Cripple Creek Campground
October 2026
About
Overview
Cripple Creek Campground- Located at milepost 60 o f the Steese Highway, Cripple Creek Campground has 12 first come first served universal design campsites, as well as 6 walk-in campsites. The campground also has a riverside day use area with fishing access along the Chatanika River. Winding through tall white spruce trees along the river between the day use area and the campground is a short interpretive trail for visitors.
A class I-II float trip to the Upper Chatanika State Recreation Site at milepost 39 is approximately 25 miles (40 km) long. Occasional low water and log jams may require some boat dragging or portaging.
The campground is maintained during the summer season, June through mid-September. The campground has a hand pump well for non-potable water, trash cans, and outhouse style toilets. Each campsite has a parking area, picnic tables, and fire rings.
Fees- $12 per night per site (sites 1-12) on a first come basis.
$6 per night per walk in site (Walk-in-sites T1-T-6) on a first come basis.
Directions- Blacktop highway accessible. Campground is at mile 60 on the Steese Highway, northeast of Fairbanks, Alaska.
Recreation
Hiking the short interprative trail along the Chatanika River, fishing, floating, day trip into the Nome Creek Valley.
Nearby Attractions
Nome Creek Valley, Quartz Creek Trail, Table Top Trail, Pinnell Mt. Trail, Chatanika River, Nome Creek, Beaver Creek Wild and Scenic River Put-in.
Amenities
Phone: 907-474-2200
Is Cripple Creek Campground fully booked?
A campground showing no availability is almost never full for good. People cancel — plans change, weather turns, someone books three weekends and keeps one — and the site goes straight back into the booking system, usually without warning and often at odd hours. The reason sold-out campgrounds feel impossible is not that sites never free up; it is that nobody is watching at the moment they do.
CampHawk watches Cripple Creek Campground in Fairbanks, AK for you. We recheck it every 15 seconds, around the clock, and the moment a site opens we send a text, an email and a push notification — and on Recreation.gov we can put the site straight into your cart, so it is held while you get to your phone.
Searching is free and needs no account — the calendar above is live right now. Watching Cripple Creek Campground for cancellations is the paid part.