U.S. Forest Service · Bighorn National Forest · WY
Medicine Lodge Lake Campground
1Heads up1 fire 26 mi away
Wildfire
Pk fire · 26 mi away · 1,645 acres · 85% contained · updated Oct 11, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 11, 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.
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
Photos · U.S. Forest Service
9,290 ftElevation
246 ftWater · Upper Medicine Lodge Lake
23.8 miSW of Story, WY
19%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 72nd darkest of 248 in WY
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
Medicine Lodge Lake Campground is located in a remote setting on the shores of Upper Medicine Lodge Lake. Nearby trailheads offer access to the Cloud Peak Wilderness.
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
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.
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
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Coordinate44.40056, -107.38753
The mapSee it on the map
The driveDirections ↗
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗
Where it is
Also near here
Ranger Creek Recreation AreaBighorn National Forest · 11 mi
Shell CreekBighorn National Forest · 12 mi
West Tensleep LakeBighorn National Forest · 13 mi
Deer Park CampgroundBighorn National Forest · 14 mi
Island Park CampgroundBighorn National Forest · 15 mi
Ranger Creek CampgroundBighorn National Forest · 16 mi
Ranger Creek Recreation AreaBighorn National Forest · 11 miShell CreekBighorn National Forest · 12 miWest Tensleep LakeBighorn National Forest · 13 miDeer Park CampgroundBighorn National Forest · 14 miIsland Park CampgroundBighorn National Forest · 15 miRanger Creek CampgroundBighorn National Forest · 16 miSource: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
Tonight35°Clear
Saturday58°Sunny
Saturday Night35°Partly Cloudy
Sunday50°Sunny
NWS forecast for Hyattville, WY
Source: National Weather Service, RIW forecast office · Oct 17, 2026
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
Roadless
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
Medicine Lodge Lake Campground is in Wyoming’s at-large congressional district. Its representative, Harriet Hageman (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
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 16, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Tree cover: NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC), one 30 m cell at this coordinate · Sep 9, 2026
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: Hyattville, WY, 13.4 mi NE (a census designated place). Straight line.