Crab Flats
5Heads up5 fires, nearest 10 mi
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $29From, per site
- Sites
- 2928 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Crab Flats Campground is an off-roaders paradise, with plenty of off-road vehicle trails nearby for both beginner and experienced riders. Its location not only provides plentiful recreation, but also a secluded escape in Southern California's pine-covered mountains. Campground is difficult to reach without a high clearance vehicle, RV's are not recommended. Keep reading
Recreation
A variety of hiking, mountain biking and off-road vehicle trails surround the campground, including the Crab Creek Trail, which provides access to nearby Fisherman's Campground. The scenery along the trail is exceptional. Other off-road vehicle trails in the area include the 9.7-mile Redonda Ridge Trail, and Holcomb Valley Road, which runs about 26 miles and begins west of the campground. The Crab Flat Loop is also west of the campground. Green Valley Lake is approximately 6 miles away and offers boating, fishing and swimming opportunities. The 9-acre lake is regularly stocked with a variety of fish. Snowshoeing and cross country skiing are available in the winter.
Facilities
This primitive campground offers single-family sites for tents. Each site is equipped with a table and campfire ring with grill and bear box. Vault toilets. Overflow parking is not available.
Natural Features
The campground is located 8 miles from Green Valley Lake in the San Bernardino National Forest, near the town of Arrowhead. I t is accessed by a dirt road that crosses Deep Creek. The campground is situated among tall pine, oak and cedar trees. A variety of birds and wildlife make their home in the area.
Nearby Attractions
The closest communities are Arrowhead and Running Springs. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (909) 866-8550.
Charges & Cancellations
Rules & Reservation Policies As you make travel plans that include reservations on Recreation.gov, there are standard policies that apply to most locations of which you should be aware. Do keep in mind, however, that there are many exceptions, so it is best to review reservation information listed on individual facility pages for those policies and procedures that pertain to your specific locations. Any location or activity requiring a permit or lottery will have unique requirements and policies. Please check individual facility pages for pertinent information for those sites. Booking Window For most locations, you can reserve six months in advance of your stay for individual sites and 12 months in advance for group sites. There are some exceptions, so it is best to check with each facility. Change and Cancellation Policies and Fees Overnight and Day Use Facilities: To ensure fairness, reservation arrival or departure dates may not be changed beyond the booking window until 18 days after booking the reservation. Camping / Day Use: A $10.00 service fee will apply if you change or cancel your reservation (including campsites, cabins, lookouts, group facilities, etc.). The $10.00 service fee will be deducted from the refund amount. You can cancel or change reservations through Recreation.gov or by calling 1-877-444-6777. Tours & Tickets: You may request changes to tour dates at no cost before the arrival date. If you cancel before your tour date, you may be eligible for a refund. Cancellation fees apply. Please check the tour facility description details page for cancellation policies. Permits: Varies by location. Please check the permit details for the permit location. Late Cancellations Overnight and Day Use Facilities: Late cancellations are those cancelled between 12:01 a.m. (Eastern) on the day before arrival and check out time on the day after arrival. Individual Campsites: If a customer cancels a reservation the day before or on the day of arrival they will be charged a $10.00 service fee and will also forfeit the first night's use fee (not to exceed the total paid for the original reservation). Cancellations for a single night's reservation will forfeit the entire use fee but no cancellation fee will apply. Cabins / Lookouts: Customers will be charged a $10.00 cancellation fee and forfeit the first night's use fee if a cabin or lookout reservation is cancelled within 14 days of the scheduled arrival date. Cancellations for a single night's use will not be assessed a service fee. Group Facility: If a customer cancels a group overnight facility reservation within 14 days of the scheduled arrival date they will be charged the $10.00 service fee and forfeit the first night's use fee. Cancellations for a single night's use will not be assessed a service fee. Group Day Use Area: If a customer cancels a group day use facility reservation within 14 days of the scheduled arrival date, they will forfeit the total day use fee with no service fee charge. No-Shows Camping / Day Use: A camping no-show customer is one who does not arrive at a campground and does not cancel the reservation by check-out time on the day after the scheduled arrival date. Reserved campsites and group overnight facilities will be held until check-out time on the day following your scheduled arrival. Group day-use facilities will be held until check-in time on your scheduled arrival date. If a customer does not arrive at the campground or group facility by check-out time the day after arrival or does not cancel the reservation by the times listed under "Late Cancellations" above, the customer may be assessed a $20.00 service fee and forfeit use fees. Tours: A tour or ticket no-show is one who does not cancel a ticket before arrival and does not arrive for the tour. Tour no-shows are not entitled to a refund. Refunds Customers must request refunds no later than 14 days after the scheduled departure date. Recreation.gov will not grant refund requests after 14 days of departure. Reservation Fee: For some facilities, tours or permits an additional reservation fee is charged. For some overnight and day-use facilities, an additional non-refundable reservation fee may apply. The non-refundable reservation fee for tours and tickets is $1.00. The non-refundable reservation fee for permits varies by location. Refunds for Bankcard Purchases: Refunds for bank card payments will be issued as a credit to the original bank card. Refunds for Check or Cash Purchases: Refunds for Recreation.gov payments made by check or money order, and cash payments at selected campgrounds will be issued a check refund. A refund will be processed within 30 days of receipt and approval. Please Note: Refund requests made during or after departure can only be processed when approved by the facility management staff based upon local policy. Refunds for Emergency Closures: In the event of an emergency closure, the Recreation.gov team will attempt to notify users and offer alternate dates (as appropriate). If this is not possible, reservations will be cancelled and all fees paid will be refunded. Reservation fees for free tickets are non-refundable in the event of an emergency closure. Recreation.gov Billing Information Reservation transaction will appear on customer's credit card statements as "Recreation.gov 877-444-6777." Changes to Policies and Procedures Recreation.gov reserves the right, when necessary, to modify reservation policies. These policies were last updated July
What the agency tells you
Do not follow Google Maps. Do not go all the way to Green Valley. Take Crab Flats road.
No water available
Bears frequent the area; use appropriate containers for food and garbage
Everything else this campground posts · 5
This is a dirt road to the campground. The road is rough in some areas. This campground is an OHV destination. Rv's are not recommended due to the road conditions. High clearance vehicles recommended.
In accordance with standard industry practices, Mountain Top Recreation will be assessing a $8 additional vehicle fee per night on the second vehicle in each single family campsite, and on the third and fourth vehicles in any double family campsite, provided these vehicles are not joined to the first vehicle by a hitch and towed onto the site. In the case of motorcycles, the first two are considered to be one vehicle and the third and fourth are also considered to be one vehicle. No additional vehicle fees are collected for bicycles. The fee will be collected at the campground if you did not pay for the Extra Vehicle Add On. Extra vehicles must fit on the parking spur at your site.
Click here for more information on the San Bernardino National Forest
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.
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 29
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 21 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…campfire ring with grill and bear box. Vault toilets. Overflow parking is not available. Natural…”
- Bear boxes
- Yes
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
- Night sky · 1145th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 5
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 28 of the 29 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
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
“In accordance with standard industry practices, Mountain Top Recreation will be assessing a $8 additional vehicle fee per night on the second vehicle in each single family campsite, and on the third and fourth vehicle…” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $29 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.
“Camping / Day Use: A $10.00 service fee will apply if you change or cancel your reservation (including campsites, cabins, lookouts, group facilities, etc.). The $10.00 service fee will be deducted from the refund amount.” · this campground’s own no-show terms
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 · 7
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
41 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 27 mapped sitesAll 41 records
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 27 of the 41 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 29 of the 41 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| AREA CRAB FLATS | 005 | type not stated | $27 | ||||
| AREA CRAB FLATS | XXX | unnamed record | 32 ft | $27 | |||
| AREA CRAB FLATS | XXX10 | unnamed record | $27 | ||||
| AREA CRAB FLATS | XXX11 | unnamed record | $27 | ||||
| AREA CRAB FLATS | XXX12 | unnamed record | $27 | ||||
| AREA CRAB FLATS | XXX2 | unnamed record | $27 | ||||
| AREA CRAB FLATS | XXX3 | unnamed record | $27 | ||||
| AREA CRAB FLATS | XXX4 | unnamed record | $27 | ||||
| AREA CRAB FLATS | XXX5 | unnamed record | $27 | ||||
| AREA CRAB FLATS | XXX6 | unnamed record | $27 | ||||
| AREA CRAB FLATS | XXX7 | unnamed record | $27 | ||||
| AREA CRAB FLATS | XXX8 | unnamed record | $27 | ||||
| AREA CRAB FLATS | XXX9 | unnamed record | $27 | ||||
| CRAB | 001 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 134 ft | 791 ft | 420 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 002 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 75 ft | 770 ft | 297 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 003 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 75 ft | 788 ft | 224 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 004 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 142 ft | 930 ft | 172 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 006 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 79 ft | 777 ft | 156 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 007 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 76 ft | 849 ft | 95 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 008 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 76 ft | 782 ft | 170 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 009 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 68 ft | 850 ft | 147 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 010 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 68 ft | 803 ft | 151 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 011 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 68 ft | 673 ft | 69 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 012 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 68 ft | 736 ft | 72 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 013 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 105 ft | 631 ft | 64 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 014 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | $29 | |||
| CRAB | 015 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 51 ft | 614 ft | 160 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 016 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 51 ft | 666 ft | 152 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 017 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 94 ft | 668 ft | 254 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 018 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 89 ft | 759 ft | 304 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 019 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 84 ft | 843 ft | 324 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 020 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 96 ft | 783 ft | 228 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 021 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 84 ft | 907 ft | 332 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 022 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 67 ft | 892 ft | 253 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 023 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 67 ft | 956 ft | 318 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 024 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 66 ft | 923 ft | 246 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 025 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 66 ft | 955 ft | 197 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 026 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 77 ft | 1,007 ft | 141 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 027 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 74 ft | 1,099 ft | 168 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 028 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 56 ft | 1,046 ft | 119 ft | $29 |
| CRAB | 029 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 56 ft | 991 ft | 69 ft | $29 |
The agency files 12 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It types every one of them MANAGEMENT rather than a campsite. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
25 of 41 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Tent Peg GroupSan Bernardino National Forest · 0.8 mi
Fishermans GroupSan Bernardino National Forest · 1.8 mi
Green ValleySan Bernardino National Forest · 1.8 mi
Shady Cove Group CampgroundSan Bernardino National Forest · 4.6 mi
North Shore (CA)San Bernardino National Forest · 4.7 mi
Ironwood Group CampSan Bernardino National Forest · 5.1 miFrom Running Springs, travel toward Arrowbear, to Green Valley Road. Turn left, drive approximately 4 miles to Crab Flats Campground sign. Turn left and continue about 4 miles 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 Running Springs, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 43°F, day 63°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 29°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 Augusts are colder than the August 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
Crab Flats 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 →