Gerle Creek
1Heads up1 fire 32 mi away
- Right now
- Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
- A night
- $36–$72Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 49All of them booked ahead
- Season
- June 1 – September 30Open June 1 through September 30
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 13 notices
In the agency’s own words
Gerle Creek Campground is nestled on the banks of the Gerle Creek Fork among a lush forest of hardwoods. The area provides lots of opportunity for fishing and water play. Hiking and biking are also popular. Keep reading
Recreation
Swimming, canoeing, kayaking and fishing are some of the fun things to do on the creek. Common fish species include brown and rainbow trout. An accessible fishing dock is located on-site. The Gerle Creek Interpretive Trail is fully accessible and provides scenic views and interesting displays.
Facilities
The campground offers single and double-family campsites, many of which are accessible. Each site is equipped with a picnic table and campfire ring. Vault toilets are provided and firewood is available for purchase.
Natural Features
Gerle Creek Campground sits at an elevation of 5,300 feet, upstream of Gerle Creek Divide Reservoir. It is on the Georgetown Divide within the Eldorado National Forest. Gerle Creek was named for two brothers who were early settlers and farmers in the region. Eldorado National Forest boasts over 400 miles of hiking trails, an abundance of lakes and rivers for fishing and swimming, and incredible scenery. The climate is similar to that of the Mediterranean, with warm, dry summers and cold, wet winters.
Nearby Attractions
Union Valley Reservoir and Loon Lake are within a short drive of the campground, offering additional fishing and boating opportunities.
Charges & Cancellations
Change Fee: A service fee may be charged at the time a modification is made depending on the changes. Cancellation Fee: A $10 service fee will be withheld from any refunds for a cancelled reservation. Cut-Off Window: The latest date and/or time that you can make an advanced reservation or a change to an existing reservation. Cut-off windows can vary by location, but are typically 4 days before your arrival date. A customer who cancels a reservation the day before or on the day of arrival will pay a $10.00 service fee AND forfeit the first night's use fee (see Late Cancellation below). Late Cancellation: If you cancel your reservation too close to the start date, additional service fees may be withheld. Refunds : Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).
What the agency tells you
Travel Notice: Starting May 2024 and continuing through September 2024, Ice House Road will be undergoing repairs. There will be traffic delays so plan your camping trip accordingly.
Bears frequent the area; all food must be kept in approved containers
Forest Order No. 19-15-01: Prohibits camping for a combined total of no more than 14 days during a calendar year (January-December), forest-wide. Visitors may book campsites annually but the maximum stay may not exceed a total of 14 days each calendar year (January-December).
Everything else this campground posts · 10
Motorized boats are not allowed on lake
Please keep boats clean, drained and dry, to avoid transport or introduction of aquatic invasive species
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
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. Call (530) 644-6048 for local information and conditions.
Reserved Sites will be held until check out time (1PM) 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.
Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).
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.
First Come First Serve sites remain listed as FF for the entire season. They will not show as occupied/available online as the status of these sites is ever changing. You must be on site at the campground to claim a FF site. No guarantees upon arrival that these FF sites will be avaiable.
There is a fee to move from a reserved site to a first come first serve site. Site Transfer Policy
Click here for more information on Eldorado National Forest
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 49 · 31 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- 24
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…with a picnic table and campfire ring. Vault toilets are provided and firewood is available for…”
- Store
- Nearby
- Firewood
- Sold here
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, River, Creek
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Night sky · 724th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 3
- Fall color · reported 7 days ago, 23 km away
- No change
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
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 · 21
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $36–$72 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.
“- Change Fee: A service fee may be charged at the time a modification is made depending on the changes. - Cancellation Fee: A $10 service fee will be withheld from any refunds for a cancelled reservation. - Cut-Off Window: The latest date and/or time that you can make an advanced reservation or a change to an existi…” · 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 · 6
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
50 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 50 mapped sitesAll 50 records
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 50 of the 50 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. 49 of the 50 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
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.
| GERL | 001 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | yes | 72 ft | 517 ft | 147 ft | $36–$72 |
| GERL | 002 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 72 ft | 576 ft | 108 ft | $36 | |
| GERL | 003 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 83 ft | 635 ft | 131 ft | $36 | |
| GERL | 004 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | yes | 78 ft | 658 ft | 226 ft | $36–$72 |
| GERL | 005 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 78 ft | 721 ft | 192 ft | $36 | |
| GERL | 006 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 98 ft | 785 ft | 328 ft | $36 | |
| GERL | 007 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | yes | 98 ft | 693 ft | 332 ft | $36–$72 |
| GERL | 008 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 89 ft | 670 ft | 457 ft | $36–$72 | |
| GERL | 009 | standard nonelectric | 19 ft | 82 ft | 754 ft | 506 ft | $36–$72 | |
| GERL | 010 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 82 ft | 721 ft | 573 ft | $36–$72 |
| GERL | 011 | tent only nonelectric | 85 ft | 825 ft | 673 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 012 | tent only nonelectric | 85 ft | 860 ft | 615 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 013 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 102 ft | 1,004 ft | 770 ft | $36–$72 | |
| GERL | 014 | tent only nonelectric | 100 ft | 1,094 ft | 785 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 015 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 89 ft | 1,057 ft | 690 ft | $36 | |
| GERL | 016 | tent only nonelectric | 89 ft | 1,145 ft | 732 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 017 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 85 ft | 1,066 ft | 595 ft | $36 | |
| GERL | 018 | tent only nonelectric | 85 ft | 1,054 ft | 626 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 019 | tent only nonelectric | 102 ft | 974 ftGerle Creek Divide Reservoir | 619 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 020 | tent only nonelectric | 102 ft | 912 ft | 519 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 021 | tent only nonelectric | 111 ft | 864 ftGerle Creek Divide Reservoir | 566 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 022 | tent only nonelectric | 102 ft | 794 ft | 455 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 023 | tent only nonelectric | 88 ft | 734 ftGerle Creek Divide Reservoir | 494 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 024 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 88 ft | 684 ft | 407 ft | $36–$72 | |
| GERL | 025 | tent only nonelectric | 118 ft | 570 ftGerle Creek Divide Reservoir | 466 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 026 | tent only nonelectric | 84 ft | 472 ft | 408 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 027 | tent only nonelectric | 117 ft | 437 ftGerle Creek Divide Reservoir | 525 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 028 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | yes | 80 ft | 285 ftGerle Creek Divide Reservoir | 397 ft | $36–$72 |
| GERL | 029 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | yes | 80 ft | 230 ftGerle Creek Divide Reservoir | 346 ft | $36–$72 |
| GERL | 030 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 88 ft | 215 ftGerle Creek Divide Reservoir | 202 ft | $36 | |
| GERL | 031 | tent only nonelectric | 88 ft | 170 ftGerle Creek Divide Reservoir | 282 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 032 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | yes | 93 ft | 86 ftGerle Creek Divide Reservoir | 383 ft | $36–$72 |
| GERL | 033 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 93 ft | 81 ftGerle Creek Divide Reservoir | 446 ft | $36 | |
| GERL | 034 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 78 ft | 184 ftGerle Creek Divide Reservoir | 487 ft | $36 | |
| GERL | 035 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | yes | 78 ft | 193 ft | 543 ft | $36–$72 |
| GERL | 036 | tent only nonelectric | 76 ft | 165 ft | 463 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 037 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 76 ft | 197 ft | 409 ft | $36 | |
| GERL | 038 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | yes | 109 ft | 326 ft | 274 ft | $36–$72 |
| GERL | 039 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | yes | 109 ft | 244 ft | 361 ft | $36–$72 |
| GERL | 040 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 106 ft | 440 ft | 223 ft | $36 | |
| GERL | 041 | tent only nonelectric | 71 ft | 466 ft | 140 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 042 - HOST | host pad | 50 ft | 71 ft | 534 ft | 92 ft | $36–$72 | |
| GERL | 043 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 87 ft | 596 ft | 117 ft | $36 | |
| GERL | 044 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 87 ft | 681 ft | 160 ft | $36–$72 | |
| GERL | 045 | tent only nonelectric | yes | 80 ft | 521 ft | 210 ft | $36 | |
| GERL | 046 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 80 ft | 513 ft | 290 ft | $36–$72 | |
| GERL | 047 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 87 ft | 435 ft | 252 ft | $36–$72 | |
| GERL | 048 | tent only nonelectric | 84 ft | 399 ft | 377 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 049 | tent only nonelectric | 68 ft | 299 ft | 368 ft | $36 | ||
| GERL | 050 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | 68 ft | 264 ft | 435 ft | $36–$72 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It names it a host pad. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
25 of 50 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
South Fork Group - Eldorado NF (CA)Eldorado National Forest · 1.9 mi
Loon LakeEldorado National Forest · 3.4 mi
Robbs HutEldorado National Forest · 3.6 mi
Loon Lake ChaletEldorado National Forest · 3.9 miLoon Lake Group CampgroundEldorado National Forest · 4.1 miFrom Placerville, drive 21 miles east on Highway 50 to the Icehouse Road turnoff. Turn left and go 28 miles north. Take the left fork 3 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 Tahoma, CA
Typical weather
Typical June night 40°F, day 69°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical June night 40°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season
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
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
Gerle Creek 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 →