South Pike Bay
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $16From, per site
- Sites
- 22All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 4 notices
In the agency’s own words
South Pike Bay Campground is located on the south shore of beautiful Pike Bay, on Cass Lake in north central Minnesota. Visitors enjoy the area for its excellent boating, canoeing and fishing opportunities. Keep reading
Recreation
South Pike Bay offers offers many recreational activities, including boating, canoeing, water skiing and swimming. Anglers fish for walleye, northern pike, perch and trophy muskie. A boat ramp is located within the campground. A trailhead for the Migizi Bike Trail is on-site. The paved trail stretches 14 miles along the lakeshore and is open to biking, walking and rollerblading. The campground is a portage point for the 128-mile Chippewa Headwaters Loop Canoe Route. With six portages, the historic waterway is considered the most difficult in the forest, but is a beautiful trip through history.
Facilities
The campground offers 23 non-electric campsites, each equipped with a picnic table and campfire ring. Vault toilets, drinking water and trash collection are provided.
Natural Features
The campground is a long spur stretching along the shore of Pike Bay in a pleasant stand of mixed hardwoods and old growth pine. Some of the campsites are situated on the beautiful sand beach.
Nearby Attractions
The town of Cass Lake, Minn., is six miles northwest of the campground, offering restaurants, a bank, grocery and hardware stores, a movie theater and museum.
What the agency tells you
There is a maximum of 1 camping unit (RV, Camper trailer, pop-up, truck camper or bus) allowed per site. Extra sleeping tents are allowed as long as the total number of occupants in the site is 8 or less. Double occupancy is not allowed.
Click here for more information on the Chippewa National Forest
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.
Everything else this campground posts · 1
Northern Minnesota is home to black bears. Campers must keep coolers and other bear attractants locked inside hard-sided campers or in vehicles when not attended, including overnight. Black bears are present and active within the campground area. Feeding any wildlife, including hanging bird feeders, is strictly prohibited. NEW FOR 2025: Chippewa National Forest Campground Food Storage Order
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 22
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…with a picnic table and campfire ring. Vault toilets, drinking water and trash collection are provided.…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…table and campfire ring. Vault toilets, drinking water and trash collection are provided. Natural Features…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Beach, Coast
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Historic site
- Swimming
- Water sports
- Night sky · 71st darkest of 77 in MN
- Bortle 4
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
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.
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 · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $16 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
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
22 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 22 mapped sitesAll 22 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. 22 of the 22 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 002 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 152 ft | 221 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 003 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 94 ft | 63 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 005 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 81 ft | 64 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 006 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 122 ft | 208 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 007 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 68 ft | 48 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 008 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 122 ft | 208 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 009 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 68 ft | 45 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 010 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 91 ft | 196 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 011 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 75 ft | 47 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 012 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 64 ft | 200 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 013 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 104 ft | 54 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 014 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 64 ft | 225 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 015 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 95 ft | 88 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 016 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 154 ft | 222 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 017 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 83 ft | 79 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 018 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 83 ft | 69 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 019 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 105 ft | 84 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 020 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 106 ft | 258 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 021 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 85 ft | 103 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 022 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 99 ft | 266 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 023 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 85 ft | 103 ft | $16 |
| SOUTH PIKE BAY | 024 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 99 ft | 253 ft | $16 |
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
Cass Lake Loop3.8 miCass Lake Campground LoopChippewa National Forest · 4.3 mi
Norway Beach LoopChippewa National Forest · 4.4 mi
Wanaki LoopChippewa National Forest · 4.4 mi
Chippewa LoopChippewa National Forest · 5.0 miWanaki Campground LoopChippewa National Forest · 5.1 miFrom Cass Lake, Minn., travel 3 miles south on Highway 371. Turn east onto Forest Road 2137 and travel 2 miles to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Cass Lake, MN
Typical weather
Typical October night 34°F, day 52°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night -4°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
South Pike Bay is in Minnesota’s 8th congressional district. Its representative, Pete Stauber (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →