Fawn Creek Youth Campground
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 21 mi
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 15:35 UTC
- A night
- $30From, per site
- Sites
- 4All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 9 notices
In the agency’s own words
Fawn Creek is a designated youth group campground, available only to organized youth groups . For more information or determine if your youth group qualifies please contact the Refuge Visitor's Center at 580-429-3222, before making a reservation. Examples of quilified groups: Boy Scouts Girl Scouts Church Youth Groups School Groups Civic Youth Groups University Organizations and Clubs Worn by time and nature, the Wichita Mountains loom large above the prairie in southwest Oklahoma—a lasting refuge for wildlife. Situated just outside the Lawton/Ft. Keep reading
Sill area, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge preserves approximately 60,000 acres of mixed grass prairie, ancient granite mountains, and fresh water lakes and streams for the benefit of wildlife and the American people. Best known for its roaming herds of bison, longhorn, and Rocky Mountain elk, Wichita Mountains also offers quality opportunities for wildlife dependent recreation including fishing, bird watching, wildlife photography, hiking, camping, and kayaking.
Recreation
Fawn Creek Youth Campground is a primative campground, reserved for organized youth groups located on the west side of the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. Fawn Creek is within walking distance of quality fishing, canoeing, kayaking, and hiking. The Dog Run Hollow Trail System trailheads and French Lake offer visitors hours of outdoor recreational activities.
Facilities
Fawn Creek Youth Campground has 4 Groupsites, reserved for organized youth groups, located on a single loop. Each site has picnic tables, a firering and charcoal grill. Centrally located in the campground there are 2 vault toilets only, no water or electricity.
Natural Features
Explore ancient granite mountains. Find yourself in a cedar forest. Dare to discover wide open spaces and fresh water lakes meant to support wildlife like the American bison and Rocky Mountain elk. Fish. Hike. Photograph. Immerse yourself in the wild.
Nearby Attractions
Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge encompasses roughly 60,000 acres. Fawn Creek Youth Campground offers visitors opportunities to explore all areas of the refuge with a short drive. Head up Mount Scott or hang out at Prairie Dog Town. Bring your fishing pole, a set of binoculars, or your camera. The possibilities are endless.
What the agency tells you
Fawn Creek Youth Campground is for organized youth groups through the university level (Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Church Youth Groups, ect.). For more Information Call 580-429-3222.
Fawn Creek Youth Campground sets on the edge of the Charon's Garden Wilderness Area. Group size limit for the Wilderness is a maximum of 15 people.
Accessing Charon's Garden Wilderness Area is only authorized at Sunset Picnic Area and the Post Oak/Treasure Lake parking areas. (Access from Fawn Creek is discouraged in an effort protect the Wilderness Character.)
Everything else this campground posts · 6
Know before you go...familiarize yourself with Wichita Mountain's rules and regulations https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Wichita_Mountains/visit/rules_and_regulations.html .
No cell phone coverage in campground.
In case of emergency, call 911.
Frequent weather changes occur. Be prepared for severe heat, wind, rain, and possible tornadoes.
For your safety, bison and longhorn are free roaming. Do not approach.
PUBLIC NOTICE: Boil order for all areas within the refuge. Click here https://www.fws.gov/uploadedFiles/Region_2/NWRS/Zone_1/Wichita_Mountains/Sections/Cosa/Visit/Boil%20Order_Refuge%20Drinking%20Water%200217%20508.pdf for more information.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 4 · 4 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 4 of 4 campsite records
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek
- Backpacking
- Biking
- Birding
- Canoeing
- Climbing
- Environmental Education
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Kayaking
- Picnicking
- Visitor center
- Wilderness access
Full this Saturdayread 15:35 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
1 campground has sites open within 30 miles, read 15:35 UTC. See them
OpenBooked
Every one of the 4 sites on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 4 are free on Mon, Oct 19. read 15:35 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 · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $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
Open within 30 miles this weekend · 1
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 15:35 UTC
- Doris CampgroundWichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge · 3.1 mi · 2 of 180 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 15:35 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. 4 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.
| 1 | Group Site A | tent only nonelectric | $30 |
| 1 | Group Site B | tent only nonelectric | $30 |
| 1 | Group Site C | tent only nonelectric | $30 |
| 1 | Group Site D | tent only nonelectric | $30 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Doris CampgroundWichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge · 3.1 miMoneka North Campground47 miWichita Ridge Campground47 mi
Kiowa Park I48 mi
Chisholm Trail Ridge50 miBlack Kettle CampgroundBlack Kettle National Grassland · 90 miFrom I-44 take Highway 49 (exit 45). Go west 7 miles to the Refuge gate or 14 miles to the Visitor Center. If coming from Highway 62, take Highway 115 (Cache exit) north to the Refuge Gate. Proceed west on Highway 49 to Indiahoma Road. Turn south onto Indiahoma Road for approximately 1.5 miles to the Fawn Creek Youth Campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Cache, OK
Typical weather
Typical October night 51°F, day 75°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 29°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 · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Fawn Creek Youth Campground is in Oklahoma’s 4th congressional district. Its representative, Tom Cole (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 moneyTom ColeU.S. Representative · Oklahoma’s 4th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationAlan ArmstrongU.S. Senator · Oklahoma
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJames LankfordU.S. Senator · Oklahoma
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 Fawn Creek Youth Campground, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma
Dear Tom Cole, I’m a constituent in Oklahoma’s 4th district. I tried to camp at Fawn Creek Youth Campground, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma, and couldn’t. All 4 sites at Fawn Creek Youth Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 4 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Fawn Creek Youth Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Fawn Creek Youth Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife 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 Fawn Creek Youth Campground (Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma) 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 Fawn Creek Youth Campground, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma
Dear Alan Armstrong, I’m a constituent in Oklahoma. I tried to camp at Fawn Creek Youth Campground, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma, and couldn’t. All 4 sites at Fawn Creek Youth Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 4 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Fawn Creek Youth Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Fawn Creek Youth Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife 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 Fawn Creek Youth Campground (Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma) 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 Fawn Creek Youth Campground, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma
Dear James Lankford, I’m a constituent in Oklahoma. I tried to camp at Fawn Creek Youth Campground, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma, and couldn’t. All 4 sites at Fawn Creek Youth Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 4 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Fawn Creek Youth Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Fawn Creek Youth Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife 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 Fawn Creek Youth Campground (Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma) via campanac.com