U.S. Forest Service · Gifford Pinchot National Forest · WA
Cultus Creek Campground
3Heads up3 fires, nearest 21 mi
Wildfire
High Lava fire · 21 mi away · 2,899 acres · 100% contained · updated Oct 16, 2026
Wildfire
Mckinley fire · 42 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 14, 2026
Wildfire
Latigo Lane fire · 49 mi away · updated Oct 16, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 16, 2026
The agency doesn’t say how you get a siteIts record carries no access type, so treat it as a place to phone before you drive.
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $15From, per site
Photos · U.S. Forest Service
3,980 ftElevation
165 ftWater · an unnamed stream
20.1 miN of Carson, WA
72%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 193rd darkest of 400 in WA
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
Cultus Creek campground is located in a pristine wooded setting on the boundary of Indian Heaven Wilderness . The trailhead for a Indian Heaven Trail #33 , a popular and challenging trail into the Wilderness, is located in the campground. The campground is also near traditional huckleberry picking fields which makes it quite popular in huckleberry season.
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Fall color · reported 9 days ago, 22 km away
- Patchy color
Source: Stated in the agency description
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (22 km) · Oct 8, 2026
Phone before you drive
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.
Booking window6 months outBooking opens 6 months ahead; today unlocks arrivals through April 16, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
A night$15Per site, fromthe agency’s fee record
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Every line of the receipt · 5
What you actually pay
The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
A night, from$15
The booking feerecreation.gov
We hold no recreation.gov booking record for this campground, so we can’t say whether a booking fee applies.
What this campground addsits own record
Extra vehicleSee the note
“Camping: $15/night (single & double sites), $5/extra vehicle Day use: $5/vehicle/day” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record
What a stay costs
One night, fromDerived$15
A weekend, Friday and Saturday, fromDerived$30
Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($15), 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 · 6
Sign price: Derived by CAMPANAC from the U.S. Forest Service fee record: a stated per-night amount only · Sep 7, 2026
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
What this campground adds: The U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record and notices for this campground, quoted verbatim. An extra-vehicle charge is set locally and appears on no national schedule, so it’s never assumed. · Aug 24, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Also near here
Cultus Creek CG (WA) Gifford Pinchot NFGifford Pinchot National Forest · 0.0 mi
Tillicum CampgroundGifford Pinchot National Forest · 5.4 miCat Creek CampgroundGifford Pinchot National Forest · 5.7 miCody HorsecampGifford Pinchot National Forest · 5.7 mi
Forlorn Lakes CG (WA) Gifford Pinchot NFGifford Pinchot National Forest · 5.7 mi
Goose Lake CampgroundGifford Pinchot National Forest · 5.7 mi
Cultus Creek CG (WA) Gifford Pinchot NFGifford Pinchot National Forest · 0.0 miTillicum CampgroundGifford Pinchot National Forest · 5.4 miCat Creek CampgroundGifford Pinchot National Forest · 5.7 miCody HorsecampGifford Pinchot National Forest · 5.7 miForlorn Lakes CG (WA) Gifford Pinchot NFGifford Pinchot National Forest · 5.7 miGoose Lake CampgroundGifford Pinchot National Forest · 5.7 miSource: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
Tonight44°Mostly Cloudy then Chance Light Rain33% rain
Saturday47°Chance Light Rain then Partly Sunny49% rain
Saturday Night33°Areas Of Frost
Sunday50°Partly Sunny
NWS forecast for Trout Lake, WA
Source: National Weather Service, PQR forecast office · Oct 17, 2026
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 9, 2026
Who answers for this land
Cultus Creek Campground is in Washington’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: C. See every public-lands vote →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: U.S. Forest Service’s own recreation database flags it not open and publishes no reason and no date. That’s a flag, not a notice.
Listed not open: USFS EDW Recreation Opportunities, openstatus field: a not-open flag in a database, with no reason and no date published; read there since Sep 9, 2026. A flag, not a notice, so this page doesn’t call it a closure. · Oct 16, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Tree cover: NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC), one 30 m cell at this coordinate · Sep 9, 2026
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (22 km) · Oct 8, 2026
Reported by: iNaturalist fall color observations, reported patchy color · Oct 8, 2026
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: Trout Lake, WA, 9 mi WNW (a census designated place). Straight line.