Ballinger Campground
4Heads up4 fires, nearest 20 mi
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 26 of the next 30 nights read 16:49 UTC
- A night
- $30From, per site
- Sites
- 13All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 18 notices
In the agency’s own words
Tucked away in the high desert, surrounded by scenic views of the badlands in the Los Padres National Forest, Ballinger Campground and day use area offers the perfect getaway for those looking to access off-highway vehicle (OHV) trails. Explore 11 four-wheel drive roads, 12 all-terrain vehicle (ATV) trails, and 14 motorcycle trails, which include loose dirt, hard pack, sand, steep hills, and a few jumps and berms. Keep reading
Recreation
The Ballinger Campground and day use areas are best appreciated by OHV enthusiasts. ATVs/Quad Runners/Dual Sports/Single track, will find access to 68 miles of marked and rated trails that range from novice-friendly hard packed trails, twisty sand washes, open play areas to steep and rugged black diamond, all accessed from your scenic high desert camping spot.
Facilities
Open daily and year-round, the campground includes 13 campsites each with a picnic table and fire ring. Two vault toilets are located near the campsites. You should plan to be completely self-sustainable for the duration of your trip. There is no potable water onsite. To the left of the fee/information boards is a "staging area" to offload gear. There is no dump station. The campsites have no barriers or boulders, so all sizes of toy haulers, trailers and campers do well here.
Natural Features
Junipers, lupine and tall scrub and brush surround Ballinger Canyon, just inland of California's Central Coast and regionally bound by the Sierra Madre and Caliente Mountain Ranges.
Nearby Attractions
Hiking trails, biking and fishing are easily accessed within 30 minutes from Ballinger Campground. Day trips to the higher elevation mountains for snow play in the winter.
What the agency tells you
In order to contact our offices, please use the email: customerservice@pmcparks.com or view our website: CampOne.Com for answers to frequently asked questions. @ballingercampgroundohv on Instagram and Facebook.com/BallingerOHV
Camping fee includes 1 vehicle and 1 tent, trailer or RV. $10 fee for each extra vehicle.
No drinking water is available.
Everything else this campground posts · 15
No public showers in the region.
Fires are allowed only in designated fire rings. Always check local fire restrictions prior to your visit.
Pets are allowed. Please keep dogs on a leash at all times.
Please bring garbage bags. This facility is 'Pack it in. Pack it out.'
The nearest stores and gas are 15 miles in New Cuyama or 25 miles in Maricopa.
Sporadic cell service can be found in the campground but a connection can be made at Hwy 33 a few miles from the entrance.
Don't ride alone. Tell someone where you plan to go and then stick to your plans.
Don't take unnecessary chances -- help for emergencies is miles away.
Make sure you have a first aid kit and other safety gear with you when riding.
Bring your gnat/mosquito repellent in spring/summer/fall
Spark arrestors and Off-highway vehicle registration required (green sticker or red sticker required). Red sticker open riding dates Nov. 1 - March 15
2 night minimum stay on weekends.
3 night minimum stay on holidays.
Click here for more information on Los Padres National Forest
Please Do Not Move Firewood: Protect California's forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. For more information visit firewood.ca.gov.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 13
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 70 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…with a picnic table and fire ring. Two vault toilets are located near the campsites. You should plan to…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…for the duration of your trip. There is no potable water onsite. To the left of the fee/information boards…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Coast
- Biking
- Night sky · 894th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 4
Full this Saturdayread 16:49 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot reservable
Every one of the 8 sites on offer is taken this Saturday, and on the one midweek night after it that the agency has released as well. read 16:49 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 14
What you actually pay
“$10 fee for each extra vehicle.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $30 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking, plus the agency’s published $2 weekend rate on Friday and Saturday. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 6
recreation.gov availability, read 16:49 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
13 sites
All 13 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 13 of the 13 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Loop 1 | 01 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 02 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 03 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 04 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 05 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 06 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 07 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 08 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 09 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 10 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 11 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 12 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 13 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | $30 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Campo Alto CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 14 mi
Reyes Creek Campground16 miFrom Los Angeles: Take I-5 north to 126 west to Santa Paula Hwy 150 exit. Go north on Hwy 150 for 20 miles to the intersection of highway 33. Go north over the mountain, 55 miles to Ballinger Cyn rd. Turn right and proceed 2 miles to the entrance.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Cuyama, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 43°F, day 78°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 32°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Ballinger 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 →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneySalud O. CarbajalU.S. Representative · California’s 24th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationAdam B. SchiffU.S. Senator · California
- Your senator, on the same appropriationAlex PadillaU.S. Senator · California
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Ballinger Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California
Dear Salud O. Carbajal, I’m a constituent in California’s 24th district. I tried to camp at Ballinger Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 13 sites at Ballinger Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 8 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Ballinger Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Ballinger Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Ballinger Campground (Los Padres National Forest, California) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Ballinger Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California
Dear Adam B. Schiff, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Ballinger Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 13 sites at Ballinger Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 8 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Ballinger Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Ballinger Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Ballinger Campground (Los Padres National Forest, California) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Ballinger Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California
Dear Alex Padilla, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Ballinger Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 13 sites at Ballinger Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 8 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Ballinger Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Ballinger Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Ballinger Campground (Los Padres National Forest, California) via campanac.com