Cougar Rock Group Campground
5Heads up5 fires, nearest 11 mi
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- Sites
- 5All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Cougar Rock Group Campground, on the southwest side of Mt. Rainier National Park, is conveniently located near Paradise. Group campsite reservations can be made on this page. Individual campsites are reservable via Cougar Rock Campground. Paradise is the most popular destination in the park, with a lodge and visitor center, many miles of hiking trails and a commanding view of the mountain. The main attraction at Mount Rainier National Park is the mountain itself, a glacier-clad volcano of immense proportions. At 14,411 feet, it dominates the skyline for hundreds of miles. Keep reading
Visitors travel through majestic old-growth forest, past tumbling waterfalls and historic buildings to reach sub-alpine meadows, where world-famous wildflower displays are seen through July and August. Popular activities in the park include sight-seeing, hiking, rock climbing and camping. The Cougar Rock area is located at an elevation of 3,180 feet. Summers are dry and cool with daytime temperatures in the 60 to 80-degree range. Weather throughout the park can be variable, so visitors should come prepared.
Recreation
From the facility, experienced hikers and backpackers can access the well-known, strenuous but beautiful Wonderland Trail, which encircles the park for 93 miles. For those who enjoy learning more about the park's natural and cultural history, there is an on-site amphitheater where interpretive programs are held.
Facilities
The group campground has five campsites and is located within the general Cougar Rock Campground. Sites are relatively rustic, but have drinking water, flush toilets and picnic tables. All group campsites must be reserved. Visitors must use extra caution with food storage, as foxes and other animals have been known to frequent the campground looking for food.
Natural Features
The campground has one lookout point from which campers can view Mt. Rainier. Although it is peaceful now, the still-active volcano last erupted in the mid 1800s. The campground is adjacent to the Nisqually River and is surrounded by thick forests. A short drive to Paradise in summer reveals fields of lush wildflowers.
Nearby Attractions
Mount Rainier National Park is about 50 miles southeast of the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area.
What the agency tells you
No RVs allowed in the group sites.
The number of vehicles per site is limited to 5 passenger vehicles.
No firewood gathering is allowed.
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Please store food properly to protect wildlife.
This area is subject to sudden and severe geological hazards such as flooding, landslides and rock fall.
Don't Move Firewood: Help protect our forests! Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. Moving firewood is illegal in some states. Visit dontmovefirewood.org to learn more.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 5 · 5 tent-only, 5 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 20 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…rustic, but have drinking water, flush toilets and picnic tables. All group campsites must be…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…Sites are relatively rustic, but have drinking water, flush toilets and picnic tables. All group…”
- Stay limit
- 28 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Waterfall, River, Meadow
- Hiking
- Ranger programs
- Picnicking
- Visitor center
- Night sky · 327th darkest of 400 in WA
- Bortle 3
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 9
What you actually pay
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 · 4
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
5 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 5 mapped sitesAll 5 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 5 of the 5 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
| Loop F-Group | F001 | group tent only area nonelectric | 20 ft | 170 ft | 1,034 ft | 298 ft |
| Loop F-Group | F002 | group tent only area nonelectric | 20 ft | 166 ft | 1,060 ft | 241 ft |
| Loop F-Group | F003 | group tent only area nonelectric | 20 ft | 166 ft | 896 ft | 91 ft |
| Loop F-Group | F004 | group tent only area nonelectric | 20 ft | 114 ft | 870 ft | 168 ft |
| Loop F-Group | F005 | group tent only area nonelectric | 20 ft | 114 ft | 874 ft | 278 ft |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Cougar Rock CampgroundMount Rainier National Park · 0.0 miBig Creek Campground8.6 mi
Big Creek (Gifford Pinchot National Forest, WA)Snoqualmie National Forest · 8.6 mi
Ohanapecosh CampgroundMount Rainier National Park · 11 mi
Ohanapecosh Group CampgroundMount Rainier National Park · 11 mi
La Wis Wis CampgroundGifford Pinchot National Forest · 12 miCougar Rock Campground is located 14 miles east of Ashford, Washington, on State Route 706/Paradise Road.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Ashford, WA
Typical weather
Typical October night 35°F, day 55°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 25°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
Cougar Rock Group Campground is in Washington’s 8th congressional district. Its representative, Kim Schrier (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A. See every public-lands vote →