North Creek
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $15–$30Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 41 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
This location is available on a first-come, first-served basis only. Visitors are required to physically arrive at the campground to purchase and claim a site. Once on-site, you may be able to pay for your campsite(s) by scanning a QR code using the Recreation.gov mobile app, and the Scan and Pay feature. If this option is available, you will need to first download the free Recreation.gov mobile app https://www.recreation.gov/mobile-app prior to your arrival as some remote areas have limited or no cellular service.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 4
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Shade
- Every site
Around the campground
- Fall color · reported 9 days ago, 32 km away
- Patchy color
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:41 UTC
recreation.gov lists 1 of the 4 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $15–$30 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 15:41 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
4 sites
All 4 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 1 of the 4 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Cave Mountain Lake Family CampJefferson National Forest · 3.7 mi
Cave Mountain Lake Group CampJefferson National Forest · 3.7 mi
Hopper Creek Group CampJefferson National Forest · 4.4 mi
Peaks of Otter CampgroundBlue Ridge Parkway · 6.9 mi
Otter Creek CampgroundBlue Ridge Parkway · 14 mi
Craig Creek Recreation Area22 miFrom I-81: Take exit 168 (Arcadia). Follow VA 614 (Jennings Creek Road) for 2.9 miles through Arcadia to FS 59 (North Creek Road). Turn left on FS 59. The campground is 2.4 miles ahead on your right.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Buchanan, VA
Typical weather
Typical October night 47°F, day 68°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 27°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
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.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
North Creek is in Virginia’s 6th congressional district. Its representative, Ben Cline (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →