CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
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U.S. Forest Service · Wenatchee National Forest · WA

Refrigerator Harbor Campground

2Heads up2 fires, nearest 15 mi
Wildfire
Sisi fire · 15 mi away · 4,615 acres · 34% contained · updated Oct 14, 2026
Wildfire
Little Giant fire · 17 mi away · 172,912 acres · 95% contained · updated Oct 14, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 14, 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
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
A night
$10From, per site
Drawn from the record · 1,120 ft · 37% tree cover · Lake Chelan within reach · Bortle 2 sky
1,120 ftElevation
86 ftWater · Lake Chelan
23.7 miSW of Twisp, WA
37%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 50th darkest of 400 in WA

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

This boat-in campground offers a dock with a three boat capacity. There is one shelter, four tent sites, four tables, four fire rings, and two toilets. This site is accessible year-round. Good protection from down lake winds but no protection from up-lake winds. Located close to the old Lucerne Ranger Station. Lake Chelan Boat-in and Drive-to Campground Guide and Map Kayaking and Canoeing Lake Chelan

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Lake
Fall color · reported 13 days ago, 13 km away
Peak color
Source: Stated in the agency description
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (13 km) · Oct 3, 2026

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and a night costs $10 with nothing added. 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
A night$10Per site, fromthe agency’s fee record
A weekend$20DerivedFriday and Saturday, everything includedours, from the lines above
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 8

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
A night, from$10
A Federal Dock Site Boat Permit is required from May 1 - October 31 for use of all National Forest and Park Service docks on Lake Chelan.
Permits must be pre-purchased before docking.
Purchase a $10 Day Permit or $75 Season Pass from one of the vendors around the Lake Chelan Valley.
Click here for a list of vendors and more information about dock permits.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
One night, fromDerived$10
A weekend, Friday and Saturday, fromDerived$20

Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($10), and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.

How we know this receipt · 5
Sign price: Derived by CAMPANAC from the U.S. Forest Service fee record: a stated per-night amount only · Sep 7, 2026
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: 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
Coordinate48.19932, -120.58739

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

Today66°Mostly Sunny1% rain
Tonight48°Partly Cloudy then Rain Showers Likely66% rain
Saturday59°Rain Showers Likely66% rain
Saturday Night39°Mostly Clear

NWS forecast for Twisp, WA

Source: National Weather Service, OTX forecast office · Oct 16, 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), 12 miles away and 137 ft higher
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
Myrtle Lake11,133 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

Kim Schrier, official portrait

Refrigerator Harbor 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 →

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 publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate.
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: 0.05 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
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (13 km) · Oct 3, 2026
Reported by: iNaturalist fall color observations, reported peak color · Oct 3, 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 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