Belknap
1Heads up1 fire 42 mi away
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 9 of the next 9 nights read 16:19 UTC
- A night
- $36From, per site
- Sites
- 15All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 5 notices
In the agency’s own words
Belknap Campground, elevation 4,800 feet, is located east of Porterville, CA off state highway 190 in the Giant Sequoia National Monument in the Western Divide Ranger District. It sits within the Belknap and McIntyre giant sequoia groves. Keep reading
Recreation
Trails in the monument are open to hikers, horseback riders and bikers. The trails wind through giant sequoia groves, up mountains and alongside wild rivers. A hiking trail also starts within the campground, leading into the sequoia grove, with fishing in Tule River along the way.
Facilities
Belknap offers about 13 tent camping sites that can accommodate up to 6 guests each. Vault toilets, campfire rings and picnic areas are all provided.
Natural Features
The Sequoia National Forest, located at the southern end of the Sierra Nevada in central California, takes its name from the giant sequoia, the world's largest tree, which grows in more than 30 groves on the Forest's lower slopes. The Forest comprises about 1.1 million acres, and elevations range from about 1,000 to 12,000 feet, creating precipitous canyons and mountain streams with spectacular waterfalls, such as Salmon Creek Falls near Fairview and Grizzly Falls on the Kings River. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (661) 455-6010.
What the agency tells you
This is bear country; please take precautions and do not leave unattended food, garbage or other attractants. Use bear resistant food storage lockers or bear resistant trash cans where available. Visit www.sierrawild.gov/bears/food-storage/ for more information about food storage in bear country.
Off-road vehicles, trailers and RVs are not permitted
Click here to learn more about Sequoia National Forest
Everything else this campground posts · 2
Don't 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.
There is an extra vehicle fee of $8.00/night on the 2nd vehicle in each single campsite and on the 3rd & 4th vehicle in any double campsite, provided these vehicles are not joined to the 1st vehicle by a hitch and towed onto the site. In the case of motorcycles, the 1st and 2nd are considered to be one vehicle and the 3rd and 4th are also considered to be one vehicle. So the fee would be a single $8.00/night of stay for the 3rd/4th motorcycle.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 15 · 15 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 20 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…can accommodate up to 6 guests each. Vault toilets, campfire rings and picnic areas are all provided.…”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Waterfall, River, Creek
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Night sky · 693rd darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 3
Full this Saturdayread 16:19 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
1 campground has sites open within 30 miles, read 16:27 UTC. See them
OpenBooked
Every one of the 10 sites on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 11 are free on Wed, Oct 21. read 16:19 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.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
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 · 13
What you actually pay
“There is an extra vehicle fee of $8.00/night on the 2nd vehicle in each single campsite and on the 3rd & 4th vehicle in any double campsite, provided these vehicles are not joined to the 1st vehicle by a hitch and tow…” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $36 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. 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
Open within 30 miles this weekend · 1
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 16:27 UTC
- TuleSuccess Lake · 17 mi · 115 of 184 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 16:19 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
15 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 13 mapped sitesAll 15 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. 15 of the 15 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| A | 001 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 107 ft | 386 ft | $36 |
| A | 002 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 78 ft | 498 ft | $36 |
| A | 003 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 82 ft | 525 ft | $36 |
| A | 004 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 75 ft | 484 ft | $36 |
| A | 005 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | $36 | ||
| A | 006 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 75 ft | 425 ft | $36 |
| A | 007 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 78 ft | 440 ft | $36 |
| A | 008 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | $36 | ||
| A | 009 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 37 ft | 311 ft | $36 |
| A | 010 | tent only nonelectric | 15 ft | 37 ft | 274 ft | $36 |
| B | 012 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 38 ft | 236 ft | $36 |
| B | 013 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 38 ft | 206 ft | $36 |
| B | 014 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 83 ft | 116 ft | $36 |
| B | 015 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 83 ft | 176 ft | $36 |
| D | 011 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 70 ft | 207 ft | $36 |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Coy FlatGiant Sequoia National Monument · 1.5 mi
Quaking AspenGiant Sequoia National Monument · 3.4 mi
Quaking Aspen CabinGiant Sequoia National Monument · 3.4 mi
WishonGiant Sequoia National Monument · 4.9 mi
Wishon CabinGiant Sequoia National Monument · 5.0 miUpper Peppermint Dispersed AreaGiant Sequoia National Monument · 5.8 miFrom Springville, California, proceed east on State Highway 190 for approximately 15 miles. Turn east on Nelson Drive and continue about a mile to the campground.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Camp Nelson, CA
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
Belknap is in California’s 20th congressional district. Its representative, Vince Fong (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. 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 moneyVince FongU.S. Representative · California’s 20th 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 Belknap, Giant Sequoia National Monument, California
Dear Vince Fong, I’m a constituent in California’s 20th district. I tried to camp at Belknap, Giant Sequoia National Monument, California, and couldn’t. All 15 sites at Belknap are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 10 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. Belknap keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Belknap. 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 Belknap (Giant Sequoia National Monument, 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 Belknap, Giant Sequoia National Monument, California
Dear Adam B. Schiff, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Belknap, Giant Sequoia National Monument, California, and couldn’t. All 15 sites at Belknap are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 10 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. Belknap keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Belknap. 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 Belknap (Giant Sequoia National Monument, 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 Belknap, Giant Sequoia National Monument, California
Dear Alex Padilla, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Belknap, Giant Sequoia National Monument, California, and couldn’t. All 15 sites at Belknap are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 10 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. Belknap keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Belknap. 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 Belknap (Giant Sequoia National Monument, California) via campanac.com