U.S. Forest Service · Los Padres National Forest · CA
Bates Canyon Campground
1Heads up1 fire 47 mi away
Wildfire
Pinos fire · 47 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 16, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 16, 2026
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
- OpenThe agency lists it open
- Season
- January 1 – December 31Open January 1 through December 31
2,870 ftElevation
4.1 miWater · an unnamed pond
22.1 miNE of Los Olivos, CA
0%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 643rd darkest of 1,201 in CA
Open January 1 through December 31Today
The place
the agency’s own description
In the agency’s own words
Nestled in a grove of large oaks and sycamores.
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Around the campground
- Fall color · reported 8 days ago, 33 km away
- No change
Source: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (33 km) · Oct 9, 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 17, 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.
The Adventure Pass or Annual Interagency Pass, Senior Interagency Pass, or Interagency Access Pass is required for Bates Canyon Campground.
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 hereMiranda Pine CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 9.3 miBrookshire CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 10 miHorseshoe Springs CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 13 miSelby CampgroundCarrizo Plain National Monument · 13 mi
Nira CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 13 miKCL CampgroundCarrizo Plain National Monument · 14 mi
Nira CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 13 miKCL CampgroundCarrizo Plain National Monument · 14 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
This Afternoon84°Sunny
Tonight56°Mostly Clear
Sunday80°Sunny
Sunday Night54°Clear
NWS forecast for New Cuyama, CA
Source: National Weather Service, LOX forecast office · Oct 17, 2026
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.
100°32°20°
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.
Measured at: NEW CUYAMA FIRE STN, CA (USC00046154), 13 miles away and 710 ft lower
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 5, 2026
Who answers for this land
Bates Canyon 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 open right now.
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
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (33 km) · Oct 9, 2026
Reported by: USA National Phenology Network (Nature's Notebook), reported no change · Oct 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: New Cuyama, CA, 12 mi W (a census designated place). Straight line.