Dispersed Camping Areas (Undeveloped Campground)

First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

What we know about getting in

Right now: Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Dispersed Camping (Undeveloped Camping) The Forest Service uses the term "Dispersed Camping" to mean that visitors to the Forest are camping outside of a developed campground facility. This means that visitors are simply finding a place in the forest where they can drive to in order to camp for free where no development other than a road exists. General Camping (Tent, Car, or RV camping) anywhere in the National Forest OUTSIDE of a designated campground. In undeveloped areas of the forest, there are no services (such as potable water and trash removal) and generally no facilities (such as tables and restrooms. Keep reading

) Stay limits on the Bridger-Teton National Forest are generally 16 days with the exception of the Jackson Ranger District and Moran area. After 16 days you must move 5 road miles from your original campsite. After an additional 7 days, you my return to your original campsite if desired. Jackson and Moran Area Dispersed Camping A 5 day stay limit is in effect from May 1 st through Labor Day on the Jackson Ranger District and within certain areas of the Blackrock Ranger District. Special Order 04-04-317 After 5 days, you must move to another Ranger District to camp. You may only return to the Jackson Ranger District after 30 days. A map showing the restricted areas can be found here . Due to over use and high impacts, certain areas in the Jackson Hole Valley have had designated sites numbered for use. This is to help lessen the amount of impact on the resource. These sites are: (maps included) Curtis Canyon Shadow Mountain Toppings Lake and Spread Creek Pacific Creek How to Pick a Campsite/ Camping Etiquette Be respectful of natural setting. Minimize your impact by using established camps, camp on hard surfaces, avoid being directly next to water, and leave the site better than you found it. Be respectful of other campers, keep a decent distance from other campers when possible. Be Bear Aware Food Storage Order is in effect from March 1 through December 1 (order can be extended.) In most of the Pinedale, Blackrock, Grey’s River, and Jackson Ranger Districts. All food, attractants, and refuse must be acceptably stored or acceptably possessed during daytime hours. Bear Canisters (certified and properly used) Within Secured vehicles and hard sided trailers (no open top jeeps/ pickup beds) Properly Hung from trees/ poles (10ft up off the ground and 4ft from vertical pole)

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Around the campground

On the water: Lake, River, Creek

Source: Stated in the agency description · Aug 23, 2026

Official page →

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. 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 agency’s record

Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record

Every line of the receipt · 3

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service

The U.S. Forest Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.

The booking feerecreation.gov

Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.

What a stay costs

The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.

How we know this receipt · 4

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: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗

The weather

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

The land, and who answers for it

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from

Right now: U.S. Forest Service publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate.

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.