Campgrounds Near Mount Rainier

Mount Rainier National Park has exactly three drive-in campgrounds, and that is the whole supply for a park that takes two million visitors a year. Which one you want depends entirely on which side of the mountain you plan to spend your days on, because driving between Paradise and Sunrise takes over two hours.

The three campgrounds inside the park

Cougar Rock is the one to book if Paradise is your target. It is 25 minutes below the Paradise lot, which is the difference between arriving before the parking fills and circling for an hour. Full write-up in our Cougar Rock guide.

Ohanapecosh is the warmest and the prettiest of the three, sitting low in enormous old-growth cedar and Douglas fir along the Ohanapecosh River. You cannot see the mountain from it either, but the forest here is the best in the park. It is the right base for the Grove of the Patriarchs, Silver Falls and the drive over Stevens Canyon Road.

White River is the highest and the coldest, and it opens last because of it. It is the only one that puts you within twenty minutes of Sunrise, and it is where you start if you are walking to Glacier Basin or up Burroughs Mountain. Expect frost in September.

None of them have hookups

This surprises people every year. No campground inside Mount Rainier National Park has electric, water or sewer hookups. RVs are welcome within length limits, but you are dry camping. The only dump station is at Sunshine Point near the Nisqually Entrance. If you need hookups, you are staying outside the park.

Booking

All three are on Recreation.gov with a six month rolling window, and summer weekends go within the hour of release. White River holds back a portion of its sites as first come first served in some seasons, which makes it the one worth driving to on spec on a weekday.

Outside the park

The national forest land surrounding Rainier is where most people actually end up, and some of it is better than the in-park options.

• Along the Nisqually, south west: several Forest Service and county campgrounds within twenty minutes of the Nisqually Entrance, plus private RV parks with hookups in Ashford and Elbe.
• Crystal Mountain and the Highway 410 corridor, north east: Silver Springs and The Dalles sit in Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest close to the White River Entrance.
• Packwood, south east: the practical base for Ohanapecosh and the Stevens Canyon side, with private campgrounds and cabins in town.

Dispersed and free camping

There is no dispersed camping inside Mount Rainier National Park. Every night inside the boundary is either a reserved campground site or a wilderness permit. Outside the boundary, dispersed camping is legal on much of Gifford Pinchot and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest land, subject to the usual rules: use an existing site, camp at least 100 feet from water, pack everything out, and check current fire restrictions before you plan on a campfire.

The realistic free options are the forest roads off Highway 12 near Packwood and the roads off 410 north of the park. Both fill on summer weekends with people doing exactly what you are doing.

If you would rather not camp

Cabins around Ashford and Packwood are the usual fallback, and a surprising number have hot tubs, which after a day on the Skyline Trail is not the worst thing. We rounded those up in Mount Rainier cabins with hot tubs.