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U.S. Forest Service · Nicolet National Forest · WI

Spectacle Lake Recreation Area

5Heads up5 fires, nearest 25 mi
Wildfire
Schneider fire · 25 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 14, 2026
Wildfire
Aspen Power fire · 41 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 14, 2026
Wildfire
Loon fire · 41 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 14, 2026
Wildfire
Blackberry fire · 47 mi away · 3 acres · updated Oct 16, 2026
Wildfire
Bog fire · 47 mi away · 94 acres · updated Oct 7, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 16, 2026
The agency doesn’t say how you get a siteIts record carries no access type, so treat it as a place to phone before you drive.
Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
A night
$15From, per site
Season
May 2 – October 15Open May 2 through October 15
Drawn from the record · 1,760 ft · 81% tree cover · Spectacle Lake within reach · Bortle 2 sky
1,760 ftElevation
333 ftWater · Spectacle Lake
12.2 miNE of Eagle River, WI
81%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 27th darkest of 70 in WI
Open May 2 through October 15Today

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

If you are looking for a base camp to explore area trails or enjoy a variety of water activities with the family, try Spectacle Lake Recreation Area off Highway 70 east of Eagle River. The Spectacle Lake Recreation Area on the Eagle River District consists of a convenient campground with 34 campsites equipped with fire rings, grills, picnic tables, accessible vault toilets and drinking water. Day use site include a 174-acre lake that is extremely clear, and its 500-foot beach provides a great swimming area great for enjoying a refreshing dip in Spectacle Lake. Keep reading

There is a boat landing, year round fishing and a variety of water activities enjoyed at Spectacle Lake Recreation Area. Take a pleasant hike on the two and one-half mile trail that connects with Kentuck Lake Campground. Keep your eyes open and listen carefully! You are likely to see and hear lots of wildlife while you're here! Did you forget something? Don't sweat it! The small town of Eagle River can meet your camping supply needs ranging from groceries to firewood, as well as a souvenir or two. So, If you like to swim. Boat, fish, hike, picnic or enjoy viewing scenery and wildlife, then the Spectacle Lake Recreation Area is the place for you, conveniently located 15 minutes east of Eagle River. Spectacle Lake Recreation Area is dog friendly; See our restrictions below for more information. Click here to print an information sheet including a map about Spectacle Lake Campground.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets
“…rings, grills, picnic tables, accessible vault toilets and drinking water. Day use site include a 174-acre…”
Drinking water
Yes
“…tables, accessible vault toilets and drinking water. Day use site include a 174-acre lake that is…”
Firewood
Mentioned
Source: Stated in the agency description
Water, toilets and showers: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

Around the campground

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

Phone before you drive

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.

Booking window6 months outBooking opens 6 months ahead; today unlocks arrivals through April 16, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
A night$15Per site, fromthe agency’s fee record
A weekend$30DerivedFriday and Saturday, everything includedours, from the lines above
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 8

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
A night, from$15
Individual campsite fee is $18/night for lakeshore family sites
Night for off-lake family sites .$15
Nightly fees are half of price shown with use of Interagency Senior or Access Pass.
Interagency Pass discounts apply only to the fee for the campsite physically occupied by the pass holder.
The booking feerecreation.gov
We hold no recreation.gov booking record for this campground, so we can’t say whether a booking fee applies.
What a stay costs
One night, fromDerived$15
A weekend, Friday and Saturday, fromDerived$30

Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($15), and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.

How we know this receipt · 5
Sign price: Derived by CAMPANAC from the U.S. Forest Service fee record: a stated per-night amount only · Sep 7, 2026
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
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
Coordinate46.00910, -89.00970

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

Today53°Sunny
Tonight36°Clear
Sunday59°Sunny
Sunday Night36°Mostly Clear

NWS forecast for Eagle River, WI

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

Typical weather

Typical October night 33°F, day 53°F.

Coldest night of the open season: typical October night 33°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

90°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: EAGLE RVR, WI (USC00472314), 14 miles away and 137 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

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

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Sep 28, 2026

Who answers for this land

Tom Tiffany, official portrait

Spectacle Lake Recreation Area is in Wisconsin’s 7th congressional district. Its representative, Tom Tiffany (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: 0.084 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 70 rated federal campgrounds in Wisconsin · 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 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