U.S. Forest Service · Los Padres National Forest · CA
Horseshoe Springs 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
1,440 ftElevation
4.1 miWater · an unnamed pondOcean · 29.4 mi · to the Pacific Ocean
14.7 miNE of Santa Maria, CA
43%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 733rd 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. Campground provides solitude for those seeking that type of experience.
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
Around the campground
- Fall color · reported 8 days ago, 39 km away
- No change
Source: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (39 km) · Oct 9, 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.
Every line of the receipt · 3
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 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: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Coordinate35.02110, -120.11480
The mapSee it on the map
The driveDirections ↗
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗
Where it is
Also near hereBrookshire CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 2.7 miMiranda Pine CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 4.5 miColson CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 6.4 miBuck Spring CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 7.8 miParadise CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 9.2 miBates Canyon CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 13 mi
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
Overnight64°Clear
Saturday92°Sunny
Saturday Night57°Clear
Sunday88°Sunny
NWS forecast for Garey, CA
Source: National Weather Service, LOX forecast office · Oct 17, 2026
Typical weather
Typical October night 49°F, day 75°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 39°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
90°30°
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 Septembers are colder than the September line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
Measured at: TWITCHELL DAM, CA (USC00049111), 12 miles away and 858 ft lower
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
developing
Roadless
Roadless
Roadless
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 5, 2026
Who answers for this land
Horseshoe Springs 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 17, 2026
Season: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 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
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (39 km) · Oct 9, 2026
Reported by: USA National Phenology Network (Nature's Notebook), reported no change · Oct 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: Garey, CA, 14 mi NE (a census designated place). Straight line.