U.S. Forest Service · Los Padres National Forest · CA
Hi Mountain Campground
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- OpenListed open; its database flags it not open
- Season
- January 1 – December 31Open January 1 through December 31
2,350 ftElevation
2.6 miWater · an unnamed pondOcean · 15.5 mi · to the Pacific Ocean
11.5 miE of San Luis Obispo, CA
54%Tree cover
Bortle 4Night sky · 846th darkest of 1,201 in CA
Open January 1 through December 31Today
The place
the agency’s own description
In the agency’s own words
Nestled in large grove of oaks. Close to the Santa Lucia and Garcia Wildernesses. Recreational vehicles up to 16 feet.
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.
recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.
BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe record
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Every line of the receipt · 10
What you actually pay
The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
The Adventure pass or Annual Interagency pass (National Parks pass), Senior Interagency pass, or Interagency Access pass is required for parking at Hi Mountain Campground.
If you are walking in and camping, you do not need a pass.
The pass is for the vehicle.
Adventure passes can be purchased at Big 5 Sporting Goods stores.
Check with the Big 5 Sporting Goods store nearest you to find out if they sell Adventure passes.
Day passes are $5 and annual passes are $30 a year.
Adventure passes are also sold at REI in San Luis Obispo, CA.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Also near here
American Canyon Campground6.1 mi
Turkey Flat OHV Staging AreaLos Padres National Forest · 7.0 miAmerican Canyon Seasonal CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 8.5 mi
Navajo Flats CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 9.4 miFriis CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 9.6 mi
La Panza CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 11 mi
American Canyon Campground6.1 miTurkey Flat OHV Staging AreaLos Padres National Forest · 7.0 miAmerican Canyon Seasonal CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 8.5 miNavajo Flats CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 9.4 miFriis CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 9.6 miLa Panza CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 11 miSource: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
Tonight52°Mostly Clear
Saturday92°Sunny
Saturday Night45°Clear
Sunday86°Sunny
NWS forecast for Edna, CA
Source: National Weather Service, LOX forecast office · Oct 17, 2026
Typical weather
Typical October night 43°F, day 78°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.
100°32°20°
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.
Measured at: NEW CUYAMA FIRE STN, CA (USC00046154), 47 miles away and 190 ft lower
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.
Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Sep 30, 2026
Who answers for this land
Hi Mountain Campground is in California’s 24th congressional district. Its representative, Salud Carbajal (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it open right now. Its own recreation database, though, flags it not open with no reason or date; the flag is named under How we know all this.
Listed not open: USFS EDW Recreation Opportunities, openstatus field: a not-open flag in a database, with no reason and no date published; read there since Sep 9, 2026. A flag, not a notice, so this page doesn’t call it a closure. · Oct 16, 2026
Season: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Tree cover: NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC), one 30 m cell at this coordinate · Sep 9, 2026
Cell signal: the Forest Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest place of any size: Edna, CA, 10.4 mi ENE (a census designated place). Straight line.