Harris River Campground
- Right now
- OpenInside the published season, our reading
- A night
- $8From, per site
- Sites
- 14All of them booked ahead
- Season
- April 1Opens April 1. No closing date published.
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Harris River Campground is located on Prince of Wales Island on a paved highway just 10 miles from the Hollis Ferry Terminal and 20 miles from the Craig/Klawock area. Visitors enjoy hiking, fishing and viewing abundant wildlife. Keep reading
Recreation
Hiking, fishing and wildlife viewing are popular activities. The Harris River Trail and the Twentymile Spur Trail both pass along the Harris River. The latter ends at a set of beaver ponds. A short boardwalk trail dissects the campground to offer campers a close-up view of a muskeg habitat without getting their feet wet. A bridge and short path across the Harris River connect the campground to the Harris River Picnic Area. About two miles east of the campground is the Harris River Interpretive Trail, which provides information about recent river restoration work and habitat management experiments.
Facilities
The campground offers accessible campsites, each equipped with a picnic table and campfire ring. Accessible pit toilets and trash collection are provided. No hookups are available.
Natural Features
The campground is situated along the Harris River, a short drive from hiking trails and fishing outposts, within the Tongass National Forest, which covers nearly 17 million acres in southeast Alaska and is the largest forest in the national forest system. The Tongass surrounds the Inside Passage, the network of waterways that buffers the jagged Alaskan Coast and a cluster of coastal islands. The Tongass offers visitors a chance to view wildlife, including eagles, bears and spawning salmon. Expansive vistas of fjords, glaciers and mountain peaks abound. Much of the forest is a temperate rain forest.
Nearby Attractions
The One Duck Trail was originally constructed by the Youth Conservation Corps in the mid-1980's. The trail offers a challenging hike and spectacular views of the Harris River watershed award those who complete it. Prince of Wales Island offers boat rentals, fishing supplies and other conveniences a short drive away.
What the agency tells you
This is bear country; all food and trash must be properly stored in approved bear-proof containers
Parking spurs are narrow and perpendicular to the campground road; large RVs may be difficult to back in
No hookups available
Everything else this campground posts · 4
Roads may be under construction
Click here for more information on Prince of Wales Island
Click here for more information on the Tongass National Forest
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by purchasing firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 14 · 6 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 89 ft
- Accessible sites
- 13
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Pit Toilets
- “…table and campfire ring. Accessible pit toilets and trash collection are provided. No hookups are…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Coast
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 139th darkest of 280 in AK
- Bortle 1
20 of 20 site-nights open this Friday and Saturdayread 16:33 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
OpenBooked
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.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
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 · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $8 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 16:33 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
14 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 14 mapped sitesAll 14 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. 14 of the 14 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| AREA HARRIS RIVER CAMPGROUND | 001 | standard nonelectric | 89 ft | 129 ft | 20 ft | $8 | |
| AREA HARRIS RIVER CAMPGROUND | 002 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | yes | 81 ft | 104 ft | $8 |
| AREA HARRIS RIVER CAMPGROUND | 003 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 103 ft | 122 ft | $8 | |
| AREA HARRIS RIVER CAMPGROUND | 004 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | yes | 81 ft | 102 ft | $8 |
| AREA HARRIS RIVER CAMPGROUND | 005 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 201 ft | 111 ft | $8 | |
| AREA HARRIS RIVER CAMPGROUND | 006 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | yes | 82 ft | 239 ft | $8 |
| AREA HARRIS RIVER CAMPGROUND | 007 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 82 ft | 311 ft | $8 | |
| AREA HARRIS RIVER CAMPGROUND | 008 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 97 ft | 396 ft | $8 | |
| AREA HARRIS RIVER CAMPGROUND | 009 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | yes | 47 ft | 348 ft | $8 |
| AREA HARRIS RIVER CAMPGROUND | 010 | standard nonelectric | 74 ft | yes | 47 ft | 329 ft | $8 |
| AREA HARRIS RIVER CAMPGROUND | 011 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 79 ft | 427 ft | $8 | |
| AREA HARRIS RIVER CAMPGROUND | 012 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 79 ft | 358 ft | $8 | |
| AREA HARRIS RIVER CAMPGROUND | 013 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | yes | 118 ft | 283 ft | $8 |
| AREA HARRIS RIVER CAMPGROUND | 014 | standard nonelectric | 55 ft | yes | 174 ft | 93 ft | $8 |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Black Bear Lake Cabin (Tongass National Forest, AK)Tongass National Forest · 5.0 mi
Twelvemile CabinTongass National Forest · 8.6 mi
Salmon Lake Cabin Thorne BayTongass National Forest · 11 mi
Karta Lake CabinTongass National Forest · 12 mi
Karta River Cabin13 mi
Eagles Nest CampgroundTongass National Forest · 15 miFrom Ketchikan take the Inter-Island Ferry to Hollis on Prince of Wales Island. From Hollis, take Highway 924 for approximately 10 miles. The campground will be on the left (south) side of the road just past the Hydaburg Road junction adjacent to the Harris River.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Hollis, AK
Typical weather
Typical April night 35°F, day 51°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical April night 35°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Harris River Campground is in Alaska’s at-large congressional district. Its representative, Nick Begich (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →