Cooper Creek South
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $23–$33Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 2221 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
In the agency’s own words
Located along Cooper Creek and the Kenai River, Cooper Creek South Campground presents a beautiful wooded area with sweeping mountain views within close proximity to many recreational opportunities. Keep reading
Recreation
Sockeye (Red) salmon fishing is a popular activity on the nearby Kenai and Russian Rivers, and both boat and bank fishing offer excellent catches. The nearby Resurrection Pass Trail takes hikers and bikers on a 38-mile scenic adventure that climbs from 500 to 2,600 feet.
Facilities
Cooper Creek South offers about 20 campsites available for advanced reservation. Amenities include drinking water, vault toilets, picnic tables, campfire rings and dumpsters. Parking aprons are gravel and parking is limited. A dump station is available for a fee at nearby Quartz Creek Campground.
Natural Features
At an elevation of 400 feet, Cooper Creek South sits among a spruce and cottonwood forest. The Chugach National Forest covers 5 million acres and is comprised of arid tundra wilderness, jagged mountains, deep fjords, glacier-fed rivers and the Prince William Sound. Contact Info For local information, please call (907) 522-8368 or call (907) 288-3178 for general information.
What the agency tells you
Bears have damaged tents and soft-sided trailers in past years within these campgrounds. For your safety and the safety of others, please store all attractants - food, garbage, hygiene items, anything with a smell - within a hard-sided vehicle or in the storage locker provided on site. Be aware and advised that bear incidents within either campground may trigger immediate prohibitions on tent and soft-sided vehicle camping through an Emergency Order signed by the Forest Supervisor and campers using these types of shelters will be required to vacate the campground.
Click here for more information on Chugach National Forest
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by purchasing firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 22
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Accessible sites
- 2
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…Amenities include drinking water, vault toilets, picnic tables, campfire rings and dumpsters.…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…advanced reservation. Amenities include drinking water, vault toilets, picnic tables, campfire rings and…”
- Dump station
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek
- Boating
- Fishing
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 232nd darkest of 280 in AK
- Bortle 2
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 21 of the 22 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 · 14
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $23–$33 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
30 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 20 mapped sitesAll 30 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. 22 of the 30 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.
| AREA COOPER CREEK SOUTH | XXX | unnamed record | 99 ft | yes | $33 | ||
| AREA COOPER CREEK SOUTH | XXX1 | unnamed record | $33 | ||||
| AREA COOPER CREEK SOUTH | XXX2 | unnamed record | $33 | ||||
| AREA COOPER CREEK SOUTH | XXX3 | unnamed record | $33 | ||||
| AREA COOPER CREEK SOUTH | XXX4 | unnamed record | $33 | ||||
| AREA COOPER CREEK SOUTH | XXX5 | unnamed record | $33 | ||||
| AREA COOPER CREEK SOUTH | XXX6 | unnamed record | $33 | ||||
| AREA COOPER CREEK SOUTH | XXX7 | unnamed record | $33 | ||||
| COOP | 002 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 90 ft | 327 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 003 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 92 ft | 392 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 004 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 104 ft | 366 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 005 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 92 ft | 470 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 006 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 92 ft | 477 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 007 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 85 ft | 372 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 008 | standard nonelectric | 33 ft | 107 ft | 465 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 009 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 85 ft | 359 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 011 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 153 ft | 246 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 012 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 97 ft | 193 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 013 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 97 ft | 113 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 014 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 98 ft | 221 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 015 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 98 ft | 128 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 017 | standard nonelectric | 34 ft | 102 ft | 89 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 018 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 102 ft | 98 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 020 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 71 ft | 240 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 021 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 103 ft | 223 ft | $23–$33 | |
| COOP | 022 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 71 ft | 301 ft | $23–$33 | |
| DBLS | 001 | type not stated | 45 ft | yes | 299 ft | $33 | |
| DBLS | 010 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | yes | $23–$33 | ||
| DBLS | 016 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 103 ft | 187 ft | $23–$33 | |
| DBLS | 019 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 111 ft | 135 ft | $23–$33 |
The agency files 8 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It types every one of them MANAGEMENT rather than a campsite. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
25 of 30 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Russian RiverChugach National Forest · 3.1 mi
Trout Lake CabinChugach National Forest · 4.7 mi
Barber Cabin (Chugach National Forest, AK)Chugach National Forest · 4.8 miQuartz Creek CampgroundChugach National Forest · 5.3 mi
Romig CabinChugach National Forest · 6.0 mi
Juneau Lake CabinChugach National Forest · 6.4 miFrom Anchorage, go south on Seward Highway to Sterling Highway. Turn towards Soldotna at the 'Y' junction. Cooper Creek Campground is at Milepost 50.7 of the Sterling Highway, on the opposite side of the river.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Cooper Landing, AK
Typical weather
Typical October night 31°F, day 41°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 16°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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Cooper Creek South is in Alaska’s at-large congressional district. Its representative, Nick Begich (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →