Swauk Campground
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 29 mi
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $24From, per site
- Sites
- 41 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 1 notices
In the agency’s own words
This location is available on a first-come, first-served basis only. Visitors are required to physically arrive at the campground to purchase and claim a site. Once on-site, you may be able to pay for your campsite(s) by scanning a QR code using the Recreation.gov mobile app, and the Scan and Pay feature. If this option is available, you will need to first download the free Recreation.gov mobile app https://www.recreation.gov/mobile-app prior to your arrival as some remote areas have limited or no cellular service. Keep reading
Facilities
A beautiful campground nestled in a grove of large Ponderosa Pine and western Larch trees. The campground offers 19 single campsites, 2 double campsites, and a picnic shelter. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (661) 702-1420.
What the agency tells you
Extra vehicle fee: $10.00 (2nd vehicle) will be collected at the campground. Extra vehicle is defined as any vehicle (motorhome, trailer, or passenger vehicle) that is not towed in with the first vehicle. If primary vehicle fills the parking pad, no additional vehicles will be allowed.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 4
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Around the campground
- Fall color · reported 14 days ago, 20 km away
- Peak color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 1 of the 4 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 13
What you actually pay
“Extra vehicle fee: $10.00 (2nd vehicle) will be collected at the campground.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $24 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 · 6
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
4 sites
All 4 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. 1 of the 4 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Mineral Springs GroupWenatchee National Forest · 3.2 mi
Liberty CampgroundSpokane Wenatchee Field Office · 5.8 mi
Teanaway Guard StationWenatchee National Forest · 9.3 miBeverly CampgroundWenatchee National Forest · 11 mi
Eightmile CampgroundWenatchee National Forest · 16 mi
Eightmile Group SiteWenatchee National Forest · 16 miFrom Cle Elum, WA travel east on Highway 970/97 for approximately 26 miles. Campground is on the right.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Cle Elum, WA
Typical weather
Typical October night 38°F, day 49°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 24°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 Augusts are colder than the August 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
Swauk Campground is in Washington’s 8th congressional district. Its representative, Kim Schrier (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →