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National Park Service · Death Valley National Park · CA

Homestake Campground (Primitive)

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Information
Gas Pumps at Panamint Springs Resort are Closed at Night Gasoline is available at Panamint Springs Resort from 7am-9:30pm, daily. Gas is available at Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells 24hrs.
Alerts: National Park Service alerts API · Oct 17, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: all 10 sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
OpenThe agency lists it open
A night
FreeNo camping fee
Sites
1010 of them walk-up
Season
Year-roundOpen year-round
Photos · NPS Photo
3,780 ftElevation
12.3 miWater · an unnamed pond
26 miE of Lone Pine, CA
10Walk-up sites
0%Tree cover
Open year-roundToday

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Extremely remote campsite at 3,785ft of elevation, accessible only by high-clearance vehicles with all-terrain tires. Access from Saline Valley Road requires navigating Lippincott Pass and should only be attempted by experienced 4-wheel drivers. There are no approved toilet facilities at this location and no water available. Pack in all that you need, pack out all that you bring.

Source: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
None. Pack out what you bring in
Drinking water
None, bring your own
Source: National Park Service and agency records

Around the campground

Night sky · 35th darkest of 1,201 in CA
Bortle 2
Source: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate · Sep 8, 2026

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and it costs nothing at all. 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 agency’s record
A nightFreeNo camping feethe agency’s fee record
A weekendNothingDerivedFriday and Saturday, everything includedours, from the lines above
Runs itNational Park Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 4

What you actually pay

The sign priceNational Park Service
Camping feeFree
Camping Fee$0
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
A night, and a whole weekendDerivedNothing

Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s own record says there’s no camping fee, and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.

How we know this receipt · 5
Sign price: Derived by CAMPANAC from the National Park Service fee record: a stated per-night amount only · Sep 7, 2026
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: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 2026

record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Coordinate36.63760, -117.57380
The phone760-786-3200

Where it is

Source: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Tonight51°Clear
Saturday77°Sunny
Saturday Night52°Mostly Clear
Sunday77°Sunny

NWS forecast for Keeler, CA

Source: National Weather Service, VEF forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 48°F, day 81°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical December night 29°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

110°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: INDEPENDENCE, CA (USC00044232), 37 miles away and 170 ft higher
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

What threatens this place

Watch

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

Kevin Kiley, official portrait

Homestake Campground (Primitive) 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 →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it open right now.
Season: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.018 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 1,201 rated federal campgrounds in California · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the Park 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: Keeler, CA, 19.3 mi ENE (a census designated place). Straight line.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026