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

Kathryn Lake Recreation Area

5Heads up5 fires, nearest 22 mi
Wildfire
Backwoods fire · 22 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 16, 2026
Wildfire
Day Break fire · 25 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 15, 2026
Wildfire
Power fire · 28 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 16, 2026
Wildfire
Ritchie fire · 34 mi away · 13 acres · updated Oct 12, 2026
Wildfire
Paddleboat fire · 37 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 15, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 16, 2026
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 directions
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Drawn from the record · 1,510 ft · 79% tree cover · Kathryn Lake within reach · Bortle 3 sky
1,510 ftElevation
379 ftWater · Kathryn Lake
12.6 miNW of Medford, WI
79%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 58th darkest of 70 in WI

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

The Kathryn Lake Campground will remain closed for the 2019 camping season. This closure impacts the campground - there will be reduced services at boat landing and picnic area - no swim buoys or water sampling at the beach, no public water supply available, vehicle access/parking available, toilet building available, picnic grounds, boat landing and accessible fishing pier will be mowed, garbage service available, and day use fees will continue to be charged. Chippewa Campground is a nearby Forest Service campground that is near Kathryn Lake. To find additional camping opportunities in the Medford area please visit http://medfordchamber.org/taylor-county-tourism/ .

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Drinking water
None, bring your own
“This closure impacts the campground - there will be reduced services at boat landing and picnic area - no swim buoys or water sampling at the beach, no public water supply available, vehicle access/parking available, toilet building available, picnic grounds, boat landing and accessible fishing pier will be mowed, garbage service available, and day use fees will continue to be charged.”
Source: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Lake, Beach
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 · 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
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
Coordinate45.20030, -90.62010

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

Today56°Widespread Frost then Sunny
Tonight36°Clear
Sunday61°Sunny
Sunday Night37°Mostly Clear

NWS forecast for Gilman, WI

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

Typical weather

Typical October night 36°F, day 55°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 4°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 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.

Measured at: JUMP RVR 3E, WI (USC00474080), 12 miles away and 245 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

What threatens this place

developing

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

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Sep 28, 2026

Who answers for this land

Tom Tiffany, official portrait

Kathryn Lake Recreation Area is in Wisconsin’s 7th congressional district. Its representative, Tom Tiffany (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: U.S. Forest Service publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate.
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: 0.17 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 70 rated federal campgrounds in Wisconsin · 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: Gilman, WI, 8.5 mi ENE. 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