Whitewater Gooseberry Glen Cart-In Campground Permit

Highlights

• •Minnesota DNR's definition of the category: "Cart-in and walk-in campsites in Minnesota state parks are not accessible by motor vehicle, but are a half mile or less from parking."
• •"All sites typically have access to primitive toilets and water, and will have a fire ring, picnic table, and tent pad." DNR's own hedge — "typically" — is worth taking seriously; ring the park if water matters to your plan.
• •"Cart-in campsites will have a large cart available at the parking area to help you carry gear."
• •The Minnesota reservation system lists this facility as "Gooseberry Glen Cart-In Campground" with six units, Cart-In #CI 1 through #CI 6.
• •Minnesota DNR's published cart-in and walk-in rate at Whitewater is $25 per site, per night, plus tax — the top of its published range.
• •"Seasonal availability varies by park." DNR publishes no season for this facility specifically, so the booking calendar is the authority on which nights exist.
• •DNR gives the distance as a range: "The park's eight sites are located 300 to 650 yards from the parking area." A range is not a distance, so no single route figure appears here.
• •The counts disagree, so here are both. DNR says the park has eight cart-in sites. The Gooseberry Glen facility you book through this page holds six, Cart-In #CI 1 through #CI 6. DNR separately says Cedar Hill Campground "has 6 accessible sites... and one is cart-in access only", which accounts for a seventh. The eighth is not accounted for by anything either source publishes. Read it as eight cart-in sites park-wide, six of them in Gooseberry Glen.
• •Season: "Camping is available year-round" park-wide, and the cart-in campground is not on DNR's winter list — "Winter camping sites are in the Minneiska Campground and are electric."
• •Water, and what it depends on. DNR: "Drinking water bubblers are ON for the 2026 season." It describes the spigot outside the Visitor Center near the flag pole as running the whole year, and then supplies its own caveat — "the spigot does sometimes freeze in the winter, so plan accordingly." The fountain inside the Visitor Center depends on opening hours.
• •Toilets: "Vault toilets throughout the park are available year-round." "There are three restroom buildings in the campgrounds." Showers and flush toilets run mid-April through mid-October.
• •Hammocks: Whitewater publishes the exact site list that takes one, and no Gooseberry Glen "CI" site is on it. The published list is "3e, 4e, 6e, 8e, 11e, 14e, 19e, 20e, 21e, 22e, 25e, 26e, 32e, 37e, 38e, 39e, 41e, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 54, 56, 59, 61, 63, 69, 231e, and 241."
• •A live beach note: "Water levels at the beach have dropped unexpectedly. Swimming is not advised at this time. Conditions may continue to change."
• •Sourcing note: the park-page sentences on this page were read on 2026-08-10 from Minnesota DNR's own live park-content endpoint. maps.dnr.state.mn.us refuses our requests outright, so that fetch went through a Wayback Save-Page-Now capture of the live DNR endpoint, with the Internet Archive acting only as transport. www.dnr.state.mn.us and files.dnr.state.mn.us were read directly.

Best Time to Visit

DNR's pitch for this park is a genuine oddity: "The noticeable lack of mosquitoes makes this a great park for camping," which it repeats in its highlights list. Add "spectacular spring wildflowers," the rare Louisiana waterthrush to listen for in spring, and "a refreshing dip in the cold, spring-fed water" — though DNR currently advises against swimming with the beach water low. Camping is year-round park-wide, but winter camping is in the Minneiska Campground, not here. On a facility this heavily booked the mechanic matters most: 120 days ahead, and no online booking before 8 a.m. on the day a date first opens.