Live Oak
1Heads up1 fire 2.4 mi away
- Right now
- Closedrecreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend, read 16:19 UTC
- Sites
- 1In the agency’s record
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 5 notices
In the agency’s own words
Reservations not being accepted. Live Oak Campground is located across the road from Lake Isabella, a popular destination for boating, windsurfing, fishing and swimming. Lake Isabella sits within Sequoia National Forest, just 6 miles from the town of Lake Isabella. Keep reading
Recreation
Water activities at Lake Isabella are popular and include swimming, water skiing, windsurfing and fishing. The lake is known for its trout fishing during the colder months. Other species include black and white crappie, bluegill, catfish and largemouth bass.
Facilities
The campground offers one group site that can accomodate up to 150 people and a combination of 30 vehicles and RVs. Flush toilets, showers and drinking water are provided.
Natural Features
The campground is situated in a grove of scenic oak trees at an approximate elevation of 2,500 feet. Lake Isabella sits at the southern end of the Sierra Nevada range. The 11,000-acre lake marks the division between the Upper Kern River and the Lower Kern River. Sequoia National Forest is named for the giant sequoia, the world's largest tree, which grows in more than 30 groves on the forest's lower slopes. The forest comprises about 1.1 million acres. Elevations range from 1,000 to 12,000 feet, creating precipitous canyons and mountain streams with spectacular waterfalls such as Salmon Creek Falls and Grizzly Falls.
Nearby Attractions
Live Oak provides a good base for day trips to Sequoia National Park. The Trail of a Hundred Giants and numerous sequoia groves can be found nearby within Giant Sequoia National Monument. The Giant Sequoia Mercantile is just 5 miles away in Kernville, and offers a wide variety of books, maps, gifts and camping equipment. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (760) 376-1269.
What the agency tells you
Six people per site including children
No electric hookups available
No off-road vehicle use in the campground
Everything else this campground posts · 2
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 Kern River Ranger District (760) 376-3781.
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 30 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Not allowed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…a combination of 30 vehicles and RVs. Flush toilets, showers and drinking water are provided. Natural…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…and RVs. Flush toilets, showers and drinking water are provided. Natural Features The campground is…”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Waterfall, Lake, River, Creek
- Night sky · 870th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 4
Nothing to book until it reopensread 16:19 UTC
recreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend
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.
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 · 8
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 · 3
Why this page can’t say why
recreation.gov lists every site at Live Oak closed this Friday and Saturday night. The U.S. Forest Service has published no closure notice we hold, so this page can’t say why, and it won’t fill the gap with a guess. A closed night isn’t a sold-out one: the reservations its record still carries were taken before the sites were closed.
There’s no notice to quote and no reason to argue with, so this page offers you the watch and the list below, and no letter.
Open within 60 miles · 4
The agency’s own word that these are open, not our reading of a season.
- Tillie CreekSequoia National Forest · 0.1 mi · 137 sites
- Camp 9 Lakeside Group CampgroundsSequoia National Forest · 2.1 mi
- Camp 9 Recreation Area CampgroundSequoia National Forest · 2.1 mi
- French GulchSequoia National Forest · 3.3 mi · 1 site
recreation.gov availability, read 16:19 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
| AREA LIVE OAK | 001 | group standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 3,265 ft |
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
Live Oak SouthSequoia National Forest · 0.0 miLive Oak North CampgroundSequoia National Forest · 0.0 mi
Tillie CreekSequoia National Forest · 0.1 mi
Camp 91.8 miCamp 9 Lakeside Group Campgrounds2.1 miCamp 9 Recreation Area Campground2.1 miFrom Bakersfield, take Highway 178 east to the town of Lake Isabella. From Lake Isabella take Highway 155 north approximately 6 miles to the Live Oak campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Wofford Heights, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 46°F, day 81°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 31°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Live Oak is in California’s 20th congressional district. Its representative, Vince Fong (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →