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

Southwest Shore Campground

3Heads up3 fires, nearest 14 mi
Wildfire
McCully fire · 14 mi away · 13,604 acres · 91% contained · updated Sep 16, 2026
Wildfire
Salmon fire · 21 mi away · 1,433 acres · 100% contained · updated Oct 4, 2026
Wildfire
Anthony fire · 23 mi away · 2,584 acres · 100% 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
Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
Season
May 1 – September 30Open May 1 through September 30
4,090 ftElevation
265 ftWater · Phillips Lake
12.3 miSW of Baker City, OR
0%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 275th darkest of 770 in OR
Open May 1 through September 30Today

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Southwest Shore Campground is one of 3 campgrounds located around Phillips Lake. This campground usually opens up first in the Spring and has a warm open pine tree setting. Due to fluctuating water levels, the lake may be a short hike down from the campground. Popular activities include; fishing, hiking Phillips Lake South Shoreline Trail #1610 , boating, and watching wildlife.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Lake, Beach
Source: Stated in the agency description

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. 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
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 5

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
For visitors with an Interagency Senior Passes, Interagency Access Passes, Golden Age Passport or Golden Access Passport the discount is 50%
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What this campground addsits own record
Extra vehicleSee the note

“Single family campsite = $12 Extra vehicle at campsite = $6 Day-use vehicles = $6 Overflow = $10 Discounts are subject to the terms of the passes, and policies of the Concession operator.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record

What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 5
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
What this campground adds: The U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record and notices for this campground, quoted verbatim. An extra-vehicle charge is set locally and appears on no national schedule, so it’s never assumed. · Aug 24, 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
Coordinate44.67589, -118.08094

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

Overnight21°Areas Of Frost
Saturday70°Areas Of Frost then Mostly Sunny
Saturday Night15°Areas Of Frost
Sunday68°Areas Of Frost then Mostly Sunny

NWS forecast for Sumpter, OR

Source: National Weather Service, BOI forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical May night 39°F, day 70°F.

Coldest night of the open season: typical May night 39°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

100°32°10°

Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season

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: BAKER CITY MUNI AP, OR (USW00024130), 18 miles away and 729 ft lower
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

What threatens this place

developing
Blue Mountains National Forestslogging, rollback · 22 mi
Roadless
Marble Point6,874 acres · 7 mi · inventoried roadless area

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Sep 30, 2026

Who answers for this land

Cliff Bentz, official portrait

Southwest Shore Campground 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 →

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: The agency lists it out of season. The season it publishes is the bar below.
Season: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
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: 0.042 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 770 rated federal campgrounds in Oregon · 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
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 place of any size: Sumpter, OR, 6.4 mi SE. Straight line.
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