Double Lake Recreation Area
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 30 of the next 30 nights read 15:57 UTC
- A night
- $20–$66Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 43All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices
In the agency’s own words
Double Lake Recreation Area was built in 1937 by the Civilian Conservation Corps and offers a little of everything, including camping, fishing, swimming, picnicking, hiking and simply relaxing in nature. A variety of tent, RV and group campsites are available. Keep reading
Recreation
Double Lake is open for fishing year round. Only boats with small electric motors are allowed. A 5-mile hiking trail leads to Big Creek Scenic Area, and there is access to part of the 128-mile Lone Star Hiking Trail. A 20-mile mountain bike trail meanders around the lake. Swimmers can relax on a sandy beach after taking a cool plunge. Learn more about recreation in the national forest.
Facilities
Double Lake Recreation Area facilities includes family camping units, group camping, picnicking units, a picnic shelter, beach with swimming area and a concession stand with bathhouse.
Natural Features
The area has rolling hills forested with hardwood and pines. The campground is surrounded by the 23-acre Double Lake. Temperatures are moderate to cool from September through May, and hot and humid from June to August. Winters are cool and wet. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (936) 344-6205.
What the agency tells you
PLEASE DO NOT DISPOSE FLUSHABLE WIPES INTO CAMPGROUND WASTEWATER SYSTEM. THESE PRODUCTS CAUSE SIGNIFICANT BLOCKAGE ISSUES AND ARE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH OUR WASTEWATER TREATMENT SYSTEM.
Two vehicles included with each standard site fee; Four vehicles included with group site fee; extra vehicles charged $9 per night on-site
Only two tents and up to eight people are allowed at a single occupancy campsite
Everything else this campground posts · 8
No access from 10 p.m.-6 a.m. for newly arriving campers
Fire permitted in fire rings only
Street Legal Vehicles Only
No alcohol.
Day use fee of $7 per vehicle per day; annual pass $30 per vehicle; walk-in or bicycle $1 per person per day; dump station use $5 per use
Site must be occupied in the first 24 hours of reservations
Click here for more information on National Forests and Grasslands in Texas
Don't Move Firewood: Help protect our forests! Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. Moving firewood is illegal in some states. Visit dontmovefirewood.org to learn more.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 43 · 10 tent-only, 9 group
- Hookups
- 22 electric, 22 water, 10 sewer
- Longest rig
- 45 ft
- Paved pads
- 10 of 43
- Accessible sites
- 18
- Pets
- Allowed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Drinking water
- Yes
- DRINKING WATER (PEAK SEASON) on 2 of 45 campsite records
- Store
- Nearby
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek, Beach
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Kayaking
- Mountain biking
- Picnicking
- Swimming
- Night sky · 107th darkest of 154 in TX
- Bortle 4
Full this Saturdayread 15:57 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
Every one of the 42 sites on offer is taken this Saturday. 40 are free on Mon, Oct 19. read 15:57 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 19
What you actually pay
“extra vehicles charged $9 per night on-site” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $20–$66 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 · 6
recreation.gov availability, read 15:57 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
45 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 42 mapped sitesAll 45 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 43 of the 45 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| DOUB | 010 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 128 ft | 151 ftDouble Lake | $20 | ||
| DOUB | 011 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 88 ft | 276 ftDouble Lake | $20 | ||
| DOUB | 012 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 85 ft | 204 ftDouble Lake | $20 | ||
| DOUB | 013 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 88 ft | 299 ftDouble Lake | $20 | ||
| DOUB | 015 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 137 ft | 359 ftDouble Lake | $20 | ||
| DOUB | 019 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 99 ft | 275 ftDouble Lake | $20 | ||
| DOUB | 021 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 99 ft | 258 ftDouble Lake | $20 | ||
| GRP | 00A | group tent only area nonelectric | 199 ft | 650 ftDouble Lake | $85 | |||
| GRP | 00B | group tent only area nonelectric | 199 ft | 744 ftDouble Lake | $85 | |||
| GRP | 00C | group tent only area nonelectric | 262 ft | 394 ftDouble Lake | $85 | |||
| GRP | 00D | group tent only area nonelectric | 218 ft | 676 ftDouble Lake | $85 | |||
| GRP | 00E | group tent only area nonelectric | 218 ft | 484 ftDouble Lake | $85 | |||
| GRP | 00F | group tent only area nonelectric | 130 ft | 78 ftDouble Lake | $85 | |||
| GRP | 00G | group tent only area nonelectric | 229 ft | 240 ftDouble Lake | $85 | |||
| GRP | 00I | group tent only area nonelectric | 130 ft | 99 ftDouble Lake | $85 | |||
| GRP | 00J | group tent only area nonelectric | 191 ft | 27 ftDouble Lake | $85 | |||
| GRP | Lodge | day use | yes | |||||
| GRP | Picnic Shelter | day use | yes | |||||
| NDBL | 3435 | rv electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | yes | 124 ft | 406 ftDouble Lake | $30–$66 |
| NDBL | 37-38 | rv electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | yes | 209 ft | 412 ftDouble Lake | $30–$66 |
| NLS | 046 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | yes | 131 ft | 550 ftDouble Lake | $32–$62 |
| NLS | 050 | standard electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | yes | $32–$62 | ||
| NLS | 051 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | yes | 117 ft | 345 ftDouble Lake | $32–$62 |
| NLS | 052 | standard electric | 36 ft | 50 amp | yes | 125 ft | 360 ftDouble Lake | $32–$62 |
| NLS | 053 | standard electric | 32 ft | 50 amp | yes | 117 ft | 243 ftDouble Lake | $32–$62 |
| NLS | 054 | rv electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | yes | 217 ft | 271 ftDouble Lake | $30–$66 |
| NLS | 055 | standard electric | 26 ft | 50 amp | yes | 244 ft | 49 ftDouble Lake | $32–$62 |
| NLS | 059 | rv electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | 135 ft | 139 ftDouble Lake | $30–$66 | |
| NLS | 060 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | yes | 135 ft | 235 ftDouble Lake | $32–$62 |
| NLS | 062 | standard electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | yes | 250 ft | 72 ftDouble Lake | $32–$62 |
| NLS | 065 | standard electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | 181 ft | 346 ftDouble Lake | $32–$62 | |
| NLSD | 4849 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | yes | 131 ft | 511 ftDouble Lake | $32–$62 |
| NORT | 029 | rv electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | yes | 129 ft | 557 ftDouble Lake | $30–$66 |
| NORT | 031 | standard electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | yes | 124 ft | 431 ftDouble Lake | $32–$62 |
| NORT | 032 | standard electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | yes | 109 ft | 514 ftDouble Lake | $32–$62 |
| NORT | 033 | standard electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | yes | 124 ft | 385 ftDouble Lake | $32–$62 |
| NORT | 036 | standard electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | yes | 109 ft | 527 ftDouble Lake | $32–$62 |
| NORT | 039 | standard electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | 199 ft | 553 ftDouble Lake | $32–$62 | |
| NORT | 041 | standard electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | 199 ft | 476 ftDouble Lake | $32–$62 | |
| NORT | 043 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | yes | 202 ft | 650 ftDouble Lake | $32–$62 |
| SLF | 001 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 121 ft | 188 ftDouble Lake | $20 | ||
| SLF | 002 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 121 ft | 151 ftDouble Lake | $20 | ||
| SLF | 005 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 310 ft | 178 ftDouble Lake | $20 | ||
| SLF | 007 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 128 ft | 174 ftDouble Lake | $20 | ||
| SLF | 014 | tent only nonelectric | 85 ft | 224 ftDouble Lake | $20 |
The agency files 2 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It files them as day use. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
25 of 45 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Cagle Recreation AreaSam Houston National Forest · 24 miCagle Recreation Area: 877-444-6777Sam Houston National Forest · 28 miStubblefield LakeSam Houston National Forest · 30 miKelly's Pond Campground: (936) 344-6205Sam Houston National Forest · 32 mi
Magnolia Ridge58 miFrom New Waverly, Texas, go 22 miles east on Highway 150 to FM 2025. Turn and drive south 0.25 miles to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Coldspring, TX
Typical weather
Typical October night 56°F, day 79°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 39°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
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 Augusts are colder than the August line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
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
Double Lake Recreation Area is in Texas’s 8th congressional district. Its representative, Morgan Luttrell (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyMorgan LuttrellU.S. Representative · Texas’s 8th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJohn CornynU.S. Senator · Texas
- Your senator, on the same appropriationTed CruzU.S. Senator · Texas
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Double Lake Recreation Area, Sam Houston National Forest, Texas
Dear Morgan Luttrell, I’m a constituent in Texas’s 8th district. I tried to camp at Double Lake Recreation Area, Sam Houston National Forest, Texas, and couldn’t. All 43 sites at Double Lake Recreation Area are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 42 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Double Lake Recreation Area keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Double Lake Recreation Area. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Double Lake Recreation Area (Sam Houston National Forest, Texas) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Double Lake Recreation Area, Sam Houston National Forest, Texas
Dear John Cornyn, I’m a constituent in Texas. I tried to camp at Double Lake Recreation Area, Sam Houston National Forest, Texas, and couldn’t. All 43 sites at Double Lake Recreation Area are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 42 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Double Lake Recreation Area keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Double Lake Recreation Area. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Double Lake Recreation Area (Sam Houston National Forest, Texas) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Double Lake Recreation Area, Sam Houston National Forest, Texas
Dear Ted Cruz, I’m a constituent in Texas. I tried to camp at Double Lake Recreation Area, Sam Houston National Forest, Texas, and couldn’t. All 43 sites at Double Lake Recreation Area are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 42 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Double Lake Recreation Area keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Double Lake Recreation Area. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Double Lake Recreation Area (Sam Houston National Forest, Texas) via campanac.com