CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
The map
U.S. Forest Service · Hoosier National Forest · IN

Goldenrod Loop

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
Season
April 1 – October 15Open April 1 through October 15
Drawn from the record · 600 ft · 14% tree cover · water within reach · Bortle 4 sky
600 ftElevation
1,097 ftWater · an unnamed stream
12.8 miSE of Ferdinand, IN
14%Tree cover
Bortle 4Night sky · 7th darkest of 23 in IN
Open April 1 through October 15Today

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Goldenrod Loop is one of two group camps offered at Tipsaw Lake Recreation Area. It has a capacity of up to 65 people in five campsites. Group camps contain water and vault toilets. Showers are available in the main campground. Group camps are open by 4/15 through 10/31. Special arrangements may be made for groups to camp later in the fall. Reservations may be made through the reservation system. There is still a $5/vehicle per day charged for these sites after the first vehicle.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets
“…campsites. Group camps contain water and vault toilets. Showers are available in the main campground.…”
Showers
Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
“Showers are available in the main campground.”
Source: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 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
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 10

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
Goldenrod Loop Group Camp has one 30-amp electrical hookup available and rents for $45.
There is still a $5/vehicle per day charged for these sites after the first vehicle.
Reservations for campground sites can be made by calling toll free the National Reservation System at 1-877-444-6777 (TTY is 1-877-833-6777.) Reservations are only made April 15 through early October.
The fee for making the reservation is $10.
There is a minimum cancellation fee of $10.00.
Reservation information is available at: http:// www.recreation.gov .
If not previously reserved, occupancy is on a first come basis.
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
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
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
Coordinate38.13570, -86.63690

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

This Afternoon59°Partly Sunny1% rain
Tonight40°Mostly Cloudy14% rain
Saturday59°Sunny
Saturday Night35°Clear then Areas Of Frost

NWS forecast for Leopold, IN

Source: National Weather Service, LMK forecast office · Oct 16, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 47°F, day 71°F.

100°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: SAINT MEINRAD, IN (USC00127724), 10 miles away and 90 ft lower
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

what threatens it · who answers for it

Roadless country, and what’s coming for it

Roadless
Mogan Ridge8,435 acres · 7 mi · inventoried roadless area

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: USFS Inventoried Roadless Areas via MTJP Roadless Map · Jul 29, 2026

Who answers for this land

Mark Messmer, official portrait

Goldenrod Loop is in Indiana’s 8th congressional district. Its representative, Mark Messmer (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: 0.55 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 23 rated federal campgrounds in Indiana · 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: Leopold, IN, 3.3 mi NW (a census designated place). 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