Black Mountain (San Bernardino)
5Heads up5 fires, nearest 7 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 9 nights read 15:52 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 4 notices
In the agency’s own words
Black Mountain Road is is poor condition at this time. 4 Wheel Drive is recommended. The road is currently a high-priority for maintenance, which should be occuring in June, 2023. The Black Mountain Group Campground provides a picturesque camping location for large groups. Views from the campground encompass the desert divide, San Jacinto Mountains and, on a clear day, as far north as the San Gabriel Mountains. The San Bernardino National Forest is submitting a proposal to increase fees at various sites across the Forest and is seeking public input. Please visit the https://www.fs.usda.gov/sbnf for more information and to submit comments regarding this proposal. The surrounding area provides a variety of outdoor recreation opportunities, including hiking, climbing, fishing, biking and wilderness exploration. Keep reading
Recreation
The Fuller Ridge Trail, which serves as part of the famous Pacific Crest Trail, is located just steps away from the campground. Starting at 7,600 feet, the trail follows the high, timbered ridge above Snow Creek, offering spectacular views of the desert. From there, it joins Deer Springs Trail and a strenuous climb to San Jacinto Peak, at 10,804 feet in elevation.
Facilities
The campground provides one large group campsite that can accommodate up to 100 guests for tent camping. A parking area can accommodate up to 25 vehicles, but rough roads to the site are not recommended for trailers of any kind. The site is equipped with multiple tables and campfire circles with grills. Vault toilets are provided. Drinking water is not available in the campground, but can be found at the Cinco Posa Spring along Black Mountain Road, about two miles before the campground.
Natural Features
The campground is located in a heavily forested area of the mountains in southern California at an elevation of about 7,500 feet. The roads to and within the campground are not paved and much of the area is part of classified wilderness area.
Nearby Attractions
This group site is located approximately 50 miles southeast of San Bernardino, California, and 16 miles north of the small town of Idyllwild, which offers locally owned shops and restaurants.
What the agency tells you
Fire Restrictions may be in place at anytime during the season, check in with the San Jacinto Ranger District by calling (909) 382-2921 to confirm. Wood and charcoal fires are only permitted in an agency provided metal ring. Cooking stoves or fireplaces using gas, jellied petroleum, or pressurized liquid fuel are still allowed.
Water is not provided at this campground. Potable (tested monthly) water may be available from a natural spring along Black Mountain road. Bring your own containers.
Click here for more information on the San Bernardino National Forest
Everything else this campground posts · 1
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 tent-only, 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 12 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Not allowed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…tables and campfire circles with grills. Vault toilets are provided. Drinking water is not available in…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…with grills. Vault toilets are provided. Drinking water is not available in the campground, but can be found at the Cinco…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Climbing
- Fire Lookouts/Cabins Overnight
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Picnicking
- Night sky · 1130th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 4
Full this Saturdayread 15:52 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot reservable
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 15:52 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 · 10
What you actually pay
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 · 4
recreation.gov availability, read 15:52 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
| BLAC | 1 | group tent only area nonelectric | 12 ft | 1.2 mi |
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
Black Mountain Group CampgroundSan Bernardino National Forest · 0.1 mi
Boulder BasinSan Bernardino National Forest · 1.0 miDark Canyon CampgroundSan Bernardino National Forest · 2.1 mi
Marion MountainSan Bernardino National Forest · 3.0 mi
Fern BasinSan Bernardino National Forest · 3.1 miWhitewater PreserveSand To Snow National Monument · 12 miFrom Idyllwild, California, travel north on Highway 243 about 9 miles. Take a sharp right turn onto Black Mountain Trail/Forest Route 4S01 and continue just over 2 miles. Forest Route 4S01 turns slightly left and becomes Black Mountain Truck Trail, which leads to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Palm Springs, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 35°F, day 63°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 24°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 · 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
Black Mountain (San Bernardino) is in California’s 41st congressional district. Its representative, Ken Calvert (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 moneyKen CalvertU.S. Representative · California’s 41st 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 Black Mountain (San Bernardino), San Bernardino National Forest, California
Dear Ken Calvert, I’m a constituent in California’s 41st district. I tried to camp at Black Mountain (San Bernardino), San Bernardino National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Black Mountain (San Bernardino) are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Black Mountain (San Bernardino) keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Black Mountain (San Bernardino). 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 Black Mountain (San Bernardino) (San Bernardino 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 Black Mountain (San Bernardino), San Bernardino National Forest, California
Dear Adam B. Schiff, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Black Mountain (San Bernardino), San Bernardino National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Black Mountain (San Bernardino) are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Black Mountain (San Bernardino) keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Black Mountain (San Bernardino). 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 Black Mountain (San Bernardino) (San Bernardino 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 Black Mountain (San Bernardino), San Bernardino National Forest, California
Dear Alex Padilla, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Black Mountain (San Bernardino), San Bernardino National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Black Mountain (San Bernardino) are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Black Mountain (San Bernardino) keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Black Mountain (San Bernardino). 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 Black Mountain (San Bernardino) (San Bernardino National Forest, California) via campanac.com