Payne Springs Campground
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- FreeNo camping fee
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
Located in the scenic Medicine Lake Highlands, Payne Springs is surrounded by many attractions. This campground is adjacent to the Modoc Volcanic Scenic Byway and the Lava Beds National Monument is located near by. It is a great place to visit and learn about the local geology and history. There is no drinking water. There are picnic tables and fire pits at each site with fair road conditions getting to the sites.
Facilities
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…about the local geology and history. There is no drinking water. There are picnic tables and fire pits at each site…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and it costs nothing at all. 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.
Every line of the receipt · 4
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s own record says there’s no camping fee, 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 · 5
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Medicine Lake Recreation AreaModoc National Forest · 2.5 miSchonchin Springs CampgroundModoc National Forest · 3.9 mi
Little Mt. Hoffman LookoutShasta National Forest · 5.4 mi
Group CampsiteLava Beds National Monument · 12 mi
Indian Well CampgroundLava Beds National Monument · 12 miThe weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Tennant, CA
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
Payne Springs Campground is in California’s 1st congressional district. Whoever holds it votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. See how its representative votes on public lands →
Our roster still carries Doug LaMalfa for this district and the current federal record doesn’t list them as sitting, so we’re not naming a representative here until the two agree.