Cougar Crossing Campground
1Heads up1 fire 32 mi away
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 28 of the next 30 nights read 15:49 UTC
- A night
- $18From, per site
- Sites
- 1110 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Cougar Crossing Campground is located on Forest Road 19 about 10 miles south of the Hwy 126 junction. Keep reading
Recreation
Hiking is popular as the Three Sisters Wilderness, French Pete Trail, Box Canyon Trail, Indian Ridge Lookout, and Cougar Recreation Area are nearby. Many folks also come to the area to bathe at Terwilliger Hot Springs (clothing optional). There is creek and river access, and opportunities for lake recreation. When the reservoir lake level is high, there is a primitive boat launch across from the campground available for use.
Facilities
Cougar Crossing offers 11 sites that can accommodate either RV or tent camping. Vault toilets are provided. There is firewood for sale. The interior roads and spurs are gravel. There is no drinking water.
Natural Features
Nestled in among a mix of conifers, the campground rests beside the South Fork of the McKenzie River and the south end of Cougar Reservoir. It is the closest campground to Terwilliger Hot Springs. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (801) 226-3564.
Nearby Attractions
The campground and nearby Terwilliger Hot Springs have a colorful history and attract many visitors year round. There is plenty to explore at nearby trails and Three Sisters Wilderness.
What the agency tells you
Bring your own water for drinking, washing, etc.
There are no electric site hook-ups for this facility.
This campground has first-come, first-served sites.
Everything else this campground posts · 7
Limit 1 vehicle per site, there is a fee for additional vehicles.
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 discharging firearms, possession of fireworks or use of chainsaws allowed
Be bear aware; keep all food out of sight in approved containers or locked inside your vehicle and remove all food from the area after eating
Any accepted senior passes must be entered for the discount at the time of booking for single sites only.
Be sure to reserve a site that will accommodate your equipment. The site you reserve is your site. You may not move to another site.
Customer Service Contact 801-226-3564 or Help.Willamette.McKenzieRiver@AmericanLL.com
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 11
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 40 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…accommodate either RV or tent camping. Vault toilets are provided. There is firewood for sale. The…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…The interior roads and spurs are gravel. There is no drinking water. Natural Features Nestled in among a mix of…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Firewood
- Sold here
Around the campground
- On the water
- Hot springs, Reservoir, Lake, River, Creek
- Night sky · 369th darkest of 770 in OR
- Bortle 2
Full this Saturdayread 15:49 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot reservable
Every one of the 4 sites on offer is taken this Saturday. 6 are free on Tue, Oct 20. read 15:49 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $18 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
recreation.gov availability, read 15:49 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
11 sites
All 11 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 10 of the 11 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| COUGAR CROSSING | 01 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | $18 |
| COUGAR CROSSING | 05 | type not stated | 30 ft | |
| COUGAR CROSSING | 08 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | $18 |
| COUGAR CROSSING | 09 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | $18 |
| COUGAR CROSSING | 11 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | $18 |
| COUGAR CROSSING CAMPGROUND | 02 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $18 |
| COUGAR CROSSING CAMPGROUND | 03 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $18 |
| COUGAR CROSSING CAMPGROUND | 04 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | $18 |
| COUGAR CROSSING CAMPGROUND | 06 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $18 |
| COUGAR CROSSING CAMPGROUND | 10 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | $18 |
| COUGAR CROSSING CAMPGROUND | 12 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | $18 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Sunnyside CampgroundWillamette National Forest · 0.1 mi
Slide CreekWillamette National Forest · 1.2 mi
French Pete CampgroundWillamette National Forest · 1.2 mi
Hard Rock CampgroundWillamette National Forest · 1.6 mi
Indian Ridge LookoutWillamette National Forest · 4.0 mi
Red Diamond CampgroundWillamette National Forest · 4.5 miFrom Blue River, OR, travel 4 miles east on Highway 126 to Aufderheide Drive (Forest Road 19)*. Proceed south on Aufderheide Drive, taking a right at the Y and climbing to the top of Cougar Reservoir (approximately 4.5 miles). Continue on Aufderheide Drive south 5 miles to find Cougar Crossing Campground where the South Fork of the McKenzie River pours into Cougar Reservoir. *Forest Service Rd 19 is not maintained for snow and ice in the winter
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Oakridge, OR
Typical weather
Typical October night 48°F, day 68°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 39°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
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 · a letter you can send
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
Cougar Crossing Campground is in Oregon’s 4th congressional district. Its representative, Val Hoyle (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyVal T. HoyleU.S. Representative · Oregon’s 4th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJeff MerkleyU.S. Senator · Oregon
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRon WydenU.S. Senator · Oregon
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Cougar Crossing Campground, Willamette National Forest, Oregon
Dear Val T. Hoyle, I’m a constituent in Oregon’s 4th district. I tried to camp at Cougar Crossing Campground, Willamette National Forest, Oregon, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 10 of the 11 campsites the agency files at Cougar Crossing Campground, and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 4 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Cougar Crossing Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Cougar Crossing Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Cougar Crossing Campground (Willamette National Forest, Oregon) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Cougar Crossing Campground, Willamette National Forest, Oregon
Dear Jeff Merkley, I’m a constituent in Oregon. I tried to camp at Cougar Crossing Campground, Willamette National Forest, Oregon, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 10 of the 11 campsites the agency files at Cougar Crossing Campground, and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 4 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Cougar Crossing Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Cougar Crossing Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Cougar Crossing Campground (Willamette National Forest, Oregon) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Cougar Crossing Campground, Willamette National Forest, Oregon
Dear Ron Wyden, I’m a constituent in Oregon. I tried to camp at Cougar Crossing Campground, Willamette National Forest, Oregon, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 10 of the 11 campsites the agency files at Cougar Crossing Campground, and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 4 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Cougar Crossing Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Cougar Crossing Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Cougar Crossing Campground (Willamette National Forest, Oregon) via campanac.com