CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
The map
1Heads up1 fire 46 mi away
Wildfire
Old fire · 46 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 16, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 16, 2026
ReservableOut of season; the next season isn't published.
Book on recreation.govWe make nothing when you book
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Sites
21All of them booked ahead
Drawn from the record · 7,660 ft · 38% tree cover · water within reach · Bortle 3 sky
7,660 ftElevation
1,460 ftWater · an unnamed stream
8.1 miW of Meyers, CA
38%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 674th darkest of 1,201 in CA

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Soaring above the dense pine canopy of Eldorado National Forest, the stunning granite cliffs of Lover's Leap promise world-class and breathtaking panoramic views of the Sierra Nevada.

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Tents and rigs

Sites
21 · 21 walk-in
Hookups
None
Accessible sites
None listed
Source: Recreation.gov campsite records · Aug 23, 2026

Around the campground

Fall color · reported 7 days ago, 14 km away
No change
Source: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (14 km) · Oct 10, 2026

Fully booked this Friday and Saturday, all 1 site-nights takenread 15:44 UTC

Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.

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.

Booking windowOut of seasonOut of season, no booking. The last reservable season the agency published ended September 30, 2026, and it hasn't published the next one.recreation.gov
If plans change$10 to cancel$10 to change a reservationrecreation.gov’s schedule
Runs itU.S. Forest ServiceBooked through recreation.govthe agency’s record
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.

Free forever, no booking kickbacks.
Book on recreation.gov

We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.

Every line of the receipt · 9

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.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Reservation fee, booked online$8
One fee per reservation, however many nights you book, and it’s non-refundable. $9 if you book by phone, $3 in person.
Pass discounts only apply to the recreation (or use) fee for the facility. Other charges such as electricity or water hookups, reservation or other fees are not eligible for a discount.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s nothing to add the $8 booking fee to. We won’t total a receipt with a number missing from it.
If your plans changerecreation.gov
Change fee, moving to dates outside your booking$10
Cancellation fee$10
Cancelling the day before, or the day of$10 + your first night
No-show$20 + your first night

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
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: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

recreation.gov availability, read 15:44 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

The sites

21 sites

All 21 sites

Lovers01walk to
Lovers02walk to
Lovers03walk to
Lovers04walk to
Lovers05walk to
Lovers06walk to
Lovers07walk to
Lovers08walk to
Lovers09walk to
Lovers10walk to
Lovers11walk to
Lovers12walk to
Lovers13walk to
Lovers14walk to
Lovers15walk to
Lovers16walk to
Lovers17walk to
Lovers18walk to
Lovers19walk to
Lovers20walk to
Lovers21walk to
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate38.82131, -120.18221
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗

Where it is

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Tonight47°Mostly Clear
Saturday59°Sunny
Saturday Night43°Mostly Clear
Sunday56°Sunny

NWS forecast for Meyers, CA

Source: National Weather Service, STO forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 36°F, day 55°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical December night 23°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

80°32°10°

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.

Measured at: DAGGET PASS, NV (USC00262119), 19 miles away and 326 ft lower
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

Roadless country, and what’s coming for it

Roadless
Pyramid24,347 acres · 4 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Dardanelles8,110 acres · 7 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Pyramid7,758 acres · 9 mi · inventoried roadless area

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

Kevin Kiley, official portrait

Lovers Leap 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 →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: U.S. Forest Service publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate.
Sites on recreation.gov: recreation.gov’s own month availability payload for this facility, asked for October 2026 and November 2026. It names 21 of the 21 campsites the agency files here, and every one of them carries an answer either way. A campground nobody has read carries no answer at all, never a no. · Oct 14, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.2 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 1,201 rated federal campgrounds in California · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (14 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 town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026