Dry Gulch
1Heads up1 fire 14 mi away
- Right now
- OpenListed open; its database flags it not open
- Sites
- 51 on recreation.gov
- Season
- Year-roundOpen year-round
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 12 notices
In the agency’s own words
Dry Gulch Campground sits on the north side of the Merced River. The small camp features walk-in tent sites on the river, shaded by a grove of pine and oak trees. Dry Gulch's remote location makes for a quiet and peaceful camping experience. Keep reading
Recreation
During the spring and early summer, the Merced River is a popular location for white water rafting and kayaking. Several private companies offer guided rafting trips.
Facilities
The camping sites at Dry Gulch do meet accessibility standards and offer picnic tables, grills and fire rings. Vault toilets are available.
Natural Features
Dry Gulch Campground is located in the Bass Lake Ranger District at an elevation of 3,400 feet. The Lake is a very popular area known for its variety of fish, as well as the bald and golden eagles that make their home here. The Sierra National Forest, located on the western slope of the central Sierra Nevada, is known for its spectacular mountain scenery and abundant natural resources. The terrain includes rolling, oak-covered foothills, heavily forested middle elevation slopes and the starkly beautiful alpine landscape of the High Sierra.
Nearby Attractions
This campground is close to the west entrance to Yosemite National Park. Yosemite offers a variety of activities that include scenic driving, picnicking, hiking and fishing.
Charges & Cancellations
Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
What the agency tells you
Our facility is experiencing a water outage. Please bring all the water you’ll need for your entire visit, including drinking water.
Be aware of rattlesnakes
Please keep all food in bear-proof containers
Everything else this campground posts · 9
Poison oak is abundant throughout this area
This camp is a pack it in and pack it out facility
Two pets per site and leashed at all times.
Please Note: One vehicle per single site. 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.
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 (12pm) 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.
Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
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.
Click here to learn more about the Sierra National Forest
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 5 · 5 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Paved pads
- 1 of 5
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…picnic tables, grills and fire rings. Vault toilets are available. Natural Features Dry Gulch…”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 1 of the 5 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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 9
What you actually pay
“Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.” · this campground’s own 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 · 5
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
5 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 4 mapped sitesAll 5 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 4 of the 5 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Dirt FlatStanislaus National Forest · 0.3 mi
Crane Flat CampgroundYosemite National Park · 6.4 mi
Tamarack Flat CampgroundYosemite National Park · 7.8 miJerseydale CampgroundSierra National Forest · 8.7 mi
Hodgdon Meadow CampgroundYosemite National Park · 9.0 mi
Willow Placer CampgroundMother Lode Field Office · 10 miFrom Highway 140, turn on to Foresta Road. Landmarks include Red Bud Picnic Area and a National Park Service warehouse. After bridge, turn left onto the spur road. Immediately turn left onto Incline Road. Continue 1.3 miles to the facility.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for El Portal, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 43°F, day 76°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 32°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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Dry Gulch 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 →