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U.S. Forest Service · Monongahela National Forest · WV

Spruce Knob Lake Campground

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
OpenInside the published season, our reading
Season
– October 31Closes October 31. No opening date published.
Drawn from the record · 4,010 ft · 78% tree cover · Spruce Knob Lake within reach · Bortle 3 sky
4,010 ftElevation
1,173 ftWater · Spruce Knob Lake
17.8 miSE of Elkins, WV
78%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 16th darkest of 69 in WV
Closes October 31. No opening date published.Today

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Spruce Knob Lake Campground is located west of Spruce Knob , the highest point in West Virginia. Also close by is Spruce Knob - Seneca Creek Backcountry , which holds 60 miles of trails ready to be explored. For individuals looking for group camping located close by is Gatewood Campground . If you enjoy stream or river fishing as well you can head over to Gandy Creek. Fishing is available at Spruce Knob Lake. Built in 1952 for fishing, the 25-acre lake is regularly stocked with trout by the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. Numerous small but hungry bluegills along the shoreline make fishing fun for beginning anglers. Electric trolling motors and non-motorized boats are permitted on the lake. There is a small boat launch, parking lot, and vault toilets. A wooden pier along the shoreline provides barrier free access.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets
“…is a small boat launch, parking lot, and vault toilets. A wooden pier along the shoreline provides barrier…”
Boat ramp
Yes
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, Creek, 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 17, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 4

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.
Single- $16 Double- $28 Walk-in- $13
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
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
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
Coordinate38.70738, -79.58826

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

This Afternoon40°Sunny5% rain
Tonight24°Widespread Frost5% rain
Sunday47°Sunny
Sunday Night31°Clear

NWS forecast for Whitmer, WV

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

Typical weather

Typical October night 39°F, day 59°F.

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

80°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: ELKINS 21 ENE, WV (USW00003733), 22 miles away and 620 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

Roadless country, and what’s coming for it

Roadless
Seneca Creek22,287 acres · 6 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
East Fork Of Greenbrier7,167 acres · 9 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Laurel Fork1,172 acres · 9 mi · inventoried roadless area

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

Source: USFS Inventoried Roadless Areas via MTJP Roadless Map · Jul 29, 2026

Who answers for this land

Riley Moore, official portrait

Spruce Knob Lake Campground is in West Virginia’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Riley Moore (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: Today falls inside the season the agency publishes, and it has posted nothing else. That reading is ours.
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: 0.14 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 69 rated federal campgrounds in West Virginia · 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: Whitmer, WV, 7.2 mi SSW (a census designated place). 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