Pass Creek Campground
1Heads up1 fire 35 mi away
- Right now
- Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
- A night
- $24From, per site
- Sites
- 30All of them booked ahead
- Season
- August 1 – October 13Open August 1 through October 13
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Pass Creek Campground is located on scenic Jackson Meadow Reservoir, in the Tahoe National Forest. Its location provides a great base camp for a wide range of recreational activities, including boating, fishing, hiking and hunting. Pass Creek Campground is operated and maintained by the Tahoe National Forest. Keep reading
Recreation
Jackson Meadow Reservoir offers excellent opportunities for boating, canoeing, water skiing, swimming and fishing. Anglers will find rainbow and brown trout. A boat ramp is located at Pass Creek Campground. A designated swim beach is nearby. A portion of the Pacific Crest Trail meanders along the east side of the lake. Hunting and biking are popular activities in the surrounding area.
Facilities
The campground offers several single-family campsites, each equipped with a picnic table and campfire ring. Flushing and Vault toilets and drinking water are provided.
Natural Features
Jackson Meadow Reservoir is situated in a rolling forested valley, where visitors are awarded beautiful views of the Sierra Crest and English Mountain. The campground lies on the northeastern shore in a dense forest of pine and fir trees. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (530) 994-3401.
Nearby Attractions
Grouse Ridge Non-Motorized area, Bowman corridor lakes, camping, and hiking. PCT access on the east side of the lake.
What the agency tells you
One vehicle included with reservation. Additional vehicle fee cost is $5/each per night for all vehicles. All operable, highway legal vehicles must pay extra vehicle fee, excluding the single vehicle included with the reservation. Please pay extra vehicle fee at the self-serve fee tube located near campground entrance if not paid online.
Bears frequent the area; all food must be kept in approved containers.
Utility hookups, showers and telephone service are not available.
Everything else this campground posts · 7
Off-road vehicle use is prohibited within the campground.
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. For current fire conditions or weather closures contact the Sierraville Ranger District (530) 994-3401 (voice), (530) 994-3521 (TDD).
Click here for more information on the Tahoe National Forest.
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.
Please follow directions to the campground as listed; do not rely on your GPS.
Campsite check-out time is 12:00pm. Check-in time is 2:00pm.
6 people and 2 dogs maximum per single site. Dogs shall always be kept on leash no longer than six feet or otherwise confined. Violation notices WILL be issued for non-compliance.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 30
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…table and campfire ring. Flushing and Vault toilets and drinking water are provided. Natural Features…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…ring. Flushing and Vault toilets and drinking water are provided. Natural Features Jackson Meadow…”
- Dump station
- Yes
- recreation.gov lists “Dump Station”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, Creek, Beach, Meadow
- Biking
- Boating
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Non-Motorized Boating
- Swimming
- Water access
- Water Skiing
- Water sports
- Night sky · 590th darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 3
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.
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
“Additional vehicle fee cost is $5/each per night for all vehicles.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $24 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 · 6
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
30 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 29 mapped sitesAll 30 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. 30 of the 30 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 001 | standard nonelectric | 42 ft | 112 ft | 496 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 002 | standard nonelectric | 36 ft | 76 ft | 670 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 003 | standard nonelectric | 33 ft | 76 ft | 603 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 004 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 50 ft | 730 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 005 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | 81 ft | 666 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 006 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 50 ft | 773 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 007 | standard nonelectric | 31 ft | 76 ft | 738 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 008 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 71 ft | 811 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 009 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 53 ft | 825 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 010 | standard nonelectric | 23 ft | 53 ft | 774 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 011 | standard nonelectric | 41 ft | 61 ft | 801 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 012 | standard nonelectric | 37 ft | 78 ft | 736 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 013 | standard nonelectric | 31 ft | 91 ft | 683 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 014 | standard nonelectric | 39 ft | 77 ft | 660 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 015 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 77 ft | 599 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 016 | standard nonelectric | 41 ft | 52 ft | 585 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 017 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | 41 ft | 542 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 018 | standard nonelectric | 23 ft | 41 ft | 502 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 019 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 58 ft | 445 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 020 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | 77 ft | 469 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 021 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 77 ft | 393 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 022 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 81 ft | 457 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 023 | standard nonelectric | 18 ft | 72 ft | 369 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 024 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 74 ft | 377 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 025 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 72 ft | 322 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 026 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 74 ft | 248 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 027 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 63 ft | 340 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 028 | standard nonelectric | 43 ft | 74 ft | 278 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 029 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | 63 ft | 385 ft | $24 |
| AREA PASS CREEK CAMPGROUND | 030 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | $24 |
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 30 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
East Meadow CampgroundTahoe National Forest · 0.2 mi
Little Lasier Meadows CampgroundTahoe National Forest · 1.4 mi
Woodcamp Campground1.5 mi
Fir Top CampgroundTahoe National Forest · 1.5 mi
Findley CampgroundTahoe National Forest · 1.7 miJackson Creek CampgroundTahoe National Forest · 4.8 miTake Interstate 80 to the Truckee/Highway 89 exit. Follow Highway 89 north for 17 miles to the Jackson Meadows turnoff. Travel west on Forest Road 07 for 18 miles to Jackson Meadows Reservoir. Turn at the Pass Creek Campground sign.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Sierra City, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 48°F, day 63°F.
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.
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
Pass Creek 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 →