Bishop Park Campground (CA)
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 33 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 8 of the next 8 nights; a database flag says not open read 14:16 UTC
- A night
- $34From, per site
- Sites
- 21All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Bishop Park is one of the most popular campgrounds in the Bishop Creek Area Located on the banks of the Middle Fork of Bishop Creek, Bishop Park has grassy lawns and campsites right on the creek. Families, friends, and special interest groups enjoy Bishop Park for its access to prime fishing and its serene setting on Bishop Creek. Bishop Park is an ideal setting for horseback riding, wildlife viewing, hiking, and fishing. Keep reading
Recreation
Bishop Park is an ideal setting for horseback riding, wildlife viewing, hiking, and fishing. Tent sites back to the creek, allowing anglers to fish from the comfort of their campsite. The stocked stream contains rainbow, brown, brook and Alpers trout. Similar fishing opportunities can be found just upstream at Intake Lake II.
Facilities
The campground has 21 single campsites. All sites are reservable. Each site has provided picnic tables, fire rings with cooking grills, tent pads, food storage boxes. A campground host on site. The campground has drinking water and flush toilets. Bishop Park Campground is pet friendly. Pets must always be restrained or on a leash.
Natural Features
Bishop Park has campsites right on the creek. Many of the campsites are walk in tent sites. Not recommended for large RVs, there are a few sites that will accommodate smaller rigs. Families enjoy Bishop Park for its access to prime fishing and its serene setting on Bishop Creek. The campground is located near Inyo and John Muir Wilderness areas, with access to several trailheads, glaciers, and lakes.
What the agency tells you
Active bear area. Bear boxes are provided and must be used (typical bear box size 48" x 30" x 36
Firewood available
Two pets per site and leashed at all times.
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Please Note: One RV with tow vehicle per single site or one vehicle per tent site. One vehicle per single site is included with your reservation. Most sites can accommodate 1 extra vehicle that is not included with the reservation fee. Extra vehicle will be charged a per night fee and collected at the campground if you did not pay for an Extra Vehicle Add On. Extra vehicles must fit on the parking spur at the site.
Fire Restrictions: Fire restrictions may be imposed at any time due to hot, dry weather conditions, at which time campfires and charcoal fires may not be allowed.
Reserved Sites will be held until check out time (NOON) the day following your arrival date. Sites must be occupied by the checkout time of that following day to hold a reservation or the site will be forfeited and released to other guests. Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 21 · 13 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…The campground has drinking water and flush toilets. Bishop Park Campground is pet friendly. Pets must…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…host on site. The campground has drinking water and flush toilets. Bishop Park Campground is pet…”
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Full this Saturdayread 14:16 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
Every one of the 20 sites on offer is taken this Saturday. 16 are free on Wed, Oct 21. read 14:16 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
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $34 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 · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 14:16 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
21 sites
All 21 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. 21 of the 21 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Area Bishop Park | 1 | standard nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 10 | tent only nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 11 | tent only nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 12 | tent only nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 13 | tent only nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 14 | tent only nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 15 | standard nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 16 | standard nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 17 | standard nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 18 | standard nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 19 | tent only nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 2 | standard nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 20 | tent only nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 21 | standard nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 3 | standard nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 4 | tent only nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 5 | tent only nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 6 | tent only nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 7 | tent only nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 8 | tent only nonelectric | $34 |
| Area Bishop Park | 9 | tent only nonelectric | $34 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Bishop Park GroupInyo National Forest · 0.1 mi
Intake 2 CampgroundInyo National Forest · 0.5 mi
Forks Campground (Inyo)Inyo National Forest · 1.1 mi
Four Jeffrey CampgroundInyo National Forest · 1.3 miBig Trees CampgroundInyo National Forest · 1.7 miSabrina CampgroundInyo National Forest · 2.0 miFrom Highway 395 in the center of Bishop, turn west on Line Street (Highway 168), and drive 15 miles to the campground on the left.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for West Bishop, CA
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
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
Bishop Park Campground (CA) is in California’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Kevin Kiley (I), 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 moneyKevin KileyU.S. Representative · California’s 3rd district
No contact form we could verify, so that link is their own site. Contact is inside it. Washington office: 202-225-2523.
- 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 Bishop Park Campground (CA), Inyo National Forest, California
Dear Kevin Kiley, I’m a constituent in California’s 3rd district. I tried to camp at Bishop Park Campground (CA), Inyo National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 21 sites at Bishop Park Campground (CA) are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 20 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Bishop Park Campground (CA) keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Bishop Park Campground (CA). 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 Bishop Park Campground (CA) (Inyo 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 Bishop Park Campground (CA), Inyo National Forest, California
Dear Adam B. Schiff, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Bishop Park Campground (CA), Inyo National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 21 sites at Bishop Park Campground (CA) are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 20 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Bishop Park Campground (CA) keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Bishop Park Campground (CA). 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 Bishop Park Campground (CA) (Inyo 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 Bishop Park Campground (CA), Inyo National Forest, California
Dear Alex Padilla, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Bishop Park Campground (CA), Inyo National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 21 sites at Bishop Park Campground (CA) are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 20 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Bishop Park Campground (CA) keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Bishop Park Campground (CA). 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 Bishop Park Campground (CA) (Inyo National Forest, California) via campanac.com