Saddle Lake Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $5From, per site
- Sites
- 13All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Saddle Lake Recreation Area was one of four that was associated with flood control lakes built along the Middle Fork of the Anderson River. Saddle Lake has a primitive campground, a boat ramp, and a hiking trail. This scenic, somewhat remote lake is an excellent place to get away from crowds and you will often have the place to yourself! Keep reading
Recreation
A 13 site campground, 2.4 mile hiking trail around Saddle Lake, and a boat ramp are available within this Recreation Area.
Facilities
A single vault toilet, garbage can, and a near-by boat ramp area available.
Natural Features
Views of Saddle Lake, hardwoods and conifers, and nature viewing.
What the agency tells you
This campground First Come First Served and $5 per night. Payment can be made at the self-service pay station located within the campground.
Don't move firewood: To limit the spread of invasive tree-killing pests, firewood from outside the area is not permitted. Some states have quarantines and may confiscate your firewood. Please help protect our forests from invasive species by obtaining your firewood at or near your camping destination and burning it on-site. Visit dontmovefirewood.org for more information.
Camping is allowed at numbered sites only.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 13
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 13 of 13 campsite records
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 28 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River
- Backpacking
- Hiking
- Non-Motorized Boating
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 14:23 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
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 · 15
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $5 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 14:23 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
13 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 13 mapped sitesAll 13 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. 13 of the 13 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| Saddle Lake Campground | 1 | standard nonelectric | 93 ft | 609 ft | $5 |
| Saddle Lake Campground | 10 | standard nonelectric | 101 ft | 929 ftTheis Creek | $5 |
| Saddle Lake Campground | 11 | standard nonelectric | 71 ft | 816 ftTheis Creek | $5 |
| Saddle Lake Campground | 12 | standard nonelectric | 71 ft | 760 ftTheis Creek | $5 |
| Saddle Lake Campground | 13 | standard nonelectric | 161 ft | 963 ftTheis Creek | $5 |
| Saddle Lake Campground | 2 | standard nonelectric | 93 ft | 577 ft | $5 |
| Saddle Lake Campground | 3 | standard nonelectric | 75 ft | 708 ft | $5 |
| Saddle Lake Campground | 4 | standard nonelectric | 75 ft | 756 ftTheis Creek | $5 |
| Saddle Lake Campground | 5 | standard nonelectric | 68 ft | 764 ft | $5 |
| Saddle Lake Campground | 6 | standard nonelectric | 68 ft | 824 ft | $5 |
| Saddle Lake Campground | 7 | standard nonelectric | 69 ft | 821 ftTheis Creek | $5 |
| Saddle Lake Campground | 8 | standard nonelectric | 64 ft | 847 ftTheis Creek | $5 |
| Saddle Lake Campground | 9 | standard nonelectric | 64 ft | 900 ftTheis Creek | $5 |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Where it is
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Leopold, IN
Typical weather
Typical October night 47°F, day 68°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 26°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
what threatens it · who answers for it
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Saddle Lake Campground is in Indiana’s 8th congressional district. Its representative, Mark Messmer (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →