East Ashtabula Crossing
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $26–$52Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 3736 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
In the agency’s own words
The East Ashtabula Crossing Campground is located on 12 developed acres adjacent to Lake Ashtabula in eastern North Dakota. It is one of the most popular campgrounds in the area. Lake Ashtabula was created by the construction of the Baldhill Dam on the Sheyenne River in 1944, and is situated in one of the most scenic river valleys in the region, offering visitors a wide range of recreation opportunities year-round. Summer activities include fishing, boating, swimming and picnicking, while Ice fishing and cross-country skiing are popular during winter months. Keep reading
Recreation
The name "Ashtabula" is a Native American word meaning "Fish River," which suits the lake's fish population; popular species include walleye, northern pike, white bass, yellow perch and black bullhead. With seven boat ramps, three accessible fishing piers and four automated fish cleaning stations, the lake is very convenient for anglers. Nearly 3,000 acres of land around the lake is managed as wildlife habitat by the Corps of Engineers and open to the public for wildlife viewing, birding, hiking and hunting. Hunters and anglers should contact the North Dakota Game and Fish Department for seasons, restrictions and licenses; fishing licenses and bait may be purchased from concessionaires around the lake. Campers can also drive the 63-mile Sheyenne River Valley National Scenic Byway and access nearly 35 miles of the North Country National Scenic Trail nearby.
Facilities
East Ashtabula Crossing has 38 campsites, 32 of which offer electric hookups. The facility also features a swimming beach, drinking water, flush toilets, a playground and a picnic shelter. Within walking distance campers will find a dump station, fishing pier, boat ramp, restaurant and hiking trails. The nearest town is Valley City, less than 15 miles away.
Natural Features
The campground is on a wooded hillside offering shade for most sites. It lies amidst the 'prairie potholes' region of glacially-carved lakes in North Dakota. Spring and fall bring bountiful views of migratory water birds to Lake Ashtabula, including the unique white pelican, which can be seen in large flocks during summer. The lake region also provides habitat for white-tailed deer, sharptail grouse, wild turkey and gray partridge.
What the agency tells you
Firewood restrictions are in place; because of the potential to carry invasive insects, absolutely no outside firewood is allowed
No alcohol is permitted in this facility
Don't Move Firewood: Protect your forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. Visit Dontmovefirewood.org for further information.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 37 · 6 walk-in
- Hookups
- 30 electric
- Longest rig
- 79 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…a swimming beach, drinking water, flush toilets, a playground and a picnic shelter. Within walking…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…facility also features a swimming beach, drinking water, flush toilets, a playground and a picnic shelter.…”
- Dump station
- Yes
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
- Store
- Nearby
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Beach
- Hiking
- Picnicking
- Swimming
- Night sky · 2nd darkest of 27 in ND
- Bortle 2
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 36 of the 37 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 · 14
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $26–$52 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
37 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 36 mapped sitesAll 37 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 36 of the 37 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 01 | walk to | 25 ft | 339 ft | $20 | ||
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 02 | walk to | 20 ft | 348 ft | $20 | ||
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 03 | walk to | 20 ft | 354 ft | $20 | ||
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 04 | standard electric | 60 ft | 30 amp | 43 ft | 376 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 05 | standard electric | 60 ft | 30 amp | 43 ft | 375 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 06 | standard electric | 54 ft | 30 amp | 45 ft | 350 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 07 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 53 ft | 272 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 08 | standard electric | 61 ft | 30 amp | 41 ft | 219 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 09 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 41 ft | 179 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 10 | standard electric | 79 ft | 30 amp | 47 ft | 227 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 11 | standard electric | 66 ft | 30 amp | 44 ft | 188 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 12 | standard electric | 61 ft | 30 amp | 44 ft | 149 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 13 | standard electric | 45 ft | 30 amp | 41 ft | 104 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 14 | standard electric | 42 ft | 30 amp | 41 ft | 62 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 15 | standard electric | 72 ft | 50 amp | 44 ft | 199 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 16 | standard electric | 45 ft | 30 amp | 44 ft | 180 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 17 | standard electric | 55 ft | 30 amp | 39 ft | 142 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 18 | walk to | 34 ft | 115 ft | $20 | ||
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 19 | walk to | 34 ft | 97 ft | $20 | ||
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 20 | walk to | 35 ft | 85 ft | $20 | ||
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 21 | standard electric | 36 ft | 30 amp | 52 ft | 93 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 22 | standard electric | 75 ft | 30 amp | 52 ft | 137 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 23/24 | standard electric | 47 ft | 30 amp | 51 ft | 195 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 25 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 40 ft | 210 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 26 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 40 ft | 221 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 27 | standard electric | 48 ft | 30 amp | 65 ft | 214 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 28 | standard electric | 70 ft | 30 amp | 65 ft | 268 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 29 | standard electric | 41 ft | 30 amp | 43 ft | 430 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 30 | standard electric | 41 ft | 30 amp | 59 ft | 446 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 31 | standard electric | 33 ft | 30 amp | 54 ft | 504 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 32 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 54 ft | 557 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 33 | standard electric | 27 ft | 30 amp | 77 ft | 615 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 34 | standard electric | 33 ft | 30 amp | 48 ft | 548 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 35 | standard electric | 39 ft | 30 amp | 48 ft | 535 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 36 | standard electric | 46 ft | 30 amp | 43 ft | 454 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 37 | standard electric | 45 ft | 30 amp | 47 ft | 473 ft | $26–$52 |
| ASHTABULA CROSSING | 38 | type not stated | 45 ft | 30 amp | 306 ft |
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 37 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
West Ashtabula Crossing3.6 mi
Eggerts Landing4.3 mi
Mel Rieman Rec9.1 mi
Jorgen's Hollow CampgroundSheyenne National Grassland · 58 mi
Hankinson Hills CampgroundSheyenne National Grassland · 87 miThe main route to the park is via Interstate 94 to Valley City exit 292. Follow the signs through Valley City and follow County Road 21 north for 15 miles.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Sibley, ND
Typical weather
Typical October night 32°F, day 56°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night -2°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
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.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
East Ashtabula Crossing is in North Dakota’s at-large congressional district. Its representative, Julie Fedorchak (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →