Gold Lake Campground
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- OpenListed open; its database flags it not open
- A night
- $26From, per site
- Season
- June 1 – October 31Open June 1 through October 31
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
This 21 site campground is situated near the Cascade crest with some sites adjacent to the picturesque Gold Lake. Visitors come for the alpine forest setting, quiet, autumn huckleberries, and wildlife viewing. The adjacent Gold Lake bog is ideal for viewing deer, elk, and beaver. Gas motors are prohibited on the small lake (100 acres in size and 25 feet deep), but electric motors are allowed at slow-no wake speed. Non-motorized craft are permitted, such as canoes and float tubes. The lake is fly-fishing only; please consult the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife regulations for the most up-to-date information. Keep reading
A historic "Willamette Winged" log shelter exists in the day use area, and provides an overnight place for cross-country skiers during the winter, and a day-use facility during summer. The shelter was designed by William Parke, the Willamette National Forest's first Recreation Planner, and constructed with Civilian Conservation Corps labor during the early 1940s. Parke was a 1932 graduate of the Oregon State College of Forestry, and was training as a Landscape Architect at the University of Oregon when hired by the Forest Service.
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and a night costs $26 with nothing added. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.
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.
Every line of the receipt · 5
What you actually pay
“Single Campsites - $26 per night Extra Vehicles - $10 per vehicle, per night Download the Recreation.gov mobile app prior to your trip so you can pay the overnight fee digitally onsite with Scan and Pay .” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record
Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($26), 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 · 6
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Trapper Creek CampgroundDeschutes National Forest · 3.2 mi
Princess Creek CampgroundDeschutes National Forest · 3.6 mi
Shadow BayWillamette National Forest · 4.4 miShadow Bay Campground (Waldo Lake)Willamette National Forest · 4.6 mi
Sunset Cove CampgroundDeschutes National Forest · 6.3 miThe weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Crescent Lake, OR
Typical weather
Typical October night 30°F, day 55°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical October night 30°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 moreOutside the published season
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
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Gold Lake Campground is in Oregon’s 4th congressional district. Its representative, Val Hoyle (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A. See every public-lands vote →