Jackass Meadow
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 18 mi
- Right now
- ClosedThe agency’s own sentence, quoted below
- A night
- $37–$77When it reopens, per site
- Sites
- 40In the agency’s record
- Season
- June 1 – September 30Open June 1 through September 30
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Jackass Meadow Campground is situated below Florence Lake on the San Joaquin River, surrounded by the craggy peaks of the John Muir Wilderness. Jackass Meadow is shaded by a stand of Aspen and Lodgepole Pine, and the South Fork of the San Joaquin runs through the campground. This camp is located near several Native American archaeological sites. Keep reading
Recreation
There is a .7 mile accessible hiking trail near the campground. Nature walks are held every Saturday during the summer. Most of the recreation opportunities here can be found in and around Florence Lake. There is a boat ramp and boat rentals at the Florence Lake Store.
Facilities
Each campsite has a table, fire ring and grill. Bear-proof food lockers, water and accessible vault toilets are provided. Supplies and groceries can be purchased half a mile from the campground at the Florence Lake Store.
Natural Features
The Sierra National Forest, located on the western slope of the central Sierra Nevada, is known for its spectacular mountain scenery and abundant natural resources. The terrain includes rolling, oak-covered foothills, heavily forested middle elevation slopes and the starkly beautiful alpine landscape of the High Sierra. The John Muir Wilderness stretches for 100 miles along the crest of the Sierra. It is a land of lofty snow-capped mountains, deep canyons and vast expanses of glacially carved terrain. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (909) 638-6117.
Nearby Attractions
A popular activity is to take a ferry from Florence Lake to the John Muir Trail, which is part of the Pacific Crest Trail, which stretches from Mexico to Canada. Ferry tickets can be purchased at the Florence Lake Store.
What the agency tells you
RVs and motor homes over 25 feet are not recommended on Kaiser Road due to single-lane road with blind curves
Please keep all food in the bear-proof lockers provided
Two pets per site and must be leashed at all times.
Everything else this campground posts · 5
Please Note: One RV with tow vehicle for single site or one vehicle for single tent camping. Two RV’S with tow vehicle per double site or two vehicles for double tent only camping. Most sites can accommodate 1 extra vehicle that is not included with the reservation fee. Extra vehicle will be charged a per night fee and collected at the campground.
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. For current fire conditions or weather closures contact the High Sierra Ranger District, Sierra National Forest (559) 855-5355
Reserved Sites will be held until check out time (NOON) 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.
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.
Click here to learn more about the Sierra National Forest
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 40
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 46 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…food lockers, water and accessible vault toilets are provided. Supplies and groceries can be…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Meadow
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Horseback riding
- Night sky · 337th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 2
- Fall color · reported 14 days ago, 39 km away
- Peak color
Nothing to book until it reopens
Forest Order No.
The closure above is the reading. We hold no availability snapshot for this campground, so there’s no thirty-night strip to draw under it.
Tell me when it reopens
Watch for it to come back
One email when the agency reopens it, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check the agency’s own record once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time it stops saying closed.
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.
Every line of the receipt · 11
What you actually pay
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 · 4
What the agency said · 1
Forest Order No. 05-15-00-26-08 reopens the newly renovated Jackass Meadow Campgrounds, removing it from Exhibit A of the Forest Recreation Closure list.
U.S. Forest Service · posted Jul 10, 2026
Filed as construction from the agency’s own words “renovated”. That reading is ours.
Open within 60 miles · 4
The agency’s own word that these are open, not our reading of a season.
- RancheriaSierra National Forest · 11 mi · 127 sites
- Sample Meadow CampgroundSierra National Forest · 11 mi · walk-up
- Voyager Rock Camping AreaSierra National Forest · 12 mi · walk-up
- West Kaiser CampgroundSierra National Forest · 16 mi · walk-up
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
40 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 35 mapped sitesAll 40 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 40 of the 40 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. 35 of the 40 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 01 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 63 ft | 205 ft | 832 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 02 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 63 ft | 205 ft | 815 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 03 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 70 ft | 142 ft | 884 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 04 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 66 ft | 366 ft | 967 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 05 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 71 ft | 308 ft | 947 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 06 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 70 ft | 110 ft | 937 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 07 | standard nonelectric | 34 ft | 70 ft | 117 ft | 962 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 08 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 71 ft | 341 ft | 878 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 09 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 54 ft | 187 ft | 902 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 10 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 54 ft | 168 ft | 923 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 11 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 64 ft | 111 ft | 985 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 12 | standard nonelectric | 34 ft | 70 ft | 138 ft | 917 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 13 | standard nonelectric | 42 ft | 82 ft | 74 ft | 997 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 14 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 78 ft | 259 ft | 937 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 15 | standard nonelectric | 46 ft | 70 ft | 110 ft | 920 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 16 | standard nonelectric | 37 ft | 63 ft | 315 ft | 859 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 17 | standard nonelectric | 41 ft | 89 ft | 230 ft | 918 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 18 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 75 ft | 321 ft | 753 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 19 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 54 ft | 363 ft | 687 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 20 | standard nonelectric | 44 ft | 54 ft | 406 ft | 661 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 21 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 56 ft | 393 ft | 651 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 22 | standard nonelectric | 44 ft | 85 ft | 309 ft | 734 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 23 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 57 ft | 150 ft | 671 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 24 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 58 ft | 219 ft | 736 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 25 | standard nonelectric | 37 ft | 53 ft | 162 ft | 702 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 26 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 58 ft | 236 ft | 770 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 27 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 53 ft | 181 ft | 740 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 28 | standard nonelectric | 42 ft | 63 ft | 310 ft | 830 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 29 | standard nonelectric | 41 ft | 62 ft | 295 ft | 841 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 30 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 62 ft | 261 ft | 831 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 31 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 85 ft | 367 ft | 925 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 32 | standard nonelectric | 37 ft | 99 ft | 318 ft | 759 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 33 | standard nonelectric | 37 ft | 70 ft | 399 ft | 926 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 34 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 66 ft | 385 ftJackass Meadow | 993 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 35 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 66 ft | 402 ft | 910 ft | $37–$77 |
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 46 | type not stated | 33 ft | 352 ft | 774 ft | ||
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 47 | type not stated | 38 ft | 300 ft | 707 ft | ||
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 48 | type not stated | 39 ft | 296 ft | 762 ft | ||
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 49 | type not stated | 41 ft | 220 ft | 672 ft | ||
| Jackass Meadow Loop | 50 | type not stated | 40 ft | 240 ft | 729 ft |
25 of 40 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Mono Hot SpringsSierra National Forest · 4.4 miBolsillo CampgroundSierra National Forest · 4.8 mi
Mono CreekSierra National Forest · 5.5 miPortal Forebay CampgroundSierra National Forest · 6.3 mi
VermillionSierra National Forest · 7.3 miFrom Clovis, California: Take Hwy 168 north for 70 miles to Huntington Lake Campground office at Eastwood. Turn right and follow Kaiser Pass Road approximately 21 miles to Jackass Meadow campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Big Creek, CA
Typical weather
Typical June night 43°F, day 66°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical June night 43°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 Augusts are colder than the August 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
Jackass Meadow is in California’s 5th congressional district. Its representative, Tom McClintock (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →