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U.S. Forest Service · LA

Stuart Lake Recreation Complex, Camping/Day Use

1Heads up1 fire 20 mi away
Wildfire
Stracener fire · 20 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 16, 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
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Drawn from the record · 120 ft · 97% tree cover · water within reach · Bortle 4 sky
120 ftElevation
1,915 ftWater · an unnamed pond
6.3 miE of Colfax, LA
97%Tree cover
Bortle 4Night sky · 13th darkest of 22 in LA

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

There is an assortment of recreational opportunities within the Stuart Lake Recreation Complex. Situated on a beautiful 5-acre lake surrounded by pine-hardwood forest, this area provides outdoor recreational opportunities for camping, picnicking, canoeing (non-motorized boating), fishing, hiking, bicycling, and nature study. The day use facility includes flush toilets, paved parking, a fishing pier, shore fishing, a swimming beach, picnic tables and barbeque pits. The group use facility is located up the hill from the day use area and the swimming beach. Keep reading

It is equipped with a covered picnic shelter, a large party barbeque pit, trash bins, restrooms, and access to day use facilities including the lake. Group use area facilites include: restrooms, gravel parking, extra large barbeque pit, trash bins, large covered picnic shelter, and access to the day use facilities and lake. The Stuart Nature Trail and the Glenn Emery hiking and biking trail may both be accessed from this recreation area. The Stuart Lake Campground is a primitive campground with 8 sites that were renovated in 2009. General facilities also include drinking water and restrooms. Trash disposal available.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Flush Toilets
“…study. The day use facility includes flush toilets, paved parking, a fishing pier, shore fishing, a…”
Drinking water
Yes
“…in 2009. General facilities also include drinking water and restrooms. Trash disposal available.”
Source: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Lake, 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 15, 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 · 11

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.
Stuart Lake Recreation Area is a designated fee area.
Day Use: $5/vehicle/day.
Camping: $15/single site/night and $20/double unit/night.
Group Use Area: $10 non-refundable fee
For 1-30 people$25
For 31-50 people$40
For 51-125 people .$65
No trail use fees for hikers.
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
Coordinate31.50790, -92.57900

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

Today79°Partly Sunny4% rain
Tonight50°Mostly Clear3% rain
Saturday71°Sunny
Saturday Night45°Clear

NWS forecast for Rock Hill, LA

Source: National Weather Service, SHV forecast office · Oct 16, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 56°F, day 76°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 39°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

100°30°

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.

Measured at: BOYCE 3 WNW, LA (USC00161232), 11 miles away and at about the same elevation
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

who answers for it

Who answers for this land

Mike Johnson, official portrait

Stuart Lake Recreation Complex, Camping/Day Use is in Louisiana’s 4th congressional district. Its representative, Mike Johnson (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: U.S. Forest Service publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate.
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: 0.53 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 22 rated federal campgrounds in Louisiana · 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: Rock Hill, LA, 2.7 mi N (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