U.S. Forest Service · Eldorado National Forest · CA
Loon Lake Group Campground
1Heads up1 fire 36 mi away
Wildfire
Old fire · 36 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 16, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 16, 2026
The agency doesn’t say how you get a siteIts record carries no access type, so treat it as a place to phone before you drive.
- Right now
- Shut for nowOutside the published season, our reading; a database flag says not open
- Season
- – September 30Closes September 30. No opening date published.
6,450 ftElevation
985 ftWater · Loon Lake
12.8 miSW of Sunnyside-Tahoe City, CA
47%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 725th darkest of 1,201 in CA
Closes September 30. No opening date published.Today
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
Loon Lake Group Campground Recreation Opportunity Guide (ROG) - This guide contains information, maps, and directions to assist you in enjoying your trip to the Eldorado National Forest.
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
- Fall color · reported 6 days ago, 17 km away
- No change
Source: Stated in the agency description
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (17 km) · Oct 10, 2026
Phone before you drive
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.
Booking window6 months outBooking opens 6 months ahead; today unlocks arrivals through April 16, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Every line of the receipt · 4
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.
50 person (Group #1) $135/35 person (Group #2) $130/25 person (Equestrian Group)$160
The booking feerecreation.gov
We hold no recreation.gov booking record for this campground, so we can’t say whether a booking fee applies.
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: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Also near here
Loon Lake ChaletEldorado National Forest · 0.2 mi
Loon LakeEldorado National Forest · 0.7 miNorthshore CampgroundEldorado National Forest · 1.3 mi
Northshore Campground - Loon Lake (CA)Eldorado National Forest · 1.3 miRed Fir Group CampgroundEldorado National Forest · 1.5 mi
RED FIREldorado National Forest · 1.5 mi
Loon Lake ChaletEldorado National Forest · 0.2 miLoon LakeEldorado National Forest · 0.7 miNorthshore CampgroundEldorado National Forest · 1.3 miNorthshore Campground - Loon Lake (CA)Eldorado National Forest · 1.3 miRed Fir Group CampgroundEldorado National Forest · 1.5 miRED FIREldorado National Forest · 1.5 miSource: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
This Afternoon71°Sunny
Tonight48°Clear
Saturday68°Sunny
Saturday Night46°Clear
NWS forecast for Tahoma, CA
Source: National Weather Service, STO forecast office · Oct 16, 2026
Typical weather
Typical September night 41°F, day 70°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical September night 41°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
90°32°10°
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.
Measured at: TAHOE CITY, CA (USC00048758), 16 miles away and 220 ft lower
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.
Source: USFS Inventoried Roadless Areas via MTJP Roadless Map · Jul 29, 2026
Who answers for this land
Loon Lake Group Campground 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 →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: Today falls outside the season the agency publishes, and it has posted nothing else. That reading is ours. The U.S. Forest Service’s own 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 16, 2026
Season: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 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 (17 km) · Oct 10, 2026
Reported by: iNaturalist fall color observations, reported no change · Oct 10, 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: Tahoma, CA, 9.9 mi WSW (a census designated place). Straight line.