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

Wabasso Lake Recreation Area

5Heads up5 fires, nearest 10 mi
Wildfire
Flowage fire · 9.5 mi away · 8 acres · updated Oct 14, 2026
Wildfire
Bog fire · 11 mi away · 94 acres · updated Oct 7, 2026
Wildfire
Aspen Power fire · 21 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 14, 2026
Wildfire
Greased Lightnin fire · 22 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 15, 2026
Wildfire
Schneider fire · 23 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 14, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 15, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
OpenThe agency lists it open
Season
January 1 – December 31Open January 1 through December 31
Drawn from the record · 1,590 ft · 69% tree cover · Wabasso Lake within reach · Bortle 3 sky
1,590 ftElevation
61 ftWater · Wabasso Lake
2.7 miW of Lac du Flambeau, WI
69%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 41st darkest of 70 in WI
Open January 1 through December 31Today

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

If you are looking to canoe in the glassy waters of Wabasso Lake or enjoy a rustic cozy campground, try the Wabasso Lake Recreation Area off Forest Road 142 west of Lac du Flambeau. The Wabasso Lake Recreation Area on the Medford-Park Falls Ranger District consists of a campground with five walk/canoe-in campsites equipped with fire grills and picnic tables. Drinking water and toilets are located at the boat landing. Wabasso Lake Recreation Area is located about one mile west of the Lac du Flambeau and is perfect for primitive camping. Keep reading

Wabasso Lake is 49-acres and has an excellent panfish population and is great for canoeing and fishing. So, if you like to hike, fish, swim, hike, bike, and picnic, then the Wabasso Lake Recreation Area is the place for you, located 5 minutes west of Lac du Flambeau. The Wabasso Lake Recreation Area is pet friendly; see restrictions below for more information.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Drinking water
Yes
“…with fire grills and picnic tables. Drinking water and toilets are located at the boat landing.…”
Source: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Lake
Fall color · reported 13 days ago, 20 km away
Past peak
Source: Stated in the agency description
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (20 km) · Oct 4, 2026

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

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.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe record
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 6

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.
Individual campsite fee is $5 per vehicle.
The forest also has an annual pass available for $30.
To learn more about passes, click here .
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
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
Coordinate45.97270, -90.00030

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

Tonight26°Mostly Clear
Saturday54°Sunny
Saturday Night33°Mostly Clear
Sunday59°Sunny

NWS forecast for Lac du Flambeau, WI

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

Typical weather

Typical October night 33°F, day 53°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 0°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

90°32°-10°

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 Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.

Measured at: REST LAKE, WI (USC00477092), 12 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

what threatens it · who answers for it

Roadless country, and what’s coming for it

Roadless
Round Lake Study Area3,707 acres · 5 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

Tom Tiffany, official portrait

Wabasso 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 open right now.
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: 0.11 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
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (20 km) · Oct 4, 2026
Reported by: PhenoCam Network (GCC), reported past peak · Oct 4, 2026
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