CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
The map
U.S. Forest Service · Los Padres National Forest · CA

Nacimiento Campground

1Heads up1 fire 23 mi away
Wildfire
Timber fire · 23 mi away · 25,350 acres · 97% contained · updated Oct 10, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 10, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
A night
$30From, per site
Drawn from the record · 1,620 ft · 35% tree cover · Bortle 2 sky
1,620 ftElevation
2.7 miWater · an unnamed pondOcean · 5.3 mi · to the Pacific Ocean
8.3 miW of Fort Hunter Liggett, CA
35%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 359th darkest of 1,201 in CA

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Small campground with 9 campsites located among oak trees. Located near a running creek. Recreational Vehicles no longer than 25 feet. In campgrounds and picnic areas, dogs mst be kept on a leash. Dogs must wear a collar with current tags at all times, as state and county laws apply on National Forest System lands.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Creek
Source: Stated in the agency description

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and a night costs $30 with nothing added. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

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.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe record
A night$30Per site, fromthe agency’s fee record
A weekend$60DerivedFriday and Saturday, everything includedours, from the lines above
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 8

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
A night, from$30
Site per night . 6-8 people per site, pay via fee tube or via host.$30
One car is included with the price of the campsite.
Interagency Senior and Access Pass entitle pass holder to 50% off camping fees only.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What this campground addsits own record
Extra vehicle$10

“Additional vehicles are $10.00 per vehicle per night.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record

What a stay costs
One night, fromDerived$30
A weekend, Friday and Saturday, fromDerived$60

Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($30), and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.

How we know this receipt · 6
Sign price: Derived by CAMPANAC from the U.S. Forest Service fee record: a stated per-night amount only · Sep 7, 2026
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

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate36.00753, -121.40123

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

This Afternoon93°Sunny
Tonight69°Clear
Saturday93°Sunny
Saturday Night65°Clear

NWS forecast for Fort Hunter Liggett, CA

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

Typical weather

Typical October night 56°F, day 74°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical February night 45°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

90°40°

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 Septembers are colder than the September line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.

Measured at: HEARST CASTLE, CA (USC00043882), 26 miles away and 94 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

What threatens this place

developing
Los Padres National Forestlogging, drilling, rollback
Roadless
Chalk Peak7,472 acres · 1 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Bear Canyon14,328 acres · 7 mi · inventoried roadless area

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Sep 30, 2026

Who answers for this land

Jimmy Panetta, official portrait

Nacimiento Campground is in California’s 19th congressional district. Its representative, Jimmy Panetta (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. 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.
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: 0.088 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
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