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

Cottonwood Pit 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 · 5,630 ft · 36% tree cover · water within reach · Bortle 1 sky
5,630 ftElevation
299 ftWater · an unnamed pond
39.4 miNE of Juniper Canyon, OR
36%Tree cover
Bortle 1Night sky · 33rd darkest of 770 in OR

The place

the agency’s own description

In the agency’s own words

As you may have guessed, this campground is located in an old gravel pit. When the excavation hit the water table and the pit was filled in with water the operations ceased and the site was abandoned. Now this campground is locally known as a swimming hole, and is also occasionally stocked with trout.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

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 · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Overnight42°Mostly Cloudy
Saturday61°Mostly Sunny
Saturday Night34°Partly Cloudy
Sunday59°Mostly Sunny

NWS forecast for Dayville, OR

Typical weather

Typical October night 21°F, day 60°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 11°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

90°32°0°

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.

Measured at: SENECA, OR (USC00357675), 47 miles away and 970 ft lower

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 · 4 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 Pit 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, 17.6 mi WSW. Straight line.