National Park Service · Lake Chelan National Recreation Area · WA
Purple Point Campground
8Heads up5 park alerts · 3 fires, nearest 8 mi
Wildfire
Sisi fire · 8.3 mi away · 4,615 acres · 34% contained · updated Oct 14, 2026
Wildfire
Little Giant fire · 22 mi away · 172,912 acres · 95% contained · updated Oct 14, 2026
Wildfire
Luna fire · 43 mi away · 8,553 acres · 42% contained · updated Sep 23, 2026
Caution
Delays on Cascade River Road Starting October 13 Due to road maintenance there may be delays on Cascade River Roa beyond milepost 20 (Eldorado) three miles before the trailhead beginning October 13.
Park Closure
Hozomeen Gate Remains Closed Until further notice, the gate at Hozomeen will remain closed; vehicle and foot traffic across the US/Canada border is prohibited. Visitors must enter through a designated port of entry.
Caution
Diablo Lake Boat Launch Inaccessible to Powerboats Due to silt accumulation, the Diablo Lake boat launch at Colonial Creek South Campground is not usable for launching most powerboats. Expect shallow or no water at the launch ramp and the possibility of needing to carry your boat to or…
Caution
Stehekin Flash Flood and Debris Flow Area The Stehekin area is prone to flooding, which increases in a post-fire environment. Know before you go – visit the Post Fire Safety page for information on what to do in a flash flood and debris flow area
Park Closure
Fire Closures - Trail, Area, and Camp Closures For closures due to fire activity visit the Fire Closures page, including trail, area, and camp closures for current and post fire conditions.
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 14, 2026
Alerts: National Park Service alerts API · Oct 17, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: all 6 sites go to whoever pulls in first.
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- OpenThe agency lists it open
- Sites
- 66 of them walk-up
- Season
- Year-roundOpen year-round
1,110 ftElevation
74 ftWater · Lake Chelan
24.4 miW of Twisp, WA
6Walk-up sites
54%Tree cover
Open year-roundToday
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
Located at the head of Lake Chelan, Purple Point Campground is a ten-minute walk from the boat dock at Stehekin Landing. All sites are walk-in sites for small to medium-sized tents and are first-come, first-served. Stehekin is a remote community with limited facilities and is only accessible by foot, boat, or plane.
Source: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 2026
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets - seasonal · Vault Toilets - year round
- Drinking water
- Yes
Source: National Park Service and agency records
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
- Night sky · 34th darkest of 400 in WA
- Bortle 2
- Fall color · reported 13 days ago, 13 km away
- Peak color
Source: Stated in the agency description
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 · Sep 8, 2026
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (13 km) · Oct 4, 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 priceNational Park Service
The National Park 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: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 2026
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Also near here
Lakeview CampgroundLake Chelan National Recreation Area · 0.4 mi
Harlequin CampgroundLake Chelan National Recreation Area · 3.5 miMoore Point CampgroundWenatchee National Forest · 5.7 mi
Lucerne CampgroundWenatchee National Forest · 8.3 miRefrigerator Harbor CampgroundWenatchee National Forest · 8.5 miCascade Creek CampgroundWenatchee National Forest · 9.4 mi
Lakeview CampgroundLake Chelan National Recreation Area · 0.4 miHarlequin CampgroundLake Chelan National Recreation Area · 3.5 miMoore Point CampgroundWenatchee National Forest · 5.7 miLucerne CampgroundWenatchee National Forest · 8.3 miRefrigerator Harbor CampgroundWenatchee National Forest · 8.5 miCascade Creek CampgroundWenatchee National Forest · 9.4 miSource: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 2026
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
Overnight48°Rain Showers Likely74% rain
Saturday63°Rain Showers Likely then Mostly Sunny74% rain
Saturday Night32°Partly Cloudy1% rain
Sunday66°Mostly Sunny
NWS forecast for Winthrop, WA
Source: National Weather Service, OTX forecast office · Oct 17, 2026
Typical weather
Typical October night 38°F, day 56°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 25°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
90°32°20°
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: STEHEKIN 4 NW, WA (USC00458059), 4 miles away and 147 ft higher
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
Purple Point Campground is in Washington’s 8th congressional district. Its representative, Kim Schrier (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A. See every public-lands vote →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it open right now.
Season: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 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
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (13 km) · Oct 4, 2026
Reported by: iNaturalist fall color observations, reported peak color · Oct 4, 2026
Cell signal: the Park 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: Winthrop, WA, 24 mi WSW. Straight line.