Soda Springs Campground
3Heads up3 fires, nearest 17 mi
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $20From, per site
- Sites
- 41 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
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. Keep reading
Facilities
Soda Spring Campground is a small, rustic site located at the end of Forest Road 4510.052 in a stand of Douglas fir, western hemlock, and silver fir. The Campground has 7 sites suitable for tent camping, pickup campers, or smaller trailers. Sites have moderate screening and are not crowded. There is one old-style double vault toilet and an information board. All sites have tables and fire rings with grill feature. This campground tends to be lightly used and quiet, with only minor local traffic. The access route is moderately steep single lane with occasional pullouts. Larger trailers are not recommended. Summit Creek is nearby but not visible from the campground, and there are a number of dispersed sites along the creek in the area. Local attraction is a small soda spring, site of old bottling facility. No structures remain. The Cowlitz Trail #44 trailhead is located in the campground, providing access to the adjacent William O. Douglas Wilderness.
What the agency tells you
Horses prohibited in campground 14-day stay limit
No potable water is available.
Extra vehicle fee of $8.00/night of stay.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 4
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…crowded. There is one old-style double vault toilet and an information board. All sites have tables and…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Fall color · reported 8 days ago, 29 km away
- Patchy color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
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.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
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
“Extra vehicle fee of $8.00/night of stay.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $20 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 · 6
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 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 phone number
Where it is
Forlorn Lakes CG (WA) Gifford Pinchot NFGifford Pinchot National Forest · 0.0 mi
Goose Lake CampgroundGifford Pinchot National Forest · 0.0 mi
Government Mineral Springs CampgroundGifford Pinchot National Forest · 0.0 mi
Horseshoe Lake CampgroundGifford Pinchot National Forest · 0.0 miThe agency publishes this point for 13 campgrounds; it’s likely a district office, not the campground. Use the agency’s own page for directions.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Trout Lake, WA
Typical weather
Typical October night 37°F, day 53°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December 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 Augusts are colder than the August line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Soda Springs Campground is in Washington’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: C. See every public-lands vote →