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U.S. Forest Service · Superior National Forest · MN

Echo Lake Campground & Backcountry Sites

The agency doesn’t say how you get a siteIts record carries no access type, so treat it as a place to phone before you drive.
Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
A night
$18From, per site
Season
May 9 – September 2Open May 9 through September 2
Photos · USDA Forest Service photo by Christine Kolinski
1,270 ftElevation
438 ftWater · an unnamed lake
33.7 miNW of Ely, MN
80%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 37th darkest of 77 in MN
Open May 9 through September 2Today

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

This campground is on the south shore of Echo Lake and is surrounded by a mix of aspen, balsam, spruce, and pine trees. Echo Lake is popular for walleye and panfish fishing and is located on the west end of the Echo Trail, a remote country road that traverses through the heart of the western Superior National Forest. Downloadable information and map

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Lake
Source: Stated in the agency description

Phone before you drive

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.

Booking window6 months outBooking opens 6 months ahead; today unlocks arrivals through April 16, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
A night$18Per site, fromthe agency’s fee record
A weekend$36DerivedFriday and Saturday, everything includedours, from the lines above
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 5

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
A night, from$18
Single Site: $18/night Group Site$30/night
The booking feerecreation.gov
We hold no recreation.gov booking record for this campground, so we can’t say whether a booking fee applies.
What a stay costs
One night, fromDerived$18
A weekend, Friday and Saturday, fromDerived$36

Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($18), and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.

How we know this receipt · 5
Sign price: Derived by CAMPANAC from the U.S. Forest Service fee record: a stated per-night amount only · Sep 7, 2026
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: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate48.17023, -92.49099

Where it is

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Tonight29°Mostly Clear
Saturday58°Sunny
Saturday Night41°Partly Cloudy
Sunday63°Sunny

NWS forecast for Orr, MN

Source: National Weather Service, DLH forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical May night 35°F, day 61°F.

Coldest night of the open season: typical May night 35°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

80°32°-20°

Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season

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.

Measured at: ORR 3E, MN (USC00216211), 15 miles away and 45 ft higher
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

who answers for it

Who answers for this land

Pete Stauber, official portrait

Echo Lake Campground & Backcountry Sites is in Minnesota’s 8th congressional district. Its representative, Pete Stauber (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it out of season. The season it publishes is the bar below.
Season: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.049 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 77 rated federal campgrounds in Minnesota · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
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.
Nearest place of any size: Orr, MN, 16.3 mi ENE. Straight line.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026