Cripple Creek Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $12From, per site
- Sites
- 18All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
Cripple Creek Campground- Located at milepost 60 o f the Steese Highway, Cripple Creek Campground has 12 first come first served universal design campsites, as well as 6 walk-in campsites. The campground also has a riverside day use area with fishing access along the Chatanika River. Winding through tall white spruce trees along the river between the day use area and the campground is a short interpretive trail for visitors. A class I-II float trip to the Upper Chatanika State Recreation Site at milepost 39 is approximately 25 miles (40 km) long. Keep reading
Occasional low water and log jams may require some boat dragging or portaging. The campground is maintained during the summer season, June through mid-September. The campground has a hand pump well for non-potable water, trash cans, and outhouse style toilets. Each campsite has a parking area, picnic tables, and fire rings. Fees- $12 per night per site (sites 1-12) on a first come basis. $6 per night per walk in site (Walk-in-sites T1-T-6) on a first come basis. Directions- Blacktop highway accessible. Campground is at mile 60 on the Steese Highway, northeast of Fairbanks, Alaska.
Recreation
Hiking the short interprative trail along the Chatanika River, fishing, floating, day trip into the Nome Creek Valley.
Nearby Attractions
Nome Creek Valley, Quartz Creek Trail, Table Top Trail, Pinnell Mt. Trail, Chatanika River, Nome Creek, Beaver Creek Wild and Scenic River Put-in.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 18 · 6 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Yes, the record doesn't say what kind
- “The campground has a hand pump well for non-potable water, trash cans, and outhouse style toilets.”
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek
- Biking
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Gold Panning
- Hiking
- Kayaking
- Rafting
- Water access
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.
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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 · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $12 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
18 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 18 mapped sites18 sites share one published coordinate and are left out of the rankings.
All 18 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 18 of the 18 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 12 of the 18 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Cripple Creek | 1 | standard nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | $12 |
| Cripple Creek | 10 | standard nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | $12 |
| Cripple Creek | 11 | standard nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | $12 |
| Cripple Creek | 12 | standard nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | $12 |
| Cripple Creek | 2 | standard nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | $12 |
| Cripple Creek | 3 | standard nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | $12 |
| Cripple Creek | 4 | standard nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | $12 |
| Cripple Creek | 5 | standard nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | $12 |
| Cripple Creek | 6 | standard nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | $12 |
| Cripple Creek | 7 | standard nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | $12 |
| Cripple Creek | 8 | standard nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | $12 |
| Cripple Creek | 9 | standard nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | $12 |
| Cripple Creek | T1 | tent only nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | |
| Cripple Creek | T2 | tent only nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | |
| Cripple Creek | T3 | tent only nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | |
| Cripple Creek | T4 | tent only nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | |
| Cripple Creek | T5 | tent only nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft | |
| Cripple Creek | T6 | tent only nonelectric | under 10 ft | 379 ft |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Mount Prindle CampgroundEastern Interior Field Office · 6.5 mi
Ophir Creek CampgroundEastern Interior Field Office · 14 mi
White Mountains National Recreation Area - Alaska CabinsEastern Interior Field Office · 20 miDirections- Blacktop highway accessible. Campground is at mile 60 on the Steese Highway, northeast of Fairbanks, Alaska.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Pleasant Valley, AK
Typical weather
Typical October night 15°F, day 34°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.
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
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
Cripple Creek Campground 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 →