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U.S. Forest Service · Colville National Forest · WA

Lake Thomas Campground

4Heads up4 fires, nearest 25 mi
Wildfire
Mingo Meadow fire · 25 mi away · 3 acres · updated Oct 16, 2026
Wildfire
Hill Loop fire · 26 mi away · 127 acres · 100% contained · updated Oct 9, 2026
Wildfire
Silver fire · 40 mi away · 2,593 acres · 30% contained · updated Sep 8, 2026
Wildfire
Parker Lake fire · 45 mi away · 1,531 acres · 1% contained · updated Oct 2, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 16, 2026
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 directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
Photos · U.S. Forest Service
3,200 ftElevation
439 ftWater · Lake Thomas
16 miNE of Colville, WA
61%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 142nd darkest of 400 in WA

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Most sites are tent sites, private and have a view of the lake. This campground is located on a small hillside and overlooks Lake Thomas. Access to Rufus Trail #148 is near this campground.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Lake
Source: Stated in the agency description

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 record
Runs itScenic Canyons Recreational ServicesA private concessionaire under permit from U.S. Forest Servicethe operator link
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 7

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.
This permit can be purchased directly from the host.
Season Pass for Colville and Idaho Panhandle: $52 This is a concessionaire ran site that requires a day use permit.
This permit can be purchased directly from the host.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What this campground addsits own record
Extra vehicleSee the note

“Camping: $29/single site Camping: $48/double site Extra vehicle: none Day use: $10 Season Pass for Colville Only: $52 This is a concessionaire ran site that requires a day use permit.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record

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 · 5
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
What this campground adds: The U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record and notices for this campground, quoted verbatim. An extra-vehicle charge is set locally and appears on no national schedule, so it’s never assumed. · Aug 24, 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
Coordinate48.62336, -117.53546

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

Overnight35°Areas Of Frost4% rain
Saturday59°Areas Of Frost then Mostly Sunny4% rain
Saturday Night29°Widespread Frost
Sunday55°Widespread Frost then Mostly Sunny

NWS forecast for Ione, WA

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

Typical weather

Typical October night 32°F, day 54°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical February night 22°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: PRIEST RVR EXP STN, ID (USC00107386), 37 miles away and 829 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

who answers for it

Who answers for this land

Michael Baumgartner, official portrait

Lake Thomas Campground is in Washington’s 5th congressional district. Its representative, Michael Baumgartner (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’s own recreation database flags it not open and publishes no reason and no date. That’s a flag, not a notice.
Listed not open: USFS EDW Recreation Opportunities, openstatus field: a not-open flag in a database, with no reason and no date published; read there since Sep 9, 2026. A flag, not a notice, so this page doesn’t call it a closure. · Oct 17, 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: 0.097 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 400 rated federal campgrounds in Washington · 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: Ione, WA, 9.1 mi SSW. 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