Big Meadow Campground
1Heads up1 fire 45 mi away
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $25From, per site
The place
the agency’s own description
In the agency’s own words
var $j = jQuery;$j.noConflict();$j(window).load(function() { $j('#slider').nivoSlider( { effect: 'fade', startSlide: 0, animSpeed: 750, pauseTime: 8000 });}); Located on the Calaveras Ranger District, this scenic campground is within a conifer forest of red fir, white fir, and lodgepole pine with scattered quaking aspen. Sites are large, private and shady. Natural granitic rock outcrops are scattered throughout.
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and a night costs $25 with nothing added. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.
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.
Every line of the receipt · 9
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($25), and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
How we know this receipt · 5
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Big Meadow (Stanislaus National Forest)Stanislaus National Forest · 0.1 miStanislaus River CampgroundStanislaus National Forest · 3.3 miUtica Reservoir CampgroundsStanislaus National Forest · 5.1 mi
Sandy Flat - Utica Reservoir (Stanislaus NF)Stanislaus National Forest · 5.1 miSpicer Reservoir Group CampgroundStanislaus National Forest · 5.7 mi
Union West CampgroundStanislaus National Forest · 5.9 miThe weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Bear Valley, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 29°F, day 62°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 18°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
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Big Meadow Campground is in California’s 5th congressional district. Its representative, Tom McClintock (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →