Windy Group Camp
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices
In the agency’s own words
Located on the southwest end of spectacular Crescent Lake in Deschutes National Forest, Windy Group Campground offers visitors the opportunity to experience the beauty and recreational opportunities of the Cascade region in a rustic and secluded setting. A large group site sits at the lake's edge. Visitors enjoy hiking nearby trails and water activities on the lake. Keep reading
Recreation
Boating, swimming and fishing are popular activities enjoyed by visitors during spring, summer and fall months. Anglers have the opportunity to fish from boat or shoreline for abundant salmon and trout. Summer months offer the best fishing. Crescent Lake Snowpark offers skiers and snowmobilers a base camp for winter excursions. Open to snowmobiling, Summit Lake Trail, about 9 miles one-way, follows the road leading from Crescent Lake to Summit Lake, offering excellent views across Crescent Lake and showcasing Diamond Peak.
Facilities
This large group site can accommodate up to 40 people. Amenities are minimal at this campground. There is one wooden style vault toilet. Picnic tables and a barbeque pit are available. The roads are unpaved, and RVs will have plenty of space to park.
Natural Features
Crescent Lake, nestled in a naturally glaciated basin behind a moraine dam, lies east of the towering Cascade Mountain Range. Its brilliant blue-green water, sandy beaches and water temperature are exceptional for a high-elevation lake. Towering lodgepole pine trees provide the backdrop for this area, with mountain hemlock, fir, and spruce also in the mix. Volcanic activity throughout the surrounding area of Deschutes National Forest is evident in its landscape, showcasing cinder cones, calderas and lava flows.
Nearby Attractions
Visitors can explore wilderness areas, wild and scenic rivers, lakes and reservoirs and approximately 1,600 miles of trails that comprise nearly 2.5 million acres the Deschutes National Forest and the adjacent Ochoco National Forest. Lava Lands Visitor Center in nearby Bend, Oregon, and the Newberry National Volcanic Monument draw visitors to the region as well. Visitors will also enjoy traveling the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway, known as Oregon's Highway in the Sky, which climbs into the clouds on a 66-mile drive through the Cascade Mountain range, weaving through snow-capped peaks and alpine lakes. A nearby resort on Crescent Lake offers lodging and a general store where supplies and equipment rentals are available.
Charges & Cancellations
Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
What the agency tells you
Drinking water not available at site; visitors must bring their own supply
No overnight camping within 100 feet of the water's edge
Non-street legal motorcycles and off-road vehicle use is not allowed within or to and from the group camp
Everything else this campground posts · 8
Fire Restrictions: Fire restrictions may be imposed at any time due to hot, dry weather conditions, at which time campfires and charcoal fires may not be allowed.
During your time in Central Oregon, you can find wildfire, prescribed fire and smoke information at centraloregonfire.org
Reserved Sites will be held until check out time (NOON) the day following your arrival date. Sites must be occupied by the checkout time of that following day to hold a reservation or the site will be forfeited and released to other guests. Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).
Don't Move Firewood: Please protect Pacific Northwest forests by preventing the spread of invasive species. Firewood can carry insects and diseases that can threaten the health of our western forests. You can make a difference by obtaining and burning your firewood near your camping destination. Visit Dontmovefirewood.org for further information.
Click here for more information about Deschutes National Forest
Camping or otherwise occupying a single location (including leaving camping equipment and/or related supplies) for a period longer than 14 consecutive calendar days is prohibited. ‘Location’ means the occupied area, the occupied campsite, and the National Forest System lands in the immediate vicinity thereof. Camping or occupying any location on all National Forest lands for more than 28 calendar days total during a calendar year is prohibited.
NO generator use is allowed in campgrounds between 10:00PM and 7:00AM (36 CFR 261.10). Silent power banks or battery powered devices are allowed.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…campground. There is one wooden style vault toilet. Picnic tables and a barbeque pit are available.…”
- Store
- Nearby
- Stay limit
- 28 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Beach
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Swimming
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
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.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
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 · 12
What you actually pay
“Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.” · this campground’s own terms
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
1 sites · the site map
All 1 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 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| AREA WINDY GROUP CAMP | 1 | group standard nonelectric | 334 ft | $164 |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Whitefish Horse CampDeschutes National Forest · 0.3 mi
SpringDeschutes National Forest · 0.7 mi
Contorta Point Group CampDeschutes National Forest · 1.1 mi
Contorta Flat CampgroundDeschutes National Forest · 1.7 mi
Crescent Lake CampgroundDeschutes National Forest · 4.0 mi
Crescent Lake YurtsDeschutes National Forest · 4.1 miTake Highway 58 approximately 8 miles east of Willamette Pass to the Crescent Lake Junction. Turn west on Forest Road 60 and continue approximately 7 miles to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Crescent Lake, OR
Typical weather
Typical October night 30°F, day 55°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 20°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
Windy Group Camp is in Oregon’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Cliff Bentz (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →