Scaredman Recreation Site
1Heads up1 fire 21 mi away
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 30 of the next 30 nights read 15:23 UTC
- A night
- $10From, per site
- Sites
- 10All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 9 notices
In the agency’s own words
Reservations must be made 5 days prior to arrival. Disregard the "FF" (First-Come-First-Serve) availability. We do not allow on-site transactions. Drinking water is currently unavailable from spigots within the campground. Off the beaten path, this minimally developed campground along Canton Creek features riverside picnic sites, drinking water spigots, and a vault restroom facility. Nearby, there are several outstanding undeveloped swimming holes along both Canton and Steamboat Creeks. Canton Creek and Steamboat Creek are closed to all angling. Just 3 miles downstream from Scaredman, the North Umpqua River offers world-class fly-fishing. Keep reading
Recreation
Picnicing, relaxing, and swimming are the primary recreation activites taking place at Cavitt Creek Recreation Site. Fishing and whitewater rafting activites can take place just 3 miles downstream on the North Umpqua River.
Facilities
Scaredman has 10 campsites with tables and fire rings. Drinking water is currently unavailable from spigots within the campground. A vault toilet on site. Campers will also have access to the riverside day-use area.
Natural Features
The recreation site is remote in heavily wooded area of different species. The campground and day-use area are at 1390' along a creek and many waterfalls, rivers, and forests are in the surrounding region.
Nearby Attractions
Within a short drive from the campground you can have opportunities for day of rafting on the North Umpqua, fishing, hiking, viewing waterfalls, or driving along the Rogue - Umpqua National Scenic Byway. Just 3 miles downstream from Canton Creek is Steamboat Creek, a short tributary of the North Umpqua River, that can provide many opportunites for swimming.
What the agency tells you
Reservations must be made 5 days prior to arrival.
We do not allow first-come-first-serve camping. No transactions on-site.
Currently no drinking water available
Everything else this campground posts · 6
There are no hook-ups available at campsites
Check-in: 1:00 p.m. Check-out: 11:00 a.m.
Day-Use area is free of charge
Pets must be kept on six foot or shorter leash
No host on site
No firewood available on site
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 10
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…sites, drinking water spigots, and a vault restroom facility. Nearby, there are several outstanding…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…Creek features riverside picnic sites, drinking water spigots, and a vault restroom facility. Nearby,…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Waterfall, River, Creek
- Swimming
- Water access
Full this Saturdayread 15:23 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
2 campgrounds have sites open within 30 miles, read 16:43 UTC. See them
OpenBooked
Every one of the 2 sites on offer is taken this Saturday. 10 are free on Wed, Oct 21. read 15:23 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
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.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
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 rate for this season, $10 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
Open within 30 miles this weekend · 2
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 16:43 UTC
- Susan Creek CampgroundRoseburg District Swiftwater Field Office · 8.8 mi · 5 of 56 site-nights open
- Cavitt Creek Falls Recreation SiteRoseburg District Swiftwater Field Office · 18 mi · 4 of 16 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 15:23 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
10 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 10 mapped sitesAll 10 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. 10 of the 10 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Northern | Site 006 | standard nonelectric | 75 ft | 303 ft | $10 |
| Northern | Site 007 | standard nonelectric | 65 ft | 316 ft | $10 |
| Northern | Site 008 | standard nonelectric | 65 ft | 370 ft | $10 |
| Northern | Site 009 | standard nonelectric | 72 ft | 318 ft | $10 |
| Northern | Site 010 | standard nonelectric | 84 ft | 308 ft | $10 |
| Southern | Site 001 | standard nonelectric | 88 ft | 159 ft | $10 |
| Southern | Site 002 | standard nonelectric | 88 ft | 110 ft | $10 |
| Southern | Site 003 | standard nonelectric | 97 ft | 87 ft | $10 |
| Southern | Site 004 | standard nonelectric | 98 ft | 99 ft | $10 |
| Southern | Site 005 | standard nonelectric | 97 ft | 175 ft | $10 |
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 agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Canton Creek CampgroundUmpqua National Forest · 2.7 mi
Steamboat Ball Field Group SiteUmpqua National Forest · 3.2 mi
Island CampgroundUmpqua National Forest · 3.4 mi
Bogus Creek CampgroundUmpqua National Forest · 4.3 mi
Steamboat Falls CampgroundSteamboat Creek Roadside & Streamside Zones Streamside Zone Withdrawal · 6.1 miApple Creek CampgroundUmpqua National Forest · 6.7 miFrom Roseburg, travel east on Highway 138 for 40 miles. Turn left/north onto Steamboat Creek Road and then after a half mile, turn left/north onto Canton Creek Road. Scaredman is three miles from the Steamboat Creek/Canton Creek junction. Elevation: 1390’
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Glide, OR
Typical weather
Typical October night 41°F, day 64°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 33°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
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 · a letter you can send
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Scaredman Recreation Site is in Oregon’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Cliff Bentz (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyCliff BentzU.S. Representative · Oregon’s 2nd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJeff MerkleyU.S. Senator · Oregon
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRon WydenU.S. Senator · Oregon
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Scaredman Recreation Site, Roseburg District Swiftwater Field Office, Oregon
Dear Cliff Bentz, I’m a constituent in Oregon’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Scaredman Recreation Site, Roseburg District Swiftwater Field Office, Oregon, and couldn’t. All 10 sites at Scaredman Recreation Site are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 2 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Scaredman Recreation Site keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Scaredman Recreation Site. I’m asking you to put it to the Bureau of Land Management in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Scaredman Recreation Site (Roseburg District Swiftwater Field Office, Oregon) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Scaredman Recreation Site, Roseburg District Swiftwater Field Office, Oregon
Dear Jeff Merkley, I’m a constituent in Oregon. I tried to camp at Scaredman Recreation Site, Roseburg District Swiftwater Field Office, Oregon, and couldn’t. All 10 sites at Scaredman Recreation Site are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 2 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Scaredman Recreation Site keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Scaredman Recreation Site. I’m asking you to put it to the Bureau of Land Management in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Scaredman Recreation Site (Roseburg District Swiftwater Field Office, Oregon) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Scaredman Recreation Site, Roseburg District Swiftwater Field Office, Oregon
Dear Ron Wyden, I’m a constituent in Oregon. I tried to camp at Scaredman Recreation Site, Roseburg District Swiftwater Field Office, Oregon, and couldn’t. All 10 sites at Scaredman Recreation Site are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 2 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Scaredman Recreation Site keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Scaredman Recreation Site. I’m asking you to put it to the Bureau of Land Management in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Scaredman Recreation Site (Roseburg District Swiftwater Field Office, Oregon) via campanac.com