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U.S. Forest Service · Sullivan Lake Water Reserve Withdrawal · WA

Mill Pond Campground

3Heads up3 fires, nearest 30 mi
Wildfire
Parker Lake fire · 30 mi away · 1,531 acres · 1% contained · updated Oct 2, 2026
Wildfire
Upper Smith fire · 32 mi away · 4,848 acres · 41% contained · updated Sep 5, 2026
Wildfire
Silver fire · 33 mi away · 2,593 acres · 30% contained · updated Sep 8, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 9, 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
OpenInside the published season, our reading; a database flag says not open
Season
May 24Opens May 24. No closing date published.
Drawn from the record · 2,550 ft · 50% tree cover · Sullivan Creek within reach · Bortle 2 sky
2,550 ftElevation
306 ftWater · Sullivan Creek
33.7 miNE of Colville, WA
50%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 103rd darkest of 400 in WA
Opens May 24. No closing date published.Today

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

This lies along Sullivan Creek and offers great opportunities for hiking on a looped trail system and connects to Mill Pond Historic Site. The Sullivan Creek Trail #565 connects the campground with the Mill Pond Flume Trail #520 , Floodplain Trail #523, Elk Creek Trail #560 , and Mill Pond Historic Site .

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Creek
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 · 4

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 this campground addsits own record
Extra vehicleSee the note

“Camping: $29/single site Extra vehicle: none Day use: $10” · 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
Coordinate48.85417, -117.29056

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

Overnight39°Partly Cloudy
Friday62°Mostly Sunny
Friday Night42°Mostly Cloudy
Saturday56°Partly Sunny then Slight Chance Rain Showers9% rain

NWS forecast for Metaline Falls, WA

Source: National Weather Service, OTX forecast office · Oct 16, 2026

Typical weather

Typical May night 41°F, day 67°F.

Coldest night of the open season: typical May night 41°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

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 Augusts are colder than the August line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.

Measured at: BOUNDARY DAM, WA (USC00450844), 10 miles away and 713 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

Roadless country, and what’s coming for it

Roadless
Salmo - Priest B11,869 acres · 5 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Grassy Top10,302 acres · 7 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Abercrombie - Hooknose33,862 acres · 9 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

Michael Baumgartner, official portrait

Mill Pond 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: Today falls inside the season the agency publishes, and it has posted nothing else. That reading is ours. The U.S. Forest Service’s own database, though, flags it not open with no reason or date; the flag is named under How we know all this.
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
Season: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 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: 0.077 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: Metaline Falls, WA, 3.4 mi E. 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