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U.S. Forest Service · Shoshone National Forest · WY

Dead Indian Campground

1Heads up1 fire 36 mi away
Wildfire
Monk fire · 36 mi away · 41 acres · updated Sep 29, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Sep 29, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
A night
$15From, per site
Drawn from the record · 6,020 ft · 0% tree cover · Dead Indian Creek within reach · Bortle 2 sky
6,020 ftElevation
100 ftWater · Dead Indian Creek
21.9 miNW of Cody, WY
0%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 87th darkest of 248 in WY

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

This campground hosts 10 campsites and a trailhead across State Highway 296. The trail climbs along Dead Indian Creek, through the Absaroka Wilderness, across Dead Indian Meadows, and up to the summit of Dead Indian Peak. 16-day stay limit This site is not accessible to persons with mobility impairments No cell service Notes: Adjacent corrals at trailhead across Hwy 296. Maximum spur 32 feet.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Cell signal
Little or none
Source: Stated in the agency description

Around the campground

On the water
Creek, Meadow
Cell signal · Cell signal · Forest Service says
None
Source: Stated in the agency description
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. · Sep 8, 2026

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and a night costs $15 with nothing added. 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 night$15Per site, fromthe agency’s fee record
A weekend$30DerivedFriday and Saturday, everything includedours, from the lines above
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 6

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
A night, from$15
Overnight Use: Single Site: $15/night.
Interagency Senior/Access Recreation Passes provide a 50% discount to Single Campsites ONLY. *The discount applies only to the fee for the campsite physically occupied by the pass holder, not to any additiol fee or campsite(s) occupied by members of the pass holder's party.* https://store.usgs.gov/recreatiol-passes Please be prepared to pay with CASH or CHECK.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
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 · 5
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
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

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate44.75324, -109.41768

Where it is

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

This Afternoon68°Mostly Sunny
Tonight41°Partly Cloudy
Sunday60°Mostly Sunny
Sunday Night40°Mostly Clear

NWS forecast for Cody, WY

Source: National Weather Service, RIW forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 33°F, day 57°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical February night 17°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

90°32°10°

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: WAPITI 1WSW, WY (USC00489467), 20 miles away and 462 ft lower
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

Roadless country, and what’s coming for it

Roadless
Sulphur Creek30,221 acres · 5 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Pat O'hara10,912 acres · 7 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Windy Mountain31,283 acres · 8 mi · inventoried roadless area

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: USFS Inventoried Roadless Areas via MTJP Roadless Map · Jul 29, 2026

Who answers for this land

Harriet Hageman, official portrait

Dead Indian Campground is in Wyoming’s at-large congressional district. Its representative, Harriet Hageman (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.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

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 17, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.029 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 248 rated federal campgrounds in Wyoming · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
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. · Sep 8, 2026

“…accessible to persons with mobility impairments No cell service Notes: Adjacent corrals at trailhead across Hwy 296. Maximum…”

Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026