Camping at Silver Lake Park: the three campgrounds, the real rates, and when it all closes

Silver Lake Park has three campgrounds with 94 campsites between them, plus a 15-site group camp, 3.5 miles north of Maple Falls on the Mt. Baker Highway. Whatcom County charges $25–$33 a night for a tent site and $32–$40 with water and electric, by residency. The 2026 camping season runs April 10 to October 26, so it closes in two weeks.

This is the closest developed campground to Mt. Baker that is still taking reservations this month, and it is the one people mean when they search “camping near Mt. Baker” in October. We host two cabins on this road and we send guests up to this lake all summer, so here is what the county actually runs — checked against its own pages today, not against a travel aggregator.

What campgrounds are at Silver Lake Park?

Three, and they are not interchangeable. Cedar is the tent campground at the north end with no hookups and no showers. Maple Creek is the big RV campground in the middle of the park by the beach. Red Mountain sits three-quarters of a mile back from the lake at the foot of its namesake hill, with horse stables and quieter sites.

Campground	Takes	Sites	Hookups	Showers	Rate
Cedar	Tents, max 25 ft	12 standard, 3 double	None	No	$25 / $33
Maple Creek	RVs and tents	45 standard, 2 double, 4 pull-through	Water, 30/50 amp	Yes, 24 hr	$32 / $40
Red Mountain	RVs and tents	28 standard	Water, 20/30 amp	Yes, 24 hr	$32 / $40
Group Camp	RVs, 90 people max	15 sites	Water, 20/30 amp	No	$362 / $385

Rates are per night, Whatcom County resident first and non-resident second, from the county’s own campground page. Every site has a picnic table and a fire pit with a grill, and the standard capacity is six people per site, twelve on a double. Cedar has vault toilets and nothing else; the two RV campgrounds add flush toilets in season and a shower building open around the clock at no extra charge.

Red Mountain above the lake. The campground named for it sits at the foot of this hillside, about three-quarters of a mile back from the water. Photo: Steven Pavlov, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Edited.

Three details that decide the choice for most people. Cedar is the only one that forbids vehicles over 25 feet, so an RV goes to Maple Creek or Red Mountain by default. The dump station sits at the entrance to Maple Creek, free with a camping receipt and $7 without one. And the ADA sites are specific: 2A/B and 15 at Cedar, 6, 7 and 24 at Maple Creek, 17 and 18 at Red Mountain. A Campground Connector Trail links all three to the day-use areas, so the tent campground is not cut off from the beach.

How much does camping at Silver Lake Park cost?

A standard tent site is $25 a night for Whatcom County residents and $33 for everyone else. Water and electric takes it to $32 and $40. Add a non-refundable $13 reservation fee per booking, $12 per night for a second vehicle, and $8 a bundle for firewood. There is no day-use or parking fee at this park.

What	County resident	Non-resident
Standard campsite (6 people)	$25	$33
Double campsite (12 people)	$50	$66
Standard with water and electric	$32	$40
Double with water and electric	$64	$80
Group camp	$362	$385
Reservation fee (per booking, non-refundable)	$13	$13
Extra vehicle, per night	$12	$12
Horse, per night	$6	$6
Dump station (free with a camping receipt)	$7	$7

Verified against the county’s Silver Lake Park page on October 12, 2026; the county notes all prices are subject to change. The residency split is real money on a long stay — a week in a hookup site is $224 for a county resident and $280 for a visitor from Seattle, before the booking fee.

Mid-October on the lake. The water is clear enough in the shallows to read the weed beds through it. Photo: Steven Pavlov, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Edited.

How do you reserve a site, and can you just show up?

Reserve online through the county’s booking system or by phone at 360-778-5850; the group camp is phone-only. Reservations must be made at least 48 hours ahead, which is the rule that catches people. Seven sites are permanently first-come, first-served, so showing up is a real option if you are flexible.

Those seven are Cedar 3, Maple Creek 22, 32, 35 and 45, and Red Mountain 1 and 28. Self-registration is capped at two nights and the fee has to be paid within 30 minutes of taking a site. Any other unreserved site can also be self-registered on arrival.

Two timing rules worth writing down. Next year’s reservations open on the first business day of December at 9am, which is how the lakefront July weekends go. And in peak season, April through October, Friday and Saturday have to be booked together — you cannot take just the Saturday.

If you cancel	What you get back
30+ days before arrival	Everything except the $13 reservation fee
3–29 days before	Everything except one night and the reservation fee
2 days or less	Everything except three nights and the reservation fee
2 days or less, on a stay of 3 nights or fewer	Nothing

A change request made five or more days out moves the stay to another date in the same calendar year for a $13 transfer fee. Check-in is 2pm and check-out is 11am for campsites; the cabins run 4pm and 11am. Quiet hours are 10pm to 8am and the stay limit is 14 days in any 30.

What does the county rent besides campsites?

Six lakefront cabins built in the 1940s, a rustic camping cabin, and a three-bedroom suite in the Silver Lake Lodge building. They are named for North Cascades peaks — Baker, Kulshan, Larrabee, Shuksan, Sumas and Tomyhoi — and they rent year-round, unlike the campgrounds.

One of the park’s 1940s cabins, cedar shingle and river rock under the firs. Photo: Steven Pavlov, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Edited.

We are not in the business of talking you out of a county park, so here is the honest shape of them. Five of the six cabins are $105 or $116 a night by residency, Baker is $130 or $141, the Cascade camping cabin in Maple Creek Campground is $51 or $56, and the Lakeside Lodge suite sleeps six at $198 or $221. Only the Baker cabin has its own bathroom; everyone else walks to the flush or vault toilets. The cabins have no fire rings of their own — there are three first-come rings on the lawn opposite — and linens, blankets, pillows, cookware and dishes are not provided for any of them. Parking is one vehicle per cabin, no RVs or trailers. Rates and details are on the county’s cabin rentals page.

That is a genuinely good deal for a bare-bones lakefront night in summer. It is a different product from a heated cabin with a kitchen and a hot tub in January, which is the gap we fill further down this page.

When does camping close at Silver Lake Park?

The 2026 camping season runs April 10 through October 26, so the campgrounds close in two weeks. Day use stays open daily, 8am to dusk, all year. The cabins and the Lakeside Lodge rent year-round. Boat rentals are seasonal and the county does not publish an end date for them.

The last fortnight of the season looks like this most mornings: fog on the water until the sun clears the ridge. Photo: Steven Pavlov, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Edited.

Late October here is cold, wet and quiet, and it is the best photography on the lake all year — the bigleaf maples turn against the conifers and the water goes still enough to mirror the whole far shore. If you are coming for colour rather than swimming, our Mt. Baker fall colour guide has the timing for the rest of the corridor, which runs about three weeks ahead of the valley up at Heather Meadows.

Bigleaf maple, mid-October, Silver Lake Park. Photo: Steven Pavlov, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Edited.

Where else can you camp near Mt. Baker?

Three Forest Service campgrounds sit on the Mt. Baker Highway above Glacier: Douglas Fir near milepost 35, Excelsior Group Camp just below milepost 40, and Silver Fir at milepost 46. All three are summer-season only, and all three were already closed when we checked on October 12, 2026. Silver Fir is the closest campground to the ski area, six highway miles below the White Salmon base.

Campground	Milepost	Sites	Season	Nightly
Silver Lake Park (county)	3.5 mi N of MP 26.6	94 + group camp	Apr 10 – Oct 26	$25–$40
Douglas Fir (USFS)	~MP 35	26 single, 9 first-come	May – September	From $32
Excelsior Group Camp (USFS)	just below MP 40	2 group sites, 50 each	Summer	Group rates
Silver Fir (USFS)	~MP 46	19 single + 1 double, 2 first-come	Summer	From $32

Douglas Fir sits at 1,000 feet on the North Fork Nooksack about 2.5 miles east of Glacier, with potable water, vault toilets, no hookups and a 14-day limit. It takes cash only for anything bought at the campground, including first-come sites. Silver Fir is at 2,000 feet, 14 miles east of Glacier, with a reservable day-use shelter; day use there is $8 or a Northwest Forest Pass. Excelsior is group-only, two sites sleeping 50 each, and the gate key comes from the Douglas Fir campground host. A forest-wide food storage order applies to all of them.

Douglas Fir Campground sits on this bank of the North Fork Nooksack, 2.5 miles above Glacier. Photo: Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Edited.

Can you camp near Mt. Baker in winter?

Not in a developed campground. Every tent and RV campground on this side of the mountain — the county’s three and the Forest Service’s three — is closed by the end of October and does not reopen until spring. There is no winter campground within an hour of the ski area, which surprises people every November.

That is the real reason this corridor runs on cabins rather than campsites between November and April. The ski area has no lodging of its own, the campgrounds are shut, and the beds are all down the highway in Glacier and Maple Falls. If you are planning a winter trip, start with current road conditions — chains are the law in posted zones on SR 542 and the highway above Glacier changes faster than any page keeps up with.

What should you know before you drive up?

There is no cell service or Wi-Fi anywhere in Silver Lake Park. The county says so on its own page, and it is true of most of this valley above Kendall. Download your reservation, your maps and anything you need before you turn off the highway.

The launch and the pier, with the 10-horsepower limit that keeps this a paddling lake. Photo: Steven Pavlov, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Edited.

Four more things we tell guests. The Lagoon Bridge is currently closed, which interrupts the full lakeshore loop. Fires are allowed only in the designated pits, gathering firewood in the park is prohibited, and burn bans override everything. Maple Creek Campground is inside Silver Lake Park while Maple Creek Park is a separate free day-use park at the edge of town — the names catch people out constantly, and we untangle both in our Maple Falls town guide. And the last fuel, groceries, ice and tackle are at the Maple Falls crossroads, 3.5 miles back down the road; there is nothing to buy above it except at Graham’s in Glacier.

The park’s own rental fleet, pulled up on the beach below Red Mountain. Photo: Steven Pavlov, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Edited.

The day-use half of this park — the free beach, the boat rentals, the stocked trout, the 5.75 miles of trail — is covered in our Silver Lake Park guide. Fishing needs a Washington licence; check WDFW’s current rules for the lake before you cast.

Where our cabins fit

We host two of them on this highway, and the honest answer is that they solve a different problem than a campsite does. A tent site at Cedar in July is $33 and hard to beat. A tent site at Cedar on November 3 does not exist.

The Black Cedar is our black A-frame near Glacier: three bedrooms sleeping six, a cedar barrel sauna, a hot tub under the trees, an outdoor shower and a free espresso bar, about 40 minutes from the ski area and 20 to 25 minutes from Silver Lake Park. The Little Red Cabin is the closer one to the lake — a renovated two-bedroom sleeping four in Maple Falls, with a private hot tub, a fire pit and a trail up Red Mountain from the yard, about ten minutes from the park entrance and 45 from the lifts.

That ten minutes is the practical argument for the red cabin on a lake trip: a forgotten towel costs you minutes rather than an afternoon, and there is a hot tub at the end of a cold paddle. If you are still deciding which end of the highway to sleep on, Glacier versus Maple Falls lays out the tradeoff. Both cabins are strictly no-pets, and both book direct with us at our best rate, direct from the owners.

Sources, and what we could not verify

Everything priced or dated here was read from its own source on October 12, 2026: Whatcom County Parks for the park, the campgrounds, the cabins and lodge and the campground rules and reservation policies; the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest pages for Douglas Fir and Silver Fir; and Recreation.gov for the Forest Service site counts and nightly rates.

Three things we deliberately left out. The Forest Service pages publish a season of use but not exact 2026 opening and closing dates, so we have given the months they state rather than inventing a date. The county does not publish an end date for boat rentals, so call the park office at 360-778-5850 before promising anyone a pedal boat in October. And the two Forest Service nightly figures are the lowest rate Recreation.gov lists for each campground; doubles, group sites and the day-use shelters cost more, and neither agency publishes a full fee table on the campground page itself.