Lone Pine
1Heads up1 fire 44 mi away
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 9 of the next 9 nights read 15:51 UTC
- A night
- $34From, per site
- Sites
- 28All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Lone Pine Campground is located near the base of Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the continental United States, offering unparalleled views of the mountain and surrounding peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. An abundance of fishing and hiking opportunities can be found both in and around Lone Pine. Keep reading
Recreation
Hikers are drawn to the majestic scenery and challenging trails of the Whitney Portal area. Trails lead to the John Muir Wilderness, including Mt. Whitney, and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. The Mt. Whitney trailhead is just 7 miles away. The less challenging National Recreation Trail connects Lone Pine Campground to Whitney Portal and its picnic area and fishing pond. The eastern Sierras are also known for exceptional trout fishing, and anglers can access Lone Pine Creek and a nearby pond.
Facilities
Lone Pine is especially popular for RV camping. There are also a few tent-only sites and one tent-only group site that can accommodate up to 15 guests. Campsites are arranged around a single loop and have little to no shade or privacy due to the desert landscape. Firewood is available for purchase on-site, and showers are located 8 miles west of the campground at the Portal Store.
Natural Features
The campground is nestled in sagebrush alongside Lone Pine Creek. At an elevation of 6,000 feet, the location offers clear views of surrounding granite peaks. Desert wildflowers add brilliant colors to the landscape in spring. The area is home to abundant wildlife, including black bear, mountain lions, mule deer, pine martin, pika and many species of fish and birds. This campground is especially prone to bear activity. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (602) 726-1102.
Nearby Attractions
Campers can enter the John Muir Wilderness, a land of lofty snow-capped mountains, deep canyons and vast expanses of glacially carved terrain, via nearby trails. Mt. Whitney is within the wilderness area and entry is available by lottery for experienced hikers.
What the agency tells you
Hiking Mt. Whitney requires a permit and specific regulations apply; click here for more info
No off-road vehicles allowed in the campground
Be bear aware; keep all food out of site in approved containers and remove all food from area after eating; do not leave food in car; always keep a clean camp and do not feed any wild animals
Everything else this campground posts · 7
Two pets per site and leashed at all times.
Please Note: One RV with tow vehicle per single site or one vehicle per tent site. One vehicle per single site is included with your reservation. 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 if you did not pay for an Extra Vehicle Add On. Extra vehicles must fit on the parking spur at the site.
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 info about the John Muir Wilderness
Click here for more information about Inyo National Forest
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 28 · 2 tent-only, 3 walk-in, 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Paved pads
- 21 of 28
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Picnicking
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 215th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 2
Full this Saturdayread 15:51 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
Every one of the 25 sites on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 21 are free on Thu, Oct 22. read 15:51 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
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 · 14
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $34 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.
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 · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 15:51 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
28 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 28 mapped sitesAll 28 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 28 of the 28 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. 28 of the 28 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| LONE | 43 | group tent only area nonelectric | 58 ft | 156 ft | 187 ft | $81 | |
| PINE | 001 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 69 ft | 102 ft | 128 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 002 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 69 ft | 169 ft | 130 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 003 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 64 ft | 91 ft | 187 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 004 | standard nonelectric | 31 ft | 64 ft | 149 ft | 182 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 006 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | 83 ft | 173 ft | 90 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 008 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | 83 ft | 255 ft | 80 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 010 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 84 ft | 175 ft | 62 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 012 | standard nonelectric | 31 ft | 89 ft | 165 ft | 143 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 013 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 89 ft | 98 ft | 231 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 014 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | 59 ft | 93 ft | 309 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 016 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | 59 ft | 152 ft | 282 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 017 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | 87 ft | 99 ft | 342 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 018 | tent only nonelectric | 50 ft | 87 ft | 145 ft | 256 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 020 | standard nonelectric | 16 ft | 92 ft | 99 ft | 219 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 022 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | 107 ft | 134 ft | 125 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 024 | standard nonelectric | 31 ft | 67 ft | 198 ft | 21 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 026 | standard nonelectric | 33 ft | 67 ft | 249 ft | 61 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 028 | standard nonelectric | 31 ft | 74 ft | 246 ft | 176 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 030 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 74 ft | 242 ft | 250 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 032 | standard nonelectric | 31 ft | 100 ft | 247 ft | 324 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 034 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 61 ft | 266 ft | 209 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 036 | standard nonelectric | 31 ft | 61 ft | 265 ft | 148 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 037 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 48 ft | 294 ft | 76 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 038 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 48 ft | 258 ft | 67 ft | $34 |
| PINE | 040 | walk to | 56 ft | 118 ft | 89 ft | $34 | |
| PINE | 041 | walk to | 49 ft | 108 ft | 144 ft | $34 | |
| PINE | 042 | walk to | 49 ft | 97 ft | 194 ft | $34 |
25 of 28 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Whitney PortalInyo National Forest · 2.6 miMt. Whitney Trailhead CampgroundInyo National Forest · 3.1 mi
Tuttle Creek CampgroundBishop Field Office · 3.9 miCottonwood Lakes Walk in CampgroundInyo National Forest · 10 miCottonwood Pass Walk in CampgroundInyo National Forest · 10 mi
Grays MeadowsInyo National Forest · 13 miFrom U.S. Highway 395 in California, travel to the town of Lone Pine. The campground is 6 miles west of Lone Pine on Whitney Portal Road.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Lone Pine, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 31°F, day 59°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 17°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 · a letter you can send
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
Lone Pine 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 →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyKevin KileyU.S. Representative · California’s 3rd district
No contact form we could verify, so that link is their own site. Contact is inside it. Washington office: 202-225-2523.
- Your senator, on the same appropriationAdam B. SchiffU.S. Senator · California
- Your senator, on the same appropriationAlex PadillaU.S. Senator · California
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Lone Pine, Inyo National Forest, California
Dear Kevin Kiley, I’m a constituent in California’s 3rd district. I tried to camp at Lone Pine, Inyo National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 28 sites at Lone Pine are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 25 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Lone Pine keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Lone Pine. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Lone Pine (Inyo National Forest, California) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Lone Pine, Inyo National Forest, California
Dear Adam B. Schiff, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Lone Pine, Inyo National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 28 sites at Lone Pine are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 25 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Lone Pine keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Lone Pine. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Lone Pine (Inyo National Forest, California) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Lone Pine, Inyo National Forest, California
Dear Alex Padilla, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Lone Pine, Inyo National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 28 sites at Lone Pine are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 25 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Lone Pine keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Lone Pine. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Lone Pine (Inyo National Forest, California) via campanac.com