CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
The map
U.S. Forest Service · Kisatchie National Forest · LA

Valentine Lake Recreation Area

1Heads up1 fire 26 mi away
Wildfire
Turkey Creek fire · 26 mi away · 232 acres · 100% contained · updated Oct 14, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 14, 2026
ReservableBooking 6 months out; today unlocks April 16. Season not published.
Book on recreation.govWe make nothing when you book
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Sites
1916 on recreation.gov
Drawn from the record · 150 ft · 73% tree cover · Valentine Lake within reach · Bortle 4 sky
150 ftElevation
124 ftWater · Valentine Lake
8.7 miNW of Woodworth, LA
73%Tree cover
Bortle 4Night sky · 15th darkest of 22 in LA

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

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.

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Tents and rigs

Sites
19
Hookups
None
Accessible sites
None listed
Source: Recreation.gov campsite records · Aug 23, 2026

No reading yet, book on recreation.gov

recreation.gov lists 16 of the 19 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.

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
If plans change$10 to cancel$10 to change a reservationrecreation.gov’s schedule
Runs itU.S. Forest ServiceBooked through recreation.govthe agency’s record
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.

Free forever, no booking kickbacks.
Book on recreation.gov

We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.

Every line of the receipt · 9

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.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Reservation fee, booked online$8
One fee per reservation, however many nights you book, and it’s non-refundable. $9 if you book by phone, $3 in person.
Pass discounts only apply to the recreation (or use) fee for the facility. Other charges such as electricity or water hookups, reservation or other fees are not eligible for a discount.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s nothing to add the $8 booking fee to. We won’t total a receipt with a number missing from it.
If your plans changerecreation.gov
Change fee, moving to dates outside your booking$10
Cancellation fee$10
Cancelling the day before, or the day of$10 + your first night
No-show$20 + your first night

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 · 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: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

rules read Sep 9, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

The sites

19 sites

All 19 sites

North Shore01standard nonelectric
North Shore02standard nonelectric
North Shore03standard nonelectric
North Shore04standard nonelectric
North Shore05standard nonelectric
North Shore06standard nonelectric
North Shore07standard nonelectric
North Shore08standard nonelectric
North Shore09standard nonelectric
North Shore10standard nonelectric
North Shore11standard nonelectric
North Shore12standard nonelectric
North Shore13standard nonelectric
North Shore14standard nonelectric
North Shore15standard nonelectric
North Shore16standard nonelectric
Scan and PayScanPay 2type not stated
Scan and PayScanPay 3type not stated
Scan and PayScanPay 4type not stated
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Getting there

the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Coordinate31.24278, -92.68022
The phoneN/A
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗

Where it is

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Overnight50°Clear
Saturday72°Sunny
Saturday Night47°Clear
Sunday74°Sunny

NWS forecast for Woodworth, LA

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

Typical weather

Typical October night 55°F, day 80°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: ALEXANDRIA INTL AP, LA (USW00093915), 10 miles away and 66 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

who answers for it

Who answers for this land

Mike Johnson, official portrait

Valentine Lake Recreation Area 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: the number below is the only way to be sure.
Sites on recreation.gov: recreation.gov’s own month availability payload for this facility, asked for October 2026, November 2026 and July 2027. It names 16 of the 19 campsites the agency files here, and every one of them carries an answer either way. A campground nobody has read carries no answer at all, never a no. · Oct 13, 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: 0.58 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 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