Agency-listedBLM Glennallen Field OfficeFee
Paxson Lake Campground (Richardson Highway MP 175)
Drive-up · Bureau of Land Management · AK · 62.88346, -145.52482
Ask an AI about this campsiteOpens Grok already loaded with this site. It reads the same records this page is built from, and links whatever it tells you.
Ask about this camp →Bureau of Land Management lists this site. Someone from the agency inventoried it, so it is a real camp — not a spot we guessed at. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.
USGS topo — contours & terrain
Aerial — USGS / NAIP
Weather outlook — at Paxson Lake Campground (Richardson Highway MP 175)
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 2,589 ft.
Fire & smoke — around Paxson Lake Campground (Richardson Highway MP 175)NIFC · AirNow
Checking active fires & air quality…
Active wildfires from NIFC (within ~50 mi); air quality from AirNow. Always confirm current fire restrictions with the managing office before you go.
Everything you need — measured from Paxson Lake Campground (Richardson Highway MP 175) · Bureau of Land Management · AK
▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.
Nearest of each
- DDump0 mi
- GGrocery5 mi
- FFuel5 mi
- PPropane24 mi
- @Mail41 mi
- +Urgent care54 mi
- HHardware54 mi
- LLaundry54 mi
- EVEV fast charger54 mi
- WWater60 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water
The read: water is a real 60-mi drive, fuel & food sit about 5 mi out, the nearest EV fast charger is a 54-mi run (and back).
One dot per need — the nearest of each kind, straight-line from camp. Places from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors); the EV fast charger from the US DOE station locator. Open in Google Maps ↗
The site — Paxson Lake Campground (Richardson Highway MP 175)
Access
Drive-up
Land
Bureau of Land Management
Elevation
2,589 ft
Ground slope
5.1% · gentle
State
AK
Coordinates
62.88346, -145.52482
Cost
Fee
Nearby & resupply — around Paxson Lake Campground (Richardson Highway MP 175) · Bureau of Land Management · AK (OpenStreetMap)
- Water featurePaxson Lake · ~0.1 mi · USGS: perennial lake or pond
- Nearest townPaxson · ~9.7 mi
- Rail & highwaynone mapped within 10 mi
- Drinking waternone within 10 mi
- FuelFuel · ~4.7 mi
- Propane / LPGPropane · ~24.5 mi
- Dump station~0.0 mi
- GroceriesGrocery · ~4.6 mi
EV charging — from Paxson Lake Campground (Richardson Highway MP 175) · Bureau of Land Management · AK — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
- Nearest public DC fast charger53.6 mi straight-line S — ReCharge Alaska - Subway, Glennallen, AK (at a parking lot) · Non-Networked · CCS, NACS (Tesla) · 2 fast ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-08-11 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
- Public DC fast stations within reachnone within 25 mi · none within 50 · 2 within 100 · 6 within 150
- Nearest listing CHAdeMO111.1 mi — Jack River Properties Alaska, Cantwell
- Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)111.1 mi — Jack River Properties Alaska, Cantwell, AK · FLO · CHAdeMO, J1772, CCS · 1 Level 2 port listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily
- Pricing at the fast charger$0.55/kWh (as listed by AFDC)
- Power (kW)not listed by AFDC — “DC fast” spans roughly 24 to 350 kW, so ask the network.
- Read this honestlyStraight-line miles, like every distance on this site. Roads run longer than this, and you have to get back. We know where a charger is listed. We don’t know if it works today, how fast it is, or the road miles. Check the network before you commit.
Snapshot 2026-09-16 · AFDC record 326096 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around Paxson Lake Campground (Richardson Highway MP 175) · Bureau of Land Management · AK — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
- Vault / pit toiletPaxson Lake Campground Vault Toilet #2--First In First Loop · at this camp · BLM
- Vault / pit toiletPaxson Lake Campground Vault Toilet #3--Second In First Camping Loop · at this camp · BLM
- Vault / pit toiletPaxson Lake Campground Vault Toilet #4--First In Second Camping Loop · at this camp · BLM
- Vault / pit toiletPaxson Lake Campground Vault Toilet #1--In Parking Lot At Boat Ramp · at this camp · BLM
Coming out here — Paxson Lake Campground (Richardson Highway MP 175) · Bureau of Land Management · AK
- Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Paxson Lake as a perennial lake or pond, ~0.1 mi from the pin (National Hydrography Dataset, data refreshed October 2022). Mapped as perennial is not the same as flowing today. Nobody has checked it for you. Filter or boil anything you drink.
- Ground slope around the pin: about 5.1% — gentle. Measured on USGS's 3DEP elevation model (5 m data here), sampled every 10 metres around the point. That is the hillside, not the ground under your wheels — a graded pullout or a bench a few metres across is too small to show up at that spacing, and nobody has checked this one for you.
- No rail line and no interstate or US route is mapped within 10 mi of the pin. Checked against the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026) and the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025). Both are national files and both are maps of what is built, not counts of what moves on it.
- Power: Dave carries his own — batteries or solar. A generator will run your rig and it is also the thing everybody camped near you can hear.
- Getting online: Dave recommends Starlink. He has had it since SpaceX introduced it, used it for four years living on the road, and it delivers as promised — several hundred nights out, and he can count on one hand the places he could not connect. The cable on his unit runs 150 feet, which is usually all it takes to find enough sky. Starlink → Referral link — Starlink pays Dave $100 in cash if you sign up through it, and that money funds this site and the next trip. It costs you nothing and does not change the recommendation.
Open Paxson Lake Campground (Richardson Highway MP 175) elsewhere
Other camps near Paxson Lake Campground (Richardson Highway MP 175)
If this one is full, gated or washed out.
- Porcupine Cove~0.8 mi
- Duck Point~0.9 mi
- Pebble Beach~1.3 mi
- Gulkana Wild And Scenic River~4.3 mi
The unit that manages Paxson Lake Campground (Richardson Highway MP 175)
Paxson Lake Campground (Richardson Highway MP 175) is in the Glennallen Field Office, Anchorage District, Bureau of Land Management. Stay limits, permits, road closures and fire restrictions are set there, not at the campsite — check before you go. Its page maps every camp in it.
How we know this — Paxson Lake Campground (Richardson Highway MP 175)
Source
public land records
Confidence
Agency-confirmed — The managing agency's own record names this as a campsite and puts it at these coordinates. About as good as it gets short of standing here.
How it was placed
https://www.blm.gov/visit/paxson-lake-campground (read 2026-08-17). THIS IS A FEE SITE -- FEE: the page's fee field says $20 per night for all sites, Federal Senior Pass half price. CAVEAT -- THE SAME PAGE CONTRADICTS ITSELF: further down it says "Fees: $15/night for regular, $6/night for walk-in site." Take cash or expect to pay the higher figure; a reviewer should ring the Glennallen office (907-822-3217) before we publish a price. RV dump station is $10 for non-campers. 50 campsites across two loops including 10 walk-in sites, two accessible sites and a host site; six double vaulted toilets (three accessible), bear-proof trash and food lockers, paved boat launch, sanitary dump station, accessible trails. The boat launch is the put-in for floating the main branch of the Gulkana Wild and Scenic River. Site is unstaffed. Nearest town/services per the page: Paxson, at the Denali Highway junction on the Richardson Highway. | auto:agency-trust 2026-08-18: state agency GIS record with a source URL and coordinates, confidence not low. Fee value is the agency's own, not field-checked. Not field-verified -- confirm access, road conditions and fire rules before you go.
EV chargers
US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.
Field check
On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.
What we don’t know about Paxson Lake Campground (Richardson Highway MP 175)
A land record can put you within a few meters of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.
- Road surface & last-mile access
- How many rigs actually fit
- Cell coverage by carrier
- Seasonal & winter access
- Current fire restrictions
- Whether any water here is drinkable
- Shade & wind exposure
- Noise and who else shows up
- Whether a listed EV charger works today, or the road miles to it
Before you go — Paxson Lake Campground (Richardson Highway MP 175)
Camping near a reservoir →Water on public land →Cold-weather camping →Picking a spot →All field notes →