McGee Creek
1Heads up1 fire 40 mi away
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- Sites
- 28All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
McGee Campground provides a pleasant, sunny location for family camping between Bishop and Mammoth Lakes in the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains. The campground's proximity to U.S. Highway 395 and the adjacent John Muir Wilderness make it a hot spot for hiking, rock climbing, fishing, wildlife viewing, horseback riding, hunting, photography and geology study. Keep reading
Recreation
Majestic scenery and challenging trails draw in hikers, mountain bikers and equestrian enthusiasts. The McGee Creek Trailhead, a popular trail for hiking and horseback riding into the McGee Canyon area of the John Muir Wilderness, lies just two miles from the campground. The eastern Sierras are known for exceptional trout fishing. McGee Creek and nearby Crowley Lake have some of the best fishing in the area. The area's interesting geology also makes it popular for rock hounding.
Facilities
McGee offers about 28 reservable, open and sunny campsites. Each site has a picnic shelter. Roads and camping spurs are paved. Bear-proof lockers are provided for food storage and firewood is for sale on-site.
Natural Features
The campground is situated in an expanse of silvery white sagebrush and near a meadow lined with aspens. It sits at an elevation of 7,600 feet and offers outstanding views of high mountain peaks in the John Muir Wilderness. McGee Creek runs alongside it, with some sites sitting along the banks of the water.
Nearby Attractions
For campers interested in local events, Mule Days are held in Bishop over Memorial Day weekend, and the Mammoth Jazz Jubilee is hosted in Mammoth in mid-July. Visitors can explore the magnificent John Muir Wilderness, which stretches for 100 miles along the crest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It is a land of lofty snow-capped mountains, deep canyons and vast expanses of glacially-carved terrain, and offers extensive hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding trails.
What the agency tells you
No RV or camping trailers over 28ft.
This is a high elevation facility; please use caution when traveling from lower elevations
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
Everything else this campground posts · 5
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 Inyo National Forest
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 28
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Paved pads
- 27 of 28
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek, Meadow
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 298th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 2
- Fall color · reported 13 days ago, 20 km away
- Patchy color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 9
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 · 4
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · record Aug 23, 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.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| MCGE | 001 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | 88 ft | 421 ft | 477 ft |
| MCGE | 002 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | 80 ft | 336 ft | 441 ft |
| MCGE | 003 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | 77 ft | 274 ft | 397 ft |
| MCGE | 004 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 45 ft | 240 ft | 342 ft |
| MCGE | 005 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 45 ft | 248 ft | 303 ft |
| MCGE | 006 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 83 ft | 211 ft | 249 ft |
| MCGE | 007 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 70 ft | 148 ft | 217 ft |
| MCGE | 008 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 57 ft | 148 ft | 209 ft |
| MCGE | 009 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 57 ft | 153 ft | 216 ft |
| MCGE | 010 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 89 ft | 186 ft | 216 ft |
| MCGE | 011 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 125 ft | 382 ft | 93 ft |
| MCGE | 012 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 81 ft | 491 ft | 208 ft |
| MCGE | 013 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 79 ft | 565 ft | 254 ft |
| MCGE | 014 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 79 ft | 618 ft | 282 ft |
| MCGE | 015 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 95 ft | 619 ft | 264 ft |
| MCGE | 016 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 70 ft | 568 ft | 239 ft |
| MCGE | 017 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 70 ft | 499 ft | 208 ft |
| MCGE | 018 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 81 ft | 423 ft | 159 ft |
| MCGE | 019 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 71 ft | 303 ft | 338 ft |
| MCGE | 020 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 70 ft | 363 ft | 287 ft |
| MCGE | 021 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 70 ft | 416 ft | 330 ft |
| MCGE | 022 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 60 ft | 431 ft | 432 ft |
| MCGE | 023 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | 60 ft | 376 ft | 456 ft |
| MCGE | 024 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 65 ft | 281 ft | 501 ft |
| MCGE | 025 | standard nonelectric | 16 ft | 49 ft | 219 ft | 502 ft |
| MCGE | 026 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 49 ft | 186 ft | 483 ft |
| MCGE | 027 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 85 ft | 172 ft | 361 ft |
| MCGE | 028 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | 85 ft | 193 ft | 286 ft |
25 of 28 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Crowley Lake CampgroundBishop Field Office · 1.0 mi
Convict Lake CampgroundInyo National Forest · 4.3 mi
Aspen Group (Inyo)Inyo National Forest · 4.9 miIris Meadow CampgroundInyo National Forest · 5.1 miBig Meadow CampgroundInyo National Forest · 5.3 mi
French CampInyo National Forest · 5.9 miFrom U.S. Highway 395 in California, take the McGee Creek exit, located 8 miles south of Mammoth Lakes and 37 miles north of Bishop. Proceed 2 miles south up the paved McGee Creek Road. The campground is on the left.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for McGee Creek, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 36°F, day 65°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 21°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
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
McGee Creek 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 →