U.S. Forest Service · Tahoe National Forest · CA
Meadow Lake Campground
1Heads up1 fire 31 mi away
Wildfire
Old fire · 31 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
- OpenInside the published season, our reading
- Season
- July 1Opens July 1. No closing date published.
7,290 ftElevation
163 ftWater · Meadow Lake
12 miNW of Truckee, CA
56%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 706th darkest of 1,201 in CA
Opens July 1. No closing date published.Today
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
Meadow Lake Campground contains 15 rustic campsites with tables, grills and vault toilets. Small trailers and campers can be accommodated. Access to the Fordyce Jeep Trail is nearby. There are an additional 10 campsites at the Meadow Lake Shoreline Campground. This reservoir is a recreational facility maintained and operated by Pacific Gas and Electrical Co. (PG&E)
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…rustic campsites with tables, grills and vault toilets. Small trailers and campers can be accommodated.…”
Source: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, Beach, Meadow
- Fall color · reported 11 days ago, 39 km away
- Patchy color
Source: Stated in the agency description
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (39 km) · Oct 6, 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 17, 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.
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 this campground addsits own record
Extra vehicleSee the note
“$15 per site $3 for extra vehicle $1 for pets” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record
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 · 5
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
What this campground adds: The U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record and notices for this campground, quoted verbatim. An extra-vehicle charge is set locally and appears on no national schedule, so it’s never assumed. · Aug 24, 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
Source: 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
Today64°Sunny
Tonight39°Clear
Sunday60°Sunny
Sunday Night37°Mostly Clear
NWS forecast for Kingvale, CA
Source: National Weather Service, STO forecast office · Oct 17, 2026
Typical weather
Typical July night 50°F, day 77°F.
90°32°20°
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: GLENBROOK, NV (USC00263205), 38 miles away and 940 ft lower
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
Roadless
Roadless
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
Meadow Lake 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 inside the season the agency publishes, and it has posted nothing else. That reading is ours.
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 (39 km) · Oct 6, 2026
Reported by: iNaturalist fall color observations, reported patchy color · Oct 6, 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: Kingvale, CA, 6.4 mi NNW (a census designated place). Straight line.