CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
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U.S. Forest Service · CA

Big Pine Flat Family Campground

2Heads up2 fires, nearest 47 mi
Wildfire
2026 Training fire · 47 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 14, 2026
Wildfire
Powerline fire · 48 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 14, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 14, 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.
Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
Drawn from the record · 2,650 ft · 0% tree cover · Bortle 4 sky
2,650 ftElevation
6.4 miWater · an unnamed pond
5.6 miNE of Twentynine Palms, CA
0%Tree cover
Bortle 4Night sky · 858th darkest of 1,201 in CA

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Big Pine Flat Family Campground is located in the mountains at an elevation of 6820 feet. It has 19 sites and is a first come-first serve campground. There is an on-site campground host. Campsites include picnic table, fire ring, and drinking water. Nearest showers are located at Serrano Campground. For more information and current fire restrictions call the Big Bear Discovery Center : 1-909-382-2790 .

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Drinking water
Yes
“…include picnic table, fire ring, and drinking water. Nearest showers are located at Serrano Campground.…”
Source: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 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
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 6

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.
Single Site $29 - Holiday $30 - 8 person maximum Camping fee includes entry for 1 vehicle.
Checks under $50 not accepted.
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 this campground addsits own record
Extra vehicle$8

“Extra vehicle fee $8 per night.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record

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 · 5
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
What this campground adds: The U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record and notices for this campground, quoted verbatim. An extra-vehicle charge is set locally and appears on no national schedule, so it’s never assumed. · Aug 24, 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

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate34.32056, -116.01167

Where it is

Source: 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

Today80°Sunny1% rain
Tonight61°Mostly Clear1% rain
Saturday73°Partly Sunny1% rain
Saturday Night59°Partly Cloudy1% rain

NWS forecast for Twentynine Palms, CA

Source: National Weather Service, VEF forecast office · Oct 16, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 58°F, day 85°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical December night 40°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

110°30°

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: TWENTYNINE PALMS, CA (USC00049099), 13 miles away and 675 ft lower
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

who answers for it

Who answers for this land

Jay Obernolte, official portrait

Big Pine Flat Family Campground is in California’s 23rd congressional district. Its representative, Jay Obernolte (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: U.S. Forest Service’s own recreation database flags it not open and publishes no reason and no date. That’s a flag, not a notice.
Listed not open: USFS EDW Recreation Opportunities, openstatus field: a not-open flag in a database, with no reason and no date published; read there since Sep 9, 2026. A flag, not a notice, so this page doesn’t call it a closure. · Oct 16, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.31 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 1,201 rated federal campgrounds in California · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
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 town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026