Panther Flat Campground
3Heads up3 fires, nearest 24 mi
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $15–$30Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 3938 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 4 notices
In the agency’s own words
Panther Flat Campground sits in the vast Six Rivers National Forest in northern California. This shady, secluded campground is just steps from the Smith River, which is famous for its bright blue waters and scenic pathway through the forest. Keep reading
Recreation
Popular activities include swimming, sunbathing, rafting and fishing in the Smith River. Anglers enjoy healthy fishing populations of salmon, steelhead and cutthroat trout. Visitors also enjoy hiking, horseback riding and biking in the area. There are no trailheads in the campground, but Elk Camp Ridge, High Dome and French Hill trailheads are all within 10 miles of the site. A Botanical trail to a unique Darlingtonia bog is just a mile away.
Facilities
The campground offers multiple single-family sites and at least one double site, available for tent and RV camping. It is one of the most modern campgrounds in the area and has some of the largest parking aprons. Some sites are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Campsites are equipped with tables and campfire rings with grills. Accessible flush toilets, coin-operated hot showers and drinking water are provided. The Visitor Center at the Gasquet Ranger Station provides free maps and brochures of the area.
Natural Features
Set in a mature forest of Douglas fir, cedar and Pacific madrone trees, the campground is a short walk from the pristine Smith River. The river boasts up to Class 5 whitewater rapids. The region, thick with vegetation, is also freckled with huckleberry shrubs. The Six Rivers National Forest lies east of Eureka in northwestern California, stretching southward from the Oregon border for about 140 miles. U.S. 101, the famed "Redwood Highway," parallels the inland Forest along the coastline. The Forest is just east of the Redwood National Park.
Nearby Attractions
California's Redwood National Park and the Pacific Ocean are within 20 miles of the campground. Annual events include Gasquet Raft Race in July and Del Norte County Fair in August.
What the agency tells you
Additional fees will be collected at the campground for more than one vehicle. A limit of one extra vehicle is allowed.
There are no electricity, water or sewer hookups at the campground
Click here to learn more about the Six Rivers National Forest
Everything else this campground posts · 1
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 39
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 45 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…campfire rings with grills. Accessible flush toilets, coin-operated hot showers and drinking water are…”
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “Accessible flush toilets, coin-operated hot showers and drinking water are provided.”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…toilets, coin-operated hot showers and drinking water are provided. The Visitor Center at the Gasquet…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Coast
- Fishing
- Swimming
- Night sky · 255th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 2
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:53 UTC
recreation.gov lists 38 of the 39 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
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.
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.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
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 · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $15–$30 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
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 · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 15:53 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
39 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 38 mapped sitesAll 39 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 38 of the 39 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| PANT | 001 | type not stated | 45 ft | 135 ft | ||
| PANT | 002 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 110 ft | 161 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 003 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 110 ft | 185 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 004 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 105 ft | 76 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 005 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 100 ft | 204 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 006 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 105 ft | 105 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 007 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 100 ft | 224 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 008 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 115 ft | 148 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 009 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 112 ft | 270 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 010 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 101 ft | 147 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 011 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 89 ft | 279 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 012 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 101 ft | 155 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 013 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 89 ft | 277 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 014 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 76 ft | 156 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 015 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 93 ft | 270 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 016 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 76 ft | 131 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 017 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 126 ft | 176 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 018 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 103 ft | 361 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 019 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 107 ft | 514 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 020 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 95 ft | 441 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 021 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 78 ft | 537 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 022 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 86 ft | 479 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 023 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 78 ft | 496 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 024 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 86 ft | 417 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 025 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 87 ft | 439 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 026 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 98 ft | 352 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 027 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 87 ft | 409 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 028 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 98 ft | 317 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 029 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 98 ft | 364 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 030 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 111 ft | 280 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 031 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 98 ft | 351 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 032 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 185 ft | 200 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 033 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 152 ft | 214 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 034 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 99 ft | 573 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 035 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 99 ft | 658 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 036 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 103 ft | 618 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 037 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 98 ft | 537 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 038 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 95 ft | 466 ft | $15–$30 |
| PANT | 039 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 95 ft | 389 ft | $15–$30 |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
25 of 39 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Jedediah Smith Campground - Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park8.7 miNorth Fork CampgroundSmith River National Recreation Area · 9.5 mi
Bear Basin Lookout and CabinSmith River National Recreation Area · 10 mi
Big Flat CampgroundSmith River National Recreation Area · 11 miFrom Highway 101 north of Crescent City, California, take highway 199 east for 16 miles to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Gasquet, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 46°F, day 62°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 39°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
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 Augusts are colder than the August 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
Panther Flat Campground is in California’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Jared Huffman (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →