaks and alpine lakes.
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
Please Note: One RV with tow vehicle per single site or one vehicle per single tent site. Two RV’S with tow vehicle per double site or two vehicles per double 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.
During your time in Central Oregon, you can find wildfire, prescribed fire and smoke information at centraloregonfire.org
Everything else this campground posts · 5
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).
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.
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.
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
- 18 · 4 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 40 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Store
- Nearby
- Stay limit
- 28 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Beach
- Night sky · 218th darkest of 770 in OR
- Bortle 2
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 16:49 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
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.
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 · 15
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $21–$46 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 16:49 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
19 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 18 mapped sitesAll 19 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. 18 of the 19 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Contorta Flat Campground | 019 HOST | host pad | 40 ft | 246 ft | ||
| Northern Edge | 001 | tent only nonelectric | 16 ft | 39 ft | 62 ft | $21 |
| Northern Edge | 002 | tent only nonelectric | 16 ft | 32 ft | 98 ft | $21 |
| Northern Edge | 003 | tent only nonelectric | 16 ft | 32 ft | 126 ft | $21 |
| Northern Edge | 004 | tent only nonelectric | 16 ft | 34 ft | 154 ft | $21 |
| Northern Edge | 005 Multi | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 36 ft | 188 ft | $21–$46 |
| Northern Edge | 006 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 47 ft | 230 ft | $21–$46 |
| Northern Edge | 007 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 29 ft | 175 ft | $21–$46 |
| Northern Edge | 008 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 29 ft | 225 ft | $21–$46 |
| Northern Edge | 009 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 28 ft | 159 ft | $21–$46 |
| Northern Edge | 010 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 29 ft | 203 ft | $21–$46 |
| Northern Edge | 011 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 28 ft | 153 ft | $21–$46 |
| Northern Edge | 012 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 36 ft | 181 ft | $21–$46 |
| Northern Edge | 013 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 32 ft | 134 ft | $21–$46 |
| Northern Edge | 014 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 69 ft | 141 ft | $21–$46 |
| Southern Edge | 015 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 70 ft | 227 ft | $21–$46 |
| Southern Edge | 016 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 33 ft | 264 ft | $21–$46 |
| Southern Edge | 017 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 33 ft | 295 ft | $21–$46 |
| Southern Edge | 018 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 38 ft | 269 ft | $21–$46 |
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
Contorta Point Group CampDeschutes National Forest · 0.6 mi
SpringDeschutes National Forest · 1.0 mi
Windy Group CampDeschutes National Forest · 1.7 mi
Whitefish Horse CampDeschutes National Forest · 1.8 mi
Simax Group CampDeschutes National Forest · 3.0 mi
Crescent Lake CampgroundDeschutes National Forest · 3.2 miFrom Crescent, OR: Travel 12.2 miles west on County Road 61/Crescent Cut-off Road, then 3.5 miles north on Highway 58, then 9.9 miles southwest on Forest Road 60.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Crescent Lake, OR
Typical weather
Typical October night 30°F, day 55°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December 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 Augusts are colder than the August 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
Contorta Flat 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 →