East Branch Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $15–$30Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 3231 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 1 notices
In the agency’s own words
East Branch Campground is located at East Branch Lake in Northeastern Elk County. East Branch Lake offers an excellent freshwater fishery as well as other recreational opportunities from hiking, boating, and picnicking. Campers have access to shopping, restaurants, and other natural resource attractions nearby. Keep reading
Recreation
East Branch is known for being a high-quality fishery. The predominate fish species at East Branch are small and large mouth bass, lake trout, musky, walleye, and a variety of panfish. The outflow area below the dam is known for its year-round cool to cold waters and is managed as a delayed harvest trout fishing area. The outflow area is a popular destination for canoers and kayakers alike. For a tranquil experience visit our overlook and picnic area located across from the campground.
Facilities
There is one camping loop at East Branch Lake with four cabins available. The camping loop has a restroom with showers. Campsites and cabins have fire rings, picnic tables, and a lantern hanger. All four cabins have electric and most of the camp sites offer electric hookup unless otherwise stated. Be cautious of overhead power lines in ingress and egress camp roadway.
Natural Features
East Branch Lake is in Northeastern Elk County, Pennsylvania. The lakeshore is lined with Aspen saplings that provide excellent cover for fish. East Branch is known for its clear and exceptional water quality. East Branch is located in High Plateau Section of Pennsylvania.
Nearby Attractions
Campers and visitors can visit Elk State Park, Bendigo State Park, or the Allegheny National Forest. The nearby cities of St. Marys and Kane offer a good variety of restaurants, microbreweries, wineries, shopping, and other activities.
What the agency tells you
In cabins, linens are not provided beds do have mattresses. Cabins have electric outlets, portable air conditioning and heating units are not allowed. Overhead powerlines clearance is 13'4" please plan ahead if your RV has implements that exceed that, i.e. AC units, satellite dish, etc. A dump station is available to registered campers and those with a prepaid dump station pass. WE CANNOT TAKE RESERVATIONS. RESERVATIONS CAN ONLY BE MADE THROUGH Recreation.gov.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 32 · 3 tent-only, 4 cabin
- Hookups
- 25 electric
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed at 30 of 32 sites
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- FLUSH TOILETS (SEASONAL) on 1 of 33 campsite records, ACCESSIBLE FLUSH TOILETS on 1 of 33 campsite records
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “The camping loop has a restroom with showers.”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- DRINKING WATER (PEAK SEASON) on 1 of 33 campsite records
- Dump station
- Yes
- recreation.gov lists “Dump Station”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
- Boating
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Kayaking
- Wildlife viewing
- Fall color · reported 2 days ago, in Elk County
- Peak color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 31 of the 32 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 · 15
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $15–$30 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
33 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 30 mapped sitesAll 33 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. 29 of the 33 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.
| East Branch | 1 | rv electric | 30 amp | 36 ft | 909 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 10 | rv electric | 30 amp | 58 ft | 955 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 11 | rv electric | 30 amp | 41 ft | 948 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 12 | rv electric | 30 amp | 41 ft | 909 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 13 | rv electric | 30 amp | 30 ft | 913 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 14 | rv electric | 30 amp | 30 ft | 887 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 15 | rv electric | 30 amp | 43 ft | 863 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 16 | rv electric | 30 amp | 43 ft | 820 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 17 | rv nonelectric | 78 ft | 573 ft | |||
| East Branch | 18 | tent only nonelectric | 78 ft | 549 ft | $15 | ||
| East Branch | 19 | rv electric | 30 amp | 107 ft | 531 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 2 | rv electric | 30 amp | 36 ft | 933 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 20 | rv electric | 30 amp | 135 ft | 651 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 21 | rv electric | 30 amp | 91 ft | 555 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 22 | rv electric | 30 amp | 82 ft | 649 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 23 | rv electric | 30 amp | 74 ft | 678 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 24 | tent only nonelectric | 40 ft | 689 ft | $15 | ||
| East Branch | 25 | tent only nonelectric | 40 ft | 651 ft | $15 | ||
| East Branch | 26 | standard nonelectric | 65 ft | 736 ft | $20 | ||
| East Branch | 3 | rv electric | 30 amp | 60 ft | 969 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 4 | rv electric | 30 amp | 60 ft | 1,014 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 5 | rv electric | 30 amp | 43 ft | 1,048 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 6 | rv electric | 30 amp | 60 ft | 992 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 7 | rv electric | 43 ft | 1,064 ft | $30 | ||
| East Branch | 8 | rv electric | 30 amp | 81 ft | 1,069 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | 9 | rv electric | 30 amp | 77 ft | 1,074 ft | $30 | |
| East Branch | Cabin 1 | cabin electric | 30 amp | 65 ft | 1,012 ft | $55 | |
| East Branch | Cabin 2 | cabin electric | 30 amp | 82 ft | 581 ft | $55 | |
| East Branch | Cabin 3 | cabin electric | 30 amp | 130 ft | 632 ft | $55 | |
| East Branch | Cabin 4 | cabin electric | 30 amp | 57 ft | 676 ft | $55 | |
| East Branch | GA1 | type not stated | 30 amp | 1,002 ft | |||
| East Branch | GA2 | type not stated | 30 amp | 1,032 ft | |||
| East Branch Picnic Shelter | day use | 30 amp | yes | $35 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It files it as day use. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t 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 33 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Twin Lakes (PA)Allegheny National Forest · 9.1 mi
Red Bridge (PA)Allegheny National Forest · 21 mi
Kelly Pines CampgroundAllegheny National Forest · 22 mi
KiasuthaAllegheny National Forest · 22 mi
Morrison Boat Access CampgroundAllegheny National Forest · 25 mi
DewdropAllegheny National Forest · 26 miFrom Interstate 80 points Southeast, take exit 111 and travel PA 153 North to Penfield for 8 miles. Take PA 255 North to St. Marys for 19 miles. Continue on PA 255 North and make a sharp left onto South Michael Street. Turn right onto N St. Marys Street continue for 2.5 miles. Turn left onto Windfall Road continue for 1 mile. Take a slight left onto Flower Valley Road/Glenn Hazel Road and continue for 8 miles. Turn right onto East Branch Dam Road and continue for approximately 1 mile.
From Interstate 80 points Southwest, take exit 97 and travel US Route 219 North for 44 miles to Johnsonburg. Continue straight onto East Center Street for .5 miles. Turn right on to Cobb Street, and then Continue onto Bendigo Rd for 5 miles. Turn left onto Flower valley/Glen Hazel Rd. (SR 1001) for 1.7 miles. Turn right onto East Branch Dam Road and travel .8 miles campground is on your left.
From points north take US 219 South to Wilcox. Turn left onto Flower Valley Rd./Glen Hazel Rd. at flashing signal light in Wilcox, continue for 6 miles. Turn left onto East Branch Dam Road and travel .8 miles campground is on your left.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for St. Marys, PA
Typical weather
Typical October night 37°F, day 59°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 13°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
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
East Branch Campground is in Pennsylvania’s 15th congressional district. Its representative, Glenn Thompson (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →