U.S. Forest Service · Los Padres National Forest · CA
American Canyon Seasonal Campground
The agency doesn’t say how you get a siteIts record carries no access type, so treat it as a place to phone before you drive.
- Right now
- Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
- Season
- August 1 – September 30Open August 1 through September 30
1,770 ftElevation
2.4 miWater · an unnamed pondOcean · 23.5 mi · to the Pacific Ocean
19.4 miNE of Arroyo Grande, CA
25%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 659th darkest of 1,201 in CA
Open August 1 through September 30Today
The place
the agency’s own description
In the agency’s own words
Update: August 10, 2023 There is currently no access to American Canyon Campground via the Avenales Ranch. A reservation system is being developed and will be in place for next year's hunting season.
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Phone before you drive
recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.
Booking window6 months outBooking opens 6 months ahead; today unlocks arrivals through April 16, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Every line of the receipt · 4
What you actually pay
The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
Adventure Pass ($5/day or $30/year), or Annual Interagency Pass, Senior Interagency Pass, or Interagency Access Pass.
The booking feerecreation.gov
We hold no recreation.gov booking record for this campground, so we can’t say whether a booking fee applies.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Also near here
American Canyon Campground2.4 mi
La Panza CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 4.8 mi
Navajo Flats CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 6.4 mi
Turkey Flat OHV Staging AreaLos Padres National Forest · 6.5 miFriis CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 7.5 mi
Hi Mountain CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 8.5 mi
American Canyon Campground2.4 miLa Panza CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 4.8 miNavajo Flats CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 6.4 miTurkey Flat OHV Staging AreaLos Padres National Forest · 6.5 miFriis CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 7.5 miHi Mountain CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 8.5 miSource: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
Tonight56°Mostly Clear
Saturday91°Sunny
Saturday Night49°Clear
Sunday87°Sunny
NWS forecast for Edna, CA
Source: National Weather Service, LOX forecast office · Oct 17, 2026
Typical weather
Typical August night 53°F, day 94°F.
100°32°20°
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Augusts are colder than the August line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
Measured at: PASO ROBLES MUNI AP, CA (USW00093209), 34 miles away and 960 ft lower
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
developing
Roadless
Roadless
Roadless
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Sep 30, 2026
Who answers for this land
American Canyon Seasonal Campground is in California’s 24th congressional district. Its representative, Salud Carbajal (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it out of season. The season it publishes is the bar below.
Season: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Tree cover: NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC), one 30 m cell at this coordinate · Sep 9, 2026
Cell signal: the Forest Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest place of any size: Edna, CA, 18.8 mi ENE (a census designated place). Straight line.