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U.S. Forest Service · Monongahela National Forest · WV

Island Campground

First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directions
Right now
OpenInside the published season, our reading
Season
– November 30Closes November 30. No opening date published.
Drawn from the record · 2,990 ft · 67% tree cover · water within reach · Bortle 3 sky
2,990 ftElevation
128 ftWater · an unnamed stream
21.6 miSE of Elkins, WV
67%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 2nd darkest of 69 in WV
Closes November 30. No opening date published.Today

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

This primitive campground is a favorite among fisherman for being adjacent to Long Run and the East Fork of the Greenbrier River. For hikers, this campground is located close to the East Fork Trail #365. This is an 8 mile trail with some difficult terrain to traverse. Also close by is the shorter Smoke Camp Trail #324. It is 1.8 miles in length for those looking for more of a day hike. Island Campground is located approximately 5 miles north and east of Bartow, West Virginia.

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
River
Source: Stated in the agency description · Aug 23, 2026
Official page: Island Campground →

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. 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.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe agency’s record
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 3

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.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
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: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate38.57903, -79.70391
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗

Where it is

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Tonight35°Rain Showers85% rain
Saturday40°Chance Rain And Snow Showers then Partly Sunny65% rain
Saturday Night26°Widespread Frost
Sunday49°Sunny

NWS forecast for Bartow, WV

Source: National Weather Service, RLX forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical November night 28°F, day 49°F.

Coldest night of the open season: typical November night 28°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

90°32°10°

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: BARTOW 1S, WV (USC00460509), 5 miles away and 35 ft higher
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
East Fork Of Greenbrier7,167 acres · 2 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Laurel Fork9,967 acres · 5 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Laurel Fork1,172 acres · 6 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

Carol Miller, official portrait

Island Campground is in West Virginia’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Carol Miller (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: Today falls inside the season the agency publishes, and it has posted nothing else. That reading is ours.
Season: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 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: 0.13 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 69 rated federal campgrounds in West Virginia · 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: Bartow, WV, 4.3 mi ENE (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