Kelty Meadow
2Heads up2 fires, nearest 10 mi
- Right now
- Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
- A night
- $41–$82Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 188 on recreation.gov
- Season
- June 1 – September 30Open June 1 through September 30
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Kelty Meadow Campground is located in a mountainous area near Bass Lake. This horse-friendly camp is shaded by pine and cedar trees alongside Kelty Creek, with campsites wide and open enough to accommodate small horse trailers, slide-ins, tent trailers or tents. Keep reading
Recreation
Visitors enjoy horseback riding on logging and forest roads in the surrounding area. Most other recreational activities in the area are centered around Bass Lake. Bass Lake offers a beach and boat ramp. Popular activities include hiking, swimming, motorized boating, canoeing, kayaking, water skiing, sailing and fishing for bass, trout, bluegill and catfish.
Facilities
Each campsite is equipped with a picnic table, campfire ring and grill. Some sites have hitching posts. Vault toilets are available. Drinking water is not provided, but a stock water supply is available from the creek.
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. Kelty Meadow Campground is located in the Bass Lake Ranger District at an elevation of 3,400 feet. Bass Lake is a very popular area known for its variety of fish, as well as the bald and golden eagles that make their home here.
Nearby Attractions
A trailhead for the Shadow of the Giants National Recreation Trail is a few miles south of the campground. This 1-mile interpretive trail gives visitors the opportunity to learn about giant sequoias that grow in this forest.
Charges & Cancellations
Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
What the agency tells you
Maximum vehicle size is 30 feet
No off-road vehicles allowed in the campground
Two pets per site and leashed at all times
Everything else this campground posts · 7
Please Note: One vehicle per single tent site or two vehicles per double tent site. 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: 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.
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 for more information about Sierra National Forest
Be bear aware; keep all food out of site in approved containers or locked inside your vehicle and remove all food from area after eating; always keep a clean camp and do not feed any wild animals.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 18 · 8 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 30 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…grill. Some sites have hitching posts. Vault toilets are available. Drinking water is not provided, but…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…posts. Vault toilets are available. Drinking water is not provided, but a stock water supply is available from the…”
- 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, Creek, Beach, Meadow
- Hiking
- Night sky · 688th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 3
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 8 of the 18 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
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 · 15
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $41–$82 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.
“Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.” · this campground’s own terms
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
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
18 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 7 mapped sitesAll 18 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 15 of the 18 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| AREA KELTY MEADOW | 004 | standard nonelectric | 53 ft | 545 ftSlide Creek | $41–$82 | |
| AREA KELTY MEADOW | 006 | standard nonelectric | 150 ft | 626 ftSlide Creek | $41–$82 | |
| AREA KELTY MEADOW | 009 | standard nonelectric | 63 ft | 593 ftSlide Creek | $41–$82 | |
| AREA KELTY MEADOW | 010 | standard nonelectric | 72 ft | 510 ftSlide Creek | $41–$82 | |
| AREA KELTY MEADOW | 11-12 | standard nonelectric | 72 ft | 509 ftSlide Creek | $41–$82 | |
| AREA KELTY MEADOW | 2-3 | standard nonelectric | 53 ft | 509 ftSlide Creek | $41–$82 | |
| AREA KELTY MEADOW | 7-8 | standard nonelectric | 63 ft | 605 ftSlide Creek | $41–$82 | |
| AREA KELTY MEADOW | FS1-30 | type not stated | 30 ft | |||
| AREA KELTY MEADOW | FS2-30 | type not stated | 30 ft | |||
| Kelty Meadow | 10 | type not stated | ||||
| Kelty Meadow | 11 | tent only nonelectric | $41–$82 | |||
| Kelty Meadow | 2 | tent only nonelectric | $41–$82 | |||
| Kelty Meadow | 3 | tent only nonelectric | $41–$82 | |||
| Kelty Meadow | 4 | tent only nonelectric | $41–$82 | |||
| Kelty Meadow | 5 | tent only nonelectric | $41–$82 | |||
| Kelty Meadow | 6 | tent only nonelectric | $41–$82 | |||
| Kelty Meadow | 7 | tent only nonelectric | $41–$82 | |||
| Kelty Meadow | 9 | tent only nonelectric | $41–$82 |
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.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Texas FlatsSierra National Forest · 1.0 miFresno Dome CampgroundSierra National Forest · 1.1 miNelder Grove CampgroundSierra National Forest · 2.2 mi
Soquel CampgroundSierra National Forest · 2.5 miBig Sandy CampgroundSierra National Forest · 2.8 miGreys Mountain CampgroundSierra National Forest · 3.1 miTraveling north on Highway 41, approximately 3 miles out of Oakhurst, take Road 632 (aka Sky Ranch Road) 8 miles to the Y junction of 632 and 6S40. Stay left at the Y and go 3 miles to Kelty Meadow Campground on the left side of the road.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Oakhurst, CA
Typical weather
Typical June night 44°F, day 73°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical June night 44°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 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
Kelty 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 →