Elk Lake (OR)
3Heads up3 fires, nearest 17 mi
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $12–$22Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 41 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
This location is available on a first-come, first-served basis only. Visitors are required to physically arrive at the campground to purchase and claim a site. Once on-site, you may be able to pay for your campsite(s) by scanning a QR code using the Recreation.gov mobile app, and the Scan and Pay feature. If this option is available, you will need to first download the free Recreation.gov mobile app https://www.recreation.gov/mobile-app prior to your arrival as some remote areas have limited or no cellular service. Keep reading
This 17 site tent-only campground, located adjacent to the Bull of the Woods and Opal Creek Wildernesses , is full of beauty in the summer. Wildflowers are a beautiful sight in the campground's meadows around July. Swim or paddle in the quiet waters of the non-motorized lake, go for a great hike with views of multiple Cascade peaks, or just kick back and relax in the campground.
Natural Features
Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (503) 854-3366.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 4
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek, Meadow
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:28 UTC
recreation.gov lists 1 of the 4 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
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.
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, $12–$22 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
recreation.gov availability, read 15:28 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
4 sites
All 4 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. 1 of the 4 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Gold Butte LookoutWillamette National Forest · 2.4 mi
Humbug CampgroundWillamette National Forest · 4.3 mi
Fox Creek Group CampWillamette National Forest · 4.7 mi
Cleator BendWillamette National Forest · 7.0 miPiety Island7.1 mi12.1 miles north of Detroit
From Highway 22 at Detroit, Oregon, turn onto Breitenbush Road (FSR 46). Proceed 4.4 miles, turn left onto FS Road 4696. Proceed 0.8 miles, turn left on FS Road 4697. Follow FS Road 4697 for 4.5 miles and turn left at an unmarked junction (still FS Road 4697), continue 2.1 miles to a small spur road located at west end of Elk Lake (FS Road 390). The camping area is about 0.3 miles ahead.
CAUTION: FS Road 4697 is not maintained for the last 4 miles into Elk Lake. Access by low-clearance vehicles and trailers not recommended as the road is rough and rocky.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Detroit, OR
Typical weather
Typical October night 37°F, day 53°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 26°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 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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Elk Lake (OR) is in Oregon’s 5th congressional district. Its representative, Janelle Bynum (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A. See every public-lands vote →