Hirz Bay
1Heads up1 fire 44 mi away
- Right now
- OpenThe agency lists it open
- A night
- $30–$60Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 5047 on recreation.gov
- Season
- Year-roundOpen year-round
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Hirz Bay Campground is nestled among Manzanita and oak trees on a hilltop overlooking the McCloud Arm of Shasta Lake. The scenic location offers a variety of recreational activities, including a nearby boat ramp for water sports and a hiking trail. Keep reading
Recreation
The nearest boat launch is about 1 mile away at Hirz Bay. Resorts on the lake have watercraft rentals and marinas with fuel. Popular water activities include power and non-motorized boating, fishing and water skiing. Lake Shasta offers excellent fishing for trout, catfish, Chinook salmon, crappie, bluegill, white sturgeon, brown bullhead and bass. Hikers can access the 2-mile Hirz Bay Trail from the campground.
Facilities
Each campsite contains a paved parking spur, a table, a bear-proof food locker and one fire ring. This campground has a pay phone, drinking water, flush toilets and an overflow parking area.
Natural Features
Shasta-Trinity is the largest national forest in California with a diverse landscape encompassing five wilderness areas, hundreds of mountain lakes and 6,278 miles of streams and rivers. Lake Shasta sits at an elevation of 1,067 feet, with 365 miles of shoreline punctuated by steep mountains blanketed in manzanita and evergreens. A snow-capped Mount Shasta, the second-tallest mountain in the Cascade Range, looms in the distance.
Nearby Attractions
Lake Shasta Caverns are also located on the McCloud Arm of Shasta Lake in an area know as the Grey Rocks. Tours are given daily at this privately owned facility. The nearby Hirz Mountain Lookout offers panoramic views of Mt. Shasta, Mt. Lassen and the surrounding area at an elevation of 3,500 feet.
What the agency tells you
Single sites include one vehicle, double sites two vehicles; extra vehicles are $12 per night
Average maximum trailer size is 30 feet
Keep food in the provided bear-proof containers
Everything else this campground posts · 7
Poison oak is abundant in the area
There is a $17 daily fee to use the boat ramp
Click here for further information on this campground
Click here for more information about Shasta-Trinity 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.
Check-in time 3 P.M. and Check-out time 2 P.M.
Active Bears in the area, please keep all food in designated bear locker.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 50
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Paved pads
- 48 of 50
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…has a pay phone, drinking water, flush toilets and an overflow parking area. Natural Features…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…ring. This campground has a pay phone, drinking water, flush toilets and an overflow parking area.…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek, Beach, Coast
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Water sports
- Night sky · 547th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 3
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 16:07 UTC
recreation.gov lists 47 of the 50 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
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 · 27
What you actually pay
“extra vehicles are $12 per night” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $30–$60 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.
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
recreation.gov availability, read 16:07 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
52 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 31 mapped sitesAll 52 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 50 of the 52 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.
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 001_OLD | type not stated | $30–$60 | |||
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 004 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 55 ft | 449 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 005 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 55 ft | 500 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 006_OLD | type not stated | $30–$60 | |||
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 008 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 253 ft | 675 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 010 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 011 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 81 ft | 484 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 012 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 112 ft | 506 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 013 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 014 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 68 ft | 402 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 015 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 68 ft | 403 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 016 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 73 ft | 330 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 018 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 112 ft | 409 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 019 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 020 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 149 ft | 352 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 020B | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 021 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 86 ft | 377 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 022 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 55 ft | 280 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 023 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 77 ft | 354 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 024 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 49 ft | 276 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 025 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 49 ft | 258 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 026 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 63 ft | 320 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 027 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 162 ft | 300 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 028 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 52 ft | 383 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 030 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 52 ft | 430 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 031 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 62 ft | 388 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 033 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 92 ft | 428 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 034 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 69 ft | 355 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 035 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 69 ft | 340 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 036 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 037 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 69 ft | 349 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 039 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 137 ft | 387 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 041 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 180 ft | 481 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 042 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 55 ft | 411 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 043 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 55 ft | 364 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 044 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 81 ft | 406 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 045 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 93 ft | 390 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | 046 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 192 ft | 379 ft | $30–$60 |
| AREA HIRZ BAY | XXX | unnamed record | 45 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| HIRZ BAY | 001 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| HIRZ BAY | 002 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| HIRZ BAY | 003 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| HIRZ BAY | 006 HOST | host pad | 50 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| HIRZ BAY | 007 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| HIRZ BAY | 009 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| HIRZ BAY | 017 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| HIRZ BAY | 029 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| HIRZ BAY | 032 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| HIRZ BAY | 038 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| HIRZ BAY | 040 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| S&P | S&P - Double | type not stated | 40 ft | $30–$60 | ||
| S&P | S&P - Single | type not stated | 40 ft | $30–$60 |
The agency files 2 more records here that aren’t sites for the night: 1 it names a host pad and 1 it types 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.
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.
25 of 52 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Hirz Bay Group 1Whiskeytown Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area · 0.0 mi
Hirz Bay Group 2Whiskeytown Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area · 0.0 mi
Dekkas RockWhiskeytown Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area · 1.0 mi
Hirz CabinWhiskeytown Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area · 1.0 mi
Moore CreekWhiskeytown Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area · 2.2 mi
Hirz Mountain Lookout3.3 miFrom Redding, CA, remain on I-5 to Gilman Road. (From the north, take Salt Creek exit to Gilman Road). Take Gilman Road east for 11 miles to entrance of Hirz Bay.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Lakehead, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 55°F, day 78°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 41°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
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
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
Hirz Bay is in California’s 1st congressional district. Whoever holds it votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. See how its representative votes on public lands →
Our roster still carries Doug LaMalfa for this district and the current federal record doesn’t list them as sitting, so we’re not naming a representative here until the two agree.