U.S. Forest Service · Ochoco National Forest · OR

Cottonwood Campground

First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
A night
FreeNo camping fee
Drawn from the record · 5,730 ft · 23% tree cover · water within reach · Bortle 1 sky
5,730 ftElevation
2,756 ftWater · an unnamed stream
40.6 miNE of Juniper Canyon, OR
23%Tree cover
Bortle 1Night sky · 34th darkest of 770 in OR

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

This very rustic, primitive camp is located near Rock Creek and the route of the Historic Summit Trail. The small campground offers seven camp sites interspersed with aspen and surrounded by a mixed conifer forest, which provides shade during summer months. Just a short distance away is a former gravel pit now filled with water in which visitors enjoy a summer swim. For thos looking for a great mountain bike ride on old two-track roads in a remote, challenging setting, this may just be the place!

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Creek
Source: Stated in the agency description

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and it costs nothing at all. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe record
A nightFreeNo camping feethe agency’s fee record
A weekendNothingDerivedFriday and Saturday, everything includedours, from the lines above
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Every line of the receipt · 4

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
Camping feeFree
This is a free facility.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
A night, and a whole weekendDerivedNothing

Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s own record says there’s no camping fee, and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.

How we know this receipt · 5
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this

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Getting there

the map and the coordinate

The weather

the next four days

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Overnight42°Mostly Cloudy
Saturday59°Mostly Sunny
Saturday Night33°Partly Cloudy
Sunday57°Mostly Sunny

NWS forecast for Dayville, OR

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

Roadless country, and what’s coming for it

Roadless
Rock Creek11,396 acres · 3 mi · inventoried roadless area

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Who answers for this land

Cliff Bentz, official portrait

Cottonwood 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 →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: U.S. Forest Service publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate.
Cell signal: the Forest Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest place of any size: Dayville, OR, 16.4 mi WSW. Straight line.