Doctor Creek
- Right now
- Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
- A night
- $25–$50Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 3430 on recreation.gov
- Season
- May 1 – September 30Open May 1 through September 30
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Doctor Creek Campground is located next to Fish Lake in the Fishlake National Forest of central Utah. Visitors enjoy fishing, boating, wildlife viewing and exploring local trails. Located within the Aspen Pando Clone it is a great explore this world renound natural treasure. View Doctor Creek Campground, Group Site & Dump station Map Recreation Fish Lake is Utah's largest natural mountain lake, covering 2,500 acres. It is famous for its 20-40 pound Mackinaw lake trout. Anglers also enjoy fishing for rainbow trout and splake. Boating, canoeing, swimming and scuba diving are popular activities. The scenic Lakeshore National Recreation Trail extends around the eastern side of the lake. Hikers are rewarded with stunning lake views after climbing 900 feet in elevation. Keep reading
Facilities
The campground contains two group sites that can accommodate up to 150 people each, both with shelters, tables, campfire rings and grills. Several single-family sites are available as well. Mallard Day Use site is located within the campground. Flush toilets and drinking water are provided. A dump station is located at the campground entrance. Roads and parking spurs are paved. Three resorts are located in the Fish Lake Basin, offering camping and fishing supplies, RV parks with hookups, cabin and boat rentals, marinas, gas, restaurants, groceries, laundry facilities and showers. The resorts are open from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
Natural Features
Doctor Creek sits at at an elevation of 9,000 feet on the southern tip of Fish Lake on Mallard Bay. A series of ponds, known as Coots Slough, dot the area just south of the campground. Aspens and cottonwoods provide limited shade in this sagebrush-covered area. Sites on the outer edge of the campground offer excellent lake views but no shade.
Nearby Attractions
The 5-mile Pelican Canyon Trail begins nearby at Bowery Creek Campground. It leads through meadows and dense forests of spruce, pine and aspen as it climbs to the 11,633-foot Fish Lake Hightop. Johnson Valley Reservoir is just north of Fish Lake, offering additional fishing and boating opportunities.
What the agency tells you
This is a high elevation facility; use caution when traveling from lower elevations and be prepared for inclement weather.
Street legal and non-street legal vehicles are allowed for access and egress only.
There are no electricity, water or sewer hookups at the campground.
Everything else this campground posts · 5
This is a 'pack it in-pack it out' facility. Please bring your own garbage bags. Dumpsters are available within Fishlake Basin.
Camping is limited to 16 days.
Any vehicles or trailers that can not fit in the designated site must be relocated to another site purchased at full site price. Check area map for available free parking
Don't Move Firewood: Help prevent the spread of tree-killing pests in our national forests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Discharging a firearm of any kind is prohibited: this includes BB guns, slingshots, paintball guns etc. Take these activities outside of the campground please.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 34 · 2 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 99 ft
- Accessible sites
- 3
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…site is located within the campground. Flush toilets and drinking water are provided. A dump station is…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…within the campground. Flush toilets and drinking water are provided. A dump station is located at the…”
- Dump station
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, Creek, Coast, Meadow
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 83rd darkest of 458 in UT
- Bortle 2
- Fall color · reported 14 days ago, 0.1 km away
- Patchy color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 30 of the 34 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
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.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
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 · 20
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $25–$50 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
34 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 30 mapped sitesAll 34 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 34 of the 34 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. 34 of the 34 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| DOCT | GRPA | group standard nonelectric | 99 ft | 307 ft | 1,254 ft | 182 ft | $150 | |
| Double | 027 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 100 ft | 873 ft | 285 ft | $25–$50 | |
| Double | 030 | standard nonelectric | 51 ft | 174 ft | 678 ft | 119 ft | $25–$50 | |
| GRPB | GRPB | group standard nonelectric | 99 ft | 307 ft | 1,280 ftFish Lake | 144 ft | $150 | |
| SING | 001 | type not stated | 742 ft | 752 ft | $33.97 | |||
| SING | 0011 | type not stated | 756 ft | 233 ft | $33.97 | |||
| SING | 0012 | type not stated | 680 ft | 145 ft | $33.97 | |||
| SING | 002 | type not stated | 685 ft | 658 ft | $33.97 | |||
| SING | 003 | standard nonelectric | 54 ft | 100 ft | 836 ft | 693 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 004 | standard nonelectric | 55 ft | 100 ft | 796 ft | 596 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 005 | standard nonelectric | 52 ft | 115 ft | 677 ft | 591 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 006 | standard nonelectric | 47 ft | 99 ft | 633 ft | 480 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 007 | standard nonelectric | 62 ft | 99 ft | 718 ft | 435 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 008 | standard nonelectric | 51 ft | 84 ft | 607 ft | 384 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 009 | standard nonelectric | 56 ft | yes | 84 ft | 615 ft | 302 ft | $25–$50 |
| SING | 010 | standard nonelectric | 52 ft | 95 ft | 703 ft | 318 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 011 | standard nonelectric | 47 ft | 102 ft | 675 ft | 160 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 012 | standard nonelectric | 58 ft | 102 ft | 733 ft | 218 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 013 | standard nonelectric | 47 ft | 132 ft | 899 ft | 135 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 014 | standard nonelectric | 44 ft | 107 ft | 1,063 ft | 283 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 015 | standard nonelectric | 48 ft | 63 ft | 1,020 ft | 266 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 016 | standard nonelectric | 46 ft | 74 ft | 1,153 ft | 380 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 017 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 63 ft | 1,079 ft | 329 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 018 | standard nonelectric | 46 ft | yes | 74 ft | 1,155 ft | 400 ft | $25–$50 |
| SING | 019 | standard nonelectric | 47 ft | 79 ft | 1,176 ft | 460 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 020 | standard nonelectric | 43 ft | 45 ft | 1,098 ft | 384 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 021 | standard nonelectric | 47 ft | 45 ft | 1,083 ft | 394 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 022 | standard nonelectric | 46 ft | 136 ft | 1,013 ft | 491 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 023 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | yes | 100 ft | 971 ft | 355 ft | $25–$50 |
| SING | 024 | standard nonelectric | 47 ft | 72 ft | 885 ft | 441 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 025 | standard nonelectric | 49 ft | 72 ft | 841 ft | 395 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 026 | standard nonelectric | 49 ft | 80 ft | 798 ft | 329 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 028 | standard nonelectric | 57 ft | 98 ft | 727 ft | 246 ft | $25–$50 | |
| SING | 029 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 98 ft | 805 ft | 191 ft | $25–$50 |
25 of 34 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Twin Creeks PicnicFishlake National Forest · 1.9 mi
MackinawFishlake National Forest · 2.5 mi
Bowery Creek CampgroundFishlake National Forest · 3.0 mi
Bowery CreekFishlake National Forest · 4.2 mi
Frying PanFishlake National Forest · 6.6 miFrom Highway 24 northwest of Loa, Utah, take Highway 25 northeast approximately 7 miles to the campground.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Koosharem, UT
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
Doctor Creek is in Utah’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Celeste Maloy (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →